the just-extinguished candle still smokes upon the table, and the
sidelights and footlights, being lowered, wrap the vast chamber in
deeper gloom.

At this moment a small secret door in the wall at the bottom of the
stage slips aside, and Thisbe, still wearing her ball-dress, and with
a head-dress of gold sequins flashing in her black hair, is discovered
crouching in the aperture, holding an antique lamp in one hand, a
little raised, and with the other softly putting aside the door,
while, bending forward with a cat-like stillness, she glares around
the chamber with eager eyes, that flash upon everything at once. The
picture is perfect. The light falls from the raised lamp upon this
jewelled figure crouching in the darkness at the bottom of the stage.
Judith was not more terrible; Lucrezia Borgia not more superb. But,
magnificent as it is, it is a moment of such intense interest that
applause is suspended. The house is breathless, for it is but the
tiger's crouch that precedes the spring. The next instant she is upon
the floor of the chamber, and, still bending slightly forward to
express the eager concentration of her mind, she glances at the bed
and the figure upon it with a scornful sneer, that indicates how
clearly she sees the pretence of sleep, and how evidently somebody has
been there, or something has happened which justifies all her
suspicion, and then, with panther-like celerity, she darts about the
chamber to find some trace of the false lover--a hat, a glove, a
plume, a cloak--to make assurance doubly sure. But there is nothing
upon the floor, nothing upon the table, nothing in the bay-window,
nothing upon the sofa, nor in the huge carved chairs; there is nothing
that proves the treachery she suspects. But her restless eye leads her
springing foot from one corner of the chamber to the other. Speed
increases with the lessening chance of proof; the eye flashes more and