The first button was connected with wires that ran through the flooring and communicated to every being in the Hall excepting to Hilda, on the insulated dais, a shock of magnetic electricity, the effect of which was to throw them into instantaneous motionless rigidity. No limb or muscle could be moved; as the shock found them they remained. And the pressure of the second button left no doubt of the fact, for it turned on the electric current to all the lamps inside and outside of the Hall, until the chamber became a blaze of dazzling light. There was no longer disguise of face or person, and every visage was at its worst. Fear, terror, cruelty, or revenge was the mastering expression on nearly every countenance. Some faces showed that the owners had been entrapped and betrayed into a situation they had not sought. But these were few, and could be easily read. On the majority of the countenances there was branded a mixture of greed, thwarted ambition, personal malignity, and cruelty horrible to observe. The pose of the persons lent a ludicrous aspect to the scene. Lord Reginald, for instance, had one foot in front of the other in the progress he was making towards Hilda. His body was bent forward. His face wore an expression of triumphant revenge and brutal love terrible to look at. Evidently he had thought there "was joy at last for my love and my revenge." Hilda shuddered as she glanced down upon the sardonic faces beneath her, and touched a third button. An answering clarionet at once struck out the signal to advance, and the measured tread of troops in all directions was heard. The poor wretches in the Hall preserved consciousness of what was passing around, though they could not exercise their muscular powers and felt no bodily pain. An officer at the door close to the dais saluted Miss Fitzherbert. "Be careful," she said, "to put your foot at once on the dais and come up to me." He approached her. "Have you your orders?" she asked.
"My orders," he said, "are to come from you. We have photographers at hand."
"Have a photograph," she instructed him, "taken of the whole scene, then of separate groups, and lastly of each individual. Have it done quickly," she added, "for the poor wretches suffer mental, if not physical, pain. Then every one may go free excepting the occupants of the three top rows. The police should see that these do not leave Melbourne."
She bowed to the officer, and sprang down the steps and out of the Hall. At the outer door a tall form met her. She did not require to look—she was blinded by the light within—to be convinced that it was Colonel Laurient who received her and placed her in a carriage. She was overcome. The terrible scene she had passed through had been too much for her. She did not faint; she appeared to be in a state of numbed inertness, as if she had lost all mental and physical power. Colonel Laurient almost carried her into the house, and, with a face of deathly pallor, consigned her to the care of her sister. Maud had been partly prepared to expect that Hilda would be strongly agitated by some painful scene, and she was less struck by her momentary helplessness than by the agonised agitation of that usually self-commanding being Colonel Laurient. Probably no one had ever seen him like this before. It may be that he felt concern not only for Hilda herself, but for the part he had played in placing her in so agitating a position.
VII.
HEROINE WORSHIP.