“What do you think of it?” said the first.

“What can I?” answered the other.  “And how can I tell you?  It is altogether above words.”

He was right.  It was not so much admiration as awe and worship that held the house that night.  I have heard a man say since that he wonders how the play could ever have raised anything beyond a laugh.  He should have heard the sobs that every now and then would break uncontrollably forth, even whilst Claire was speaking.  He should have felt the hush that followed every scene before the audience could recollect itself and pay its thunderous tribute.

Still she never looked towards me, though all the while my eyes were following my lost love.  Her purpose—­and somehow in my heart I grew more and more convinced that some purpose lay beneath this transcendent display—­was waiting for its accomplishment, and in the ringing triumph of her voice I felt it coming nearer—­nearer—­until at last it came.

The tragedy was nearly over.  Francesca had dismissed her old lover and his new bride from their captivity and was now left alone upon the stage.  The last expectant hush had fallen upon the house.  Then she stepped slowly forward in the dead silence, and as she spoke the opening lines, for the first time our eyes met.

    “Here then all ends:—­all love, all hate, all vows,
     All vain reproaches.  Aye, ’tis better so. 
     So shall he best forgive and I forget,
     Who else had chained him to a life-long curse,
     Who else had sought forgiveness, given in vain
     While life remained that made forgiveness dear. 
     Far better to release him—­loving more
     Now love denies its love and he is free,
     Than should it by enjoyment wreck his joy. 
     Blighting his life for whom alone I lived.

    “No, no.  As God is just, it could not be. 
     Yet, oh, my love, be happy in the days
     I may not share, with her whose present lips
     Usurp the rights of my lost sovranty. 
     I would not have thee think—­save now and then
     As in a dream that is not all a dream—­
     On her whose love was sunshine for an hour,
     Then died or e’er its beams could blast thy life. 
     Be happy and forget what might have been,
     Forget my dear embraces in her arms,
     My lips in hers, my children in her sons,
     While I—­
                Dear love, it is not hard to die
     Now once the path is plain.  See, I accept
     And step as gladly to the sacrifice
     As any maid upon her bridal morn—­
     One little stroke—­one tiny touch of pain
     And I am quit of pain for evermore. 
     It needs no bravery.  Wert thou here to see,
     I would not have thee weep, but look—­one stroke,
     And thus—­”

What was that shriek far back there in the house?  What was that at sight of which the audience rose white and aghast from their seats?  What was it that made Sebastian as he entered rush suddenly forward and fall with awful cry before Francesca’s body?  What was that trickling down the folds of her white dress?  Blood?