In due time Margaret reappeared in her man's dress, but almost

completely wrapped in the traditional riding mantle. Rigoletto is off

when Gilda comes on alone at this point, outside the inn, and the stage

gradually darkens while the storm rises. When the trio is over and

Gilda enters the ruined inn, the darkness is such, even behind the

scenes, that one may easily lose one s way and it is hard to recognise

any one.

Margaret disappeared, and hurried off, expecting to meet her maid with

the sack ready for the final scene. To her surprise a man was standing

waiting for her. She could not see his face at all, but she knew it was

Lushington who whispered in her ear as he wrapped her in the big cloak

he carried. He spoke fast and decidedly.

'That is why the door at the end of the corridor is open to-night,' he

concluded. 'I give you my word that it s true. Now come with me.' Margaret had told Lushington not very long ago that he always acted

like a gentleman and sometimes like a hero, and she had meant it. After

all, the opera was over now, and it was only a rehearsal. If there was

no sack scene, no one would be surprised, and there was no time to

hesitate not an instant.

She slipped her arm through Lushington's, and drawing the hood almost

over her eyes with her free hand and the cloak completely round her,

she went where he led her. Certainly in all the history of the opera no

prima donna ever left the stage and the theatre in such a hurry after

her first appearance.

One minute had hardly elapsed in all after she had disappeared into the

ruined inn, before she found herself driving at a smart pace in a

closed carriage, with Lushington sitting bolt upright beside her like a

policeman in charge of his prisoner. It was not yet quite dark when the

brougham stopped at the door of Margaret's hotel, and the porter who

opened the carriage looked curiously at her riding boot and spurred

heel as she got out under the covered way. She and Lushington had not

exchanged a word during the short drive.

He went up in the lift with her and saw her to the door of her

apartment. Then he stood still, with his hat off, holding out his hand

to say good-bye.

'No,' said Margaret, 'come in. I don't care what the people think!' He followed her into her sitting-room, and she shut the door, and

turned up the electric light. When he saw her standing in the full

glare of the lamps, she had thrown back her hood; she wore a wig with

short tangled hair as part of her man's disguise, and her face was

heavily powdered over the paint in order to produce the ghastly pallor

which indicates a broken heart on the stage. The heavily-blackened

lashes made her eyes seem very dark, while her lips were still a deep

crimson. She held her head high, and a little thrown back, and there

was something wild and almost fantastic about her looks as she stood

there, that made Lushington think of one of Hoffmann's tales. She held

out her whitened hand to him; and when he took it he felt the chalk on

it, and it was no longer to him the hand of Margaret Donne, but the

hand of the Cordova, the great soprano.




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