There was a young couple just facing her with a little child, a dainty baby-thing in cap and plume.  Neither of them listened to Lizzy:  the mother was tying the little fellow’s shoe as he hoisted it on the seat, and the father was looking at her.  “I missed my chance,” said Lizzy Gurney, in her heart.  “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight!” A tawdry actress.  She might have stayed at home yonder, quiet and useless:  that might have been.  Then she thought of Grey, well beloved,—­of the other house, full of hungry mouths she was feeding.  Looking more sharply at Doctor Blecker while she sang, she saw Grey beside him, drawn back behind a pillar.  Presently she saw her take the glass from her husband and lean forward.  There was a red heat under her eyes:  she had been crying.  They applauded Lizzy just then, and Grey looked around frightened, and then laughed nervously.

“How beautiful she is!  Do you see?  Oh, Paul!  Mrs. Sheppard, do you see?”—­tearing her fan, and drawing heavy breaths, moving on her seat constantly.

“She never loved me heartily before,” thought Lizzy, as she sang.  “I never deserved it.  I was a heartless dog.  I”—­

People applauded again, the old grandfather this time nodding to the girls.  There was something so cheery and healthy and triumphant in the low tones.  Even the young mother looked up suddenly from her boy, listening, and glanced at her husband.  It was like a Christmas-song.

“She never loved me before.  I deserve it.”

That was what she said in it.  But they did not know.

Doctor Blecker looked at her, unsmiling, critical.  She could see, too, a strange face beside him,—­a motherly, but a keen, harsh-judging face.

“Grey,” said Mrs. Sheppard, “I wish we could go behind the scenes.  Can we?  I want to talk to Lizzy this minute.”

“To tell her she is at the Devil’s work, Mrs. Sheppard, eh?”

Doctor Blecker pulled at his beard, angrily.

“Suppose you and I let her alone.  We don’t understand her.”

“I think I do.  God help her!”

“We will go round when the song is over,” said Grey, gently.

Lizzy, scanning their faces, scanning every face in pit or boxes, discerned a good will and wish on each.  Something wholesome and sound in her heart received it, half afraid.

“I don’t know,” she thought.

One of the windows was open, and out beyond the gas-light and smells of the theatre she could see a glimpse of far space, with the eternal stars shining.  There had been once a man who loved her:  he, looking down, could see her now.  If she had stayed at home, selfish and useless, there might have been a chance for her yonder.

Her song was ended; as she drew back, she glanced up again through the fresh air.

They were curious words the soul of the girl cried out to God in that dumb moment:—­“Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”  Yet in that moment a new feeling came to the girl,—­a peace that never left her afterwards.