There was no answer from the son, who tightened his clutch upon the old man’s knee, and watched breathlessly what was passing on the stage.

The scene was shifted, and now the whole facade of the college rose before him, with a pretty picture in the foreground; a tall handsome student, leaning against the trunk of an ancient elm, and talking to the girl who sat on the turf, with a basket of freshly-ironed shirts resting on the grass beside her.  The identical straw hat, which Cuthbert had left behind him when summoned home, was upon the student’s head, and as the timid shrinking girl glanced up shyly at her companion, Cuthbert Laurance almost hissed in his father’s ear:  “Great God!  It is Minnie herself!”

General Laurance loosened the curtain next the audience, and as the folds swept down, concealing somewhat the figure of his son, he whispered: 

“What do you mean?  Are you drunk, or mad?”

Cuthbert grasped his father’s hand, and murmured: 

“Don’t you know the college?  That is Minnie yonder!”

“Minnie?  My son, what ails you?  Go home, you are ill.”

“I tell you, that is Minnie Merle, so surely as there is a God above us.  Mrs. Orme—­is Minnie—­my Minnie!  My wife!  She has dramatized her own life!”

“Impossible, Cuthbert!  You are delirious—­insane.  You are——­”

“That woman yonder is my wife!  Now I understand why such strange sweet memories thrilled me when I saw her first in ‘Amy Robsart.’  The golden hair disguised her.  Oh, father!”

The blank dismay in General Laurance’s countenance was succeeded by an expression of dread, and as he looked from his son’s blanched convulsed face to that of the actress under the arching elms of the campus, the horrible truth flashed upon him like a lurid glimpse of Hades.  He struck his hand against his forehead, and his grizzled head sank on his bosom.  All that had formerly perplexed him was hideously apparent, startlingly clear; and he saw the abyss to which she had lured him, and understood the motives that had prompted her.

After some moments he pushed his seat back beyond the range of observation from the audience, and beckoned his son to follow his example, but Cuthbert stood leaning upon the back of his chair, with eyes riveted on the play.

The courtship, the clandestine meetings, the interview in which Peleg intruded upon the lovers, the revelation to the grandmother, were accurately delineated, and in each scene the girl grew taller, by some arrangement of the skirts, which were at first very short, while she appeared in a sitting posture.

When the secret marriage was decided upon, and the party left the cottage by night, Cuthbert turned, rested one hand on his father’s shoulder, and as the scene changed to the quiet parsonage, he pressed heavily, and muttered: 

“Even the very dress that she wore that day!  And—­there is the black agate!  On her hand—­where I put it!  Don’t you know it?  How she turns it!”