A woman screamed suddenly. People rose to their feet. One of those strange, swaying movements which bespeak a panic ran through the crowd. Matthias on the stage rose instantly, faced about, and walked toward the dark footlights, a genuine horror in his soul this time, for no human voice that he had ever heard had carried such mortal pain as that which had just spoken. The theatre was filled with a babel of voices. Confused shouts and cries came from all sides. "Lights, lights!" "What is it?" "Go on with the performance!" At that instant the lights were turned up. There, in the middle aisle, a few rows from the orchestra rail, a tall, thin man, his haggard face white with emotion, his eyes staring, his teeth clinched 'neath bloodless lips, stood swaying unsteadily to and fro. His hands uplifted as if to ward off a blow, he stood utterly oblivious of everything but Matthias. From the chair beside him a woman with a face scarcely less white, in which were mingled incredulity, surprise, and horror, reached her arms up to him as if to save him. "I can't stand it any longer!" cried the man, staring up at Matthias. "You've done it. I'll confess all! It has torn me to pieces!" he screamed, clutching at his throat. "The Major--I beat him to death with his hammer, like you did, for his money. I took it from his person. I knew it was there. I was his friend, his only friend. My God! There was no place to burn his body. He's always at my feet. He's staring at me now by you on the stage!" Sir Henry shrank away involuntarily as the man went on. "Pity, pity!" he wailed, staggering, stumbling forward, falling upon his knees nearer to Sir Henry. "Mercy!" he whispered at last, yet with such distinctness that they heard him in every corner of the theatre. He knelt with his hands outstretched toward the stage, waiting for reprieve, sentence, condemnation,--God knows what. The audience stared likewise with suspended hearts from the great but mimic figure of murder on one side of the footlights to the greater and real figure of murder upon the other. As they gazed the man wavered forward again, sank lower, his hands fell, but before he collapsed completely, an officer of the law, the first to recover his wits in the presence of the catastrophe, ran down the aisle and pounced upon him. Grasping his shoulder, he cried,-- "You're my prisoner. I arrest you!" "Too late," whispered the man; "I'm--going--going--to plead--in another--court." He pitched forward and fell on his face--dead. And a woman, dry-eyed with horror, old love surviving honor, respect, righteousness, knelt by his side, took his head in her arms, and strove to kiss away from his brow the mark of Cain.