Of course there were the usual number of dead pauses in the drama, technically known as “stage-waits,” the solemn silences in which the actors stood still and looked imploringly at one another, while the voices of amateur prompters--always inciting their victims to the utterance of long speeches--were painfully audible throughout the assemblage. Mr. Tredethlyn rolled out his blank verse with a sturdy courage that was worthy of all praise; and if his hands were a little red, and his blue-cotton blouse slightly suggestive of Newgate Market, he had acted with his brother soldiers in very rough amateur performances out in Van Diemen’s Land, and now and then some touch of natural fire, some little bit of tender pathos, startled the well-bred audience into applause. It may be that now and then Francis Tredethlyn found himself carried away by the spirit of the scene. Did not that romantic drama bear some likeness to his own story? This beautiful _Pauline_, this unapproachable being whose lovely image filled the peasant’s dreams, who was she but Maude Hillary herself? Perhaps if Miss Desmond had been the _Pauline_, Francis might have seemed as cold and tame as the rest of the Twickenham amateurs: but the eyes that looked at him tenderly or reproachfully to-night, were the only eyes in all the world that had the power to move him deeply. He acted well, therefore, as the dullest man will act sometimes under the influence of some factitious excitement: and when the curtain fell upon the final scene of happy and triumphant love, the audience were loud in their praise of “that handsome-looking Mr. Tredethlyn, who was just the very man for _Claude Melnotte_.” Then there was a final parting of the curtains and a shower of bouquets, all in the orthodox style, and Maude felt perfumed petals fluttering about her as she curtseyed to her indulgent audience.