Eldon noted that Batterson had led him, not to the hospital, but to the theater, with its electric signs, its circus lithographs, its gaudy ballyhoo of advertisement.
Batterson groaned: “Well, here’s the shop. We’ve got to do what Tuell did. The theater’s got to keep open. It’s another sell-out to-night. Somebody has to play Tuell’s part to-night. I want you to.”
In spite of the horror that filled his heart Eldon felt a shaft of hope like a thrust of lightning in the night. Then the dark closed in again, for Batterson went on:
“It’s only for to-night, old boy. I’ve wired to New York and a good man’ll be here to-morrow. But there’s to-night. You’ve got to go on. You fell down the other time, and I guess I told you so, but you didn’t have a rehearsal. I can coach you up to-day. I’ve called the other people. They ought to be here now.”
And so they were.
On the gloomy stage before the empty house the company stood about in somber garb, under the oppression of Tuell’s death. Batterson walked down to the footlights, clapped his hands, and said:
“Places, please, ladies and gentlemen, for poor old Tuell’s first scene. Mr. Eldon will play the part to-night.”
Those who were not on at the entrance drew to the sides. The others moved here and there and stood at their posts. Batterson directed with an unwonted calm, with a dismal patience.
The part Eldon held in his hand had been taken from Tuell’s trunk. The dead hands seemed to cling to it with grisly jealousy. The laughter of Tuell seemed to haunt the place like the echo of a maniac’s voice. Eldon could not give any color to the lines. He could barely utter them. The company gave him his cues with equal lifelessness.
Sheila was present and read her flippancies in a voice of terror—the terror of youth before the swoop of death. Mrs. Vining muttered her cynicisms with the drear bitterness of one to whom this familiar sort of thing had happened once more.