Stuart hurried on to one of the more dignified and serious theatres just off Broadway. He bought a ticket and entered, wondering if he would find the house empty. To his surprise it was full--orchestra, balcony, and gallery. The play was a serious effort by a brilliant young dramatist of the modern school of realism. In two minutes from the rising of the curtain the play had gripped him with relentless power. Slowly, remorseless as fate, he saw the purpose of the author unfold itself in a series of tense and terrible scenes. The comedy over which the crowd laughed with such contagious merriment was even more sinister than the serious parts. No matter what the situation--whether set to laughter, to terror, or to tears--beneath it all throbbed one insistant question: "Has the woman who sells herself for money a soul?" With breathless interest he watched the cruel carving of her body into tiny pieces. Without sniffling, whining, or apology, with arms bared and gleaming scalpel firmly gripped in a hand that never quivered once, the author dissected her. Always he could hear this white invisible figure bending over each scene talking to the audience in his quiet terrible way: "Well, if be she has a soul, we shall find it. Perhaps it's here!" The knife flashed and the crowd laughed. The result was so unexpected, yet so remarkable they had to laugh. "We'll try again!" the white figure said with a smile, "Perhaps we should go deeper." And then with firm strong hand the last secret of muscle and nerve and bone was laid bare and the white face looked into the eyes of the audience through a mist of tears. "I'm sorry, my friends. But we must face the truth. It's better to know the truth, however bitter, than to believe a lie. I do not dogmatize. I do not draw conclusions. I merely show you the thing that is." With a soft rush the big curtain came down in a silence that could be felt. The dazed crowd waked from the spell and poured into the aisles, while Stuart still sat gripping the arms of his seat with strangling emotion. At last he said to himself with choking emphasis: "He was cruel, inhuman, unjust--I refuse to believe it--she has a soul---- She has a soul!" And yet a question had been raised in his mind that was destined to change the whole motive and purpose of his life. CHAPTER XI ILLUMINATION