CHAPTER I.

THE theatre was full, — crowded from floor to ceiling; the lights were turned low to give the stage full prominence, — and a large audience packed close in pit and gallery as well as in balcony and stalls, listened with or without interest, whichever way best suited their different temperaments and manner of breeding, to the well-worn famous soliloquy in “Hamlet”— “To be or not to be.” It was the first night of a new rendering of Shakespeare’s ever puzzling play, — the chief actor was a great actor, albeit not admitted as such by the petty cliques, — he had thought out the strange and complex character of the psychological Dane for himself, with the result that even the listless, languid, generally impassive occupants of the stalls, many of whom had no doubt heard a hundred Hamlets, were roused for once out of their chronic state of boredom into something like attention, as the familiar lines fell on their ears with a slow and meditative richness of accent not commonly heard on the modern stage. This new Hamlet chose his attitudes well, — instead of walking or rather strutting about as he uttered the soliloquy, he seated himself and for a moment seemed lost in silent thought; — then, without changing his position he began, his voice gathering deeper earnestness as the beauty and solemnity of the immortal lines became more pronounced and concentrated.

“To die — to sleep; —

To sleep! — perchance to dream; ay, there’s the rub.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil

Must give us pause...”

Here there was a brief and impressive silence. In that short interval, and before the actor could resume his speech, a man entered the theatre with noiseless step and seated himself in a vacant stall of the second row. A few heads were instinctively turned to look at him, but in the semi-gloom of the auditorium, his features could scarcely be discerned, and Hamlet’s sa