The curtains parted, and the fiddlers strove for warlike music.  Tamerlane, surrounded by the Tartar host, received his prisoners, and the defiant rant of Bajazet shook the rafters.  All the sound and fury of the stage could not drown the noise of the audience.  Idle talk and laughter, loud comment upon the players, went on,—­went on until there entered Darden’s Audrey, dressed in red silk, with a jeweled circlet like a line of flame about her dark flowing hair.  The noise sank, voices of men and women died away; for a moment the rustle of silk, the flutter of fans, continued, then this also ceased.

She stood before the Sultan, wide-eyed, with a smile of scorn upon her lips; then spoke in a voice, low, grave, monotonous, charged like a passing bell with warning and with solemn woe.  The house seemed to grow more still; the playgoers, box and pit and gallery, leaned slightly forward:  whether she spoke or moved or stood in silence, Darden’s Audrey, that had been a thing of naught, now held every eye, was regnant for an hour in this epitome of the world.  The scene went on, and now it was to Moneses that she spoke.  All the bliss and anguish of unhappy love sounded in her voice, dwelt in her eye and most exquisite smile, hung upon her every gesture.  The curtains closed; from the throng that had watched her came a sound like a sigh, after which, slowly, tongues were loosened.  An interval of impatient waiting, then the music again and the parting curtains, and Darden’s Audrey,—­the girl who could so paint very love, very sorrow, very death; the girl who had come strangely and by a devious path from the height and loneliness of the mountains to the level of this stage and the watching throng.

At the close of the fourth act of the play, Haward left his station in the pit, and quietly made his way to the regions behind the curtain, where in the very circumscribed space that served as greenroom to the Williamsburgh theatre he found Tamerlane, Bajazet, and their satellites, together with a number of gentlemen invaders from the front of the house.  Mistress Stagg was there, and Selima, perched upon a table, was laughing with the aforesaid gentlemen, but no Arpasia.  Haward drew the elder woman aside.  “I wish to see her,” he said, in a low voice, kindly but imperious.  “A moment only, good woman.”

With her finger at her lips Mistress Stagg glanced about her.  “She hides from them always, she’s that strange a child:  though indeed, sir, as sweet a young lady as a prince might wed!  This way, sir,—­it’s dark; make no noise.”

She led him through a dim passageway, and softly opened a door.  “There, sir, for just five minutes!  I’ll call her in time.”

The door gave upon the garden, and Audrey sat upon the step in the moonshine and the stillness.  Her hand propped her chin, and her eyes were raised to the few silver stars.  That mock crown which she wore sparkled palely, and the light lay in the folds of her silken dress.  At the opening of the door she did not turn, thinking that Mistress Stagg stood behind her.  “How bright the moon shines!” she said.  “A mockingbird should be singing, singing!  Is it time for Arpasia?”