Thus it came about, that first night--the stage brilliant, the house a dense mass of mad enthusiasts, jewelled heads nodding from boxes to parquet in recognition of friends, opera glasses insolently staring, voices humming in ceaseless conversation, and, over all, the frantic efforts of the orchestra to attract attention to itself amid the glitter and display.
Utterly indifferent to all of it, Ned Winston leaned his elbow on the brass rail of the first box, and gazed idly about over that sea of unknown faces.

He would have much preferred not being there.

To him, the theatre served merely as a stimulant to unpleasant memory.

It was in this atmosphere that the ghost walked, and those hidden things of life came back to mock him.

He might forget, sometimes, bending above his desk, or struggling against the perplexing problems of his profession in the field, but not here; not in the glare of the footlights, amid the hum of the crowd.