The third act, however, decided the fate of the play; the interest of the audience became so intense, that, at one particular stage of the action, numbers in the second and third rows of the side boxes stood up, and the clapping of hands was universal, intermingled with cries of "bravo!" from every part of the theatre. "'Twill do," was now the remark, and Theodore breathed a little more freely than he had done some ten minutes ago. Not to be tedious, the curtain fell amidst shouts of approbation, unmingled with the slightest demonstration of displeasure, and the author had not twenty friends in the house. If Theodore did not sleep that night, it was not from inquietude of mind--contentment was his repose. His most sanguine hopes had been surpassed; the fiat of a London audience had stamped him a dramatist; the way to fortune was open and clear, and Rosalie would be his. Next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, Theodore and his friend repaired to the coffee-room. "We must see what the critics say," remarked the latter. Theodore, with prideful confidence,--the offspring of fair success,--took up the first morning print that came to his hand. _Theatre Royal_ met his eye. "Happy is the successful dramatist!" exclaimed Theodore to himself; "at night he is greeted by the applause of admiring thousands, and in the morning they are repeated, and echoed all over the kingdom through the medium of the press! What will Rosalie say when her eye falls upon this!"--And what, indeed, would Rosalie say when she read the utter damnation of her lover's drama, which the critic denounced from the beginning to the end, without presenting his readers with a single quotation to justify the severity of his strictures! "'Tis very odd!" said Theodore. "'Tis very odd, indeed!" rejoined his friend, repeating his words. "You told me this play was your own, and here I find that you have copied it from half a dozen others that have been founded upon the same story." "Where?" inquired Theodore, reaching for the paper. "There!" said his friend, pointing to the paragraph. "And is this London," exclaimed Theodore. "I never read a play, nor the line of a play upon the same subject. Why does not the writer prove the plagiarism?" "Because he does not know whether it is or is not a plagiarism," rejoined the other. "He is aware that several other authors have constructed dramas upon the same passage in history; and--to draw the most charitable inference, for you would not suspect him of telling a deliberate lie--he thinks you have seen them, and have availed yourself of them." "Is it not the next thing to a falsehood," indignantly exclaimed Theodore, "to advance a charge, of the justness of which you have not assured yourself?" "I know not that," rejoined his friend; "but it certainly indicates a rather superficial reverence for truth; and a disposition to censure, which excludes from all claim to ingenuousness the individual who indulges it."