"I!" faltered O'Flannigan, paralyzed with surprise, and well-nigh strangled by the stranger, who had seized him by his ruffled shirt-front. "Yes, you! While you are promenading here with hussies, whom I should blush to touch with the tip of my finger, you leave your lawful wife to the care of the parish!" "Madam, there is some mistake! Permit me to say to you, with all the respect due to your misfortune, that you hold me too tight! You will tear my ruffles, which belong to the property-room of Drury Lane. I repeat, there is some mistake!" And taking off the ass's head, O'Flannigan revealed his honest face convulsed with perplexity. The spectators crowded anxiously about them. "No, there is no mistake! You are, indeed, my husband, Pat O'Flannigan, music teacher and prompter to Drury Lane Theatre." "Certainly, I am O'Flannigan, music teacher and prompter at Drury Lane, but as to being your husband, may Heaven confound me if I ever set eyes on you before!" "You have never set eyes on me? You have never set eyes on Molly MacMurragh, to whom you were married by the priest at Bray, in Ireland? You have never set eyes on the mother of your six children?" Mrs. Marsham loosened her hold upon the unhappy O'Flannigan's arm. "Can this be true?" she cried. "Can this woman really be Mrs. O'Flannigan?" "My dear madam, I protest! There is no Mrs. O'Flannigan! This woman is either a fool or a jade; she has been hired by my enemies!" "A fool! a jade! If there is any jade here it is this bold hussy who has helped herself to other people's belongings, and seduced a married man from his duty!" "Mercy!" gasped Mrs. Marsham in horror. "I do not know," cried the woman, "what prevents me from tearing off her mask, and leaving the marks of my nails upon her as the headsman brands forgers!" She advanced menacingly, and shook her clinched fist in Mrs. Marsham's face, who feebly cried, "Help! help!" A circle had been formed; those who could not see elbowed their neighbors, or mounted upon chairs, while such exclamations were heard as-- "Two women! They're going to fight! Bravo! Let 'em go!" Some one cried out. "I'll wager five to one on the lawful dame!" To which came the reply, "I'll take you!" Others made sport of O'Flannigan's piteous face. Mrs. Marsham had let go of Esther's hand, who found herself in the background, and quite unnoticed. Presently a voice close behind her pronounced these words very distinctly,-- "_The moon is risen!_" She trembled in every nerve; her heart beat violently. Her whole future life depended upon the step she was about to take. In that supreme moment the pantomime which she had just surprised above stairs shot with the rapidity of lightning through her mind; again she saw Francis Monday pressing the hand of the unknown domino and supplicating her with his eyes. "Enough!" thought she. She closed her eyes as does one who is about to leap into an abyss.