THE DAMNATION OF THERON WARE


by Harold Frederic




PART I



CHAPTER I


No such throng had ever before been seen in the building during all its
eight years of existence. People were wedged together most uncomfortably
upon the seats; they stood packed in the aisles and overflowed the
galleries; at the back, in the shadows underneath these galleries, they
formed broad, dense masses about the doors, through which it would be
hopeless to attempt a passage.

The light, given out from numerous tin-lined circles of flaring gas-jets
arranged on the ceiling, fell full upon a thousand uplifted faces--some
framed in bonnets or juvenile curls, others bearded or crowned with
shining baldness--but all alike under the spell of a dominant emotion
which held features in abstracted suspense and focussed every eye upon a
common objective point.

The excitement of expectancy reigned upon each row of countenances, was