"Good," he said, as he watched the colour come back to her cheeks. "Now listen. You go to your room and ring for your maid. I received a telegram, as you know, during dinner. It contains news of the serious illness of a near relation at Paris. Your maid has twenty minutes to pack your dressing case for one night, and you have the same time to change into a travelling dress. In twenty minutes we meet in the hall, remember. I will tell you our plans on the way to the station." "But you," she exclaimed, "you are not coming. There is the election----" He laughed derisively. "Election be hanged!" he exclaimed. "Don't be childish, Annabel. We are off for a second honeymoon. Just one thing more. We may be stopped. Don't look so frightened. You called yourself a murderess. You are nothing of the sort. What you did is called manslaughter, and at the worst there is only a very slight penalty, nothing to be frightened about in the least. Remember that." She kissed him passionately, and ran lightly upstairs. In the hall below she could hear his firm voice giving quick commands to the servants. _Chapter XXVIII_ THE HISSING OF "ALCIDE" There was a strange and ominous murmur of voices, a shuffling of feet in the gallery, a silence, which was like the silence before a storm. Anna, who had sung the first verse of her song, looked around the house, a little surprised at the absence of the applause which had never yet failed her. She realized in a moment what had happened. Even though the individual faces of her audience were not to be singled out, she had been conscious from the first moment of her appearance that something was wrong. She hesitated, and for a moment thought of omitting her second verse altogether. The manager, however, who stood in the wings, nodded to her to proceed, and the orchestra commenced the first few bars of the music. Then the storm broke. A long shrill cat-call in the gallery seemed to be the signal. Then a roar of hisses. They came from every part, from the pit, the circle and the gallery, even from the stalls. And there arose too, a background of shouts. "Who killed her husband?" "Go and nurse him, missus!" "Murderess!" Anna looked from left to right. She was as pale as death, but she seemed to have lost the power of movement. They shouted to her from the wings to come off. She could not stir hand or foot. A paralyzing horror was upon her. Her eardrums were burning with the echoes of those hideous shouts. A crumpled-up newspaper thrown from the gallery hit her upon the cheek. The stage manager came out from the wings, and taking her hand led her off. There was more shouting.