He passed and repassed the Music Hall, saw Verena immensely advertised,
gazed down the vista, the approach for pedestrians, which leads out of
School Street, and thought it looked expectant and ominous. People had
not begun to enter yet, but the place was ready, lighted and open, and
the interval would be only too short. So it appeared to Ransom, while at
the same time he wished immensely the crisis were over. Everything that
surrounded him referred itself to the idea with which his mind was
palpitating, the question whether he might not still intervene as
against the girl's jump into the abyss. He believed that all Boston was
going to hear her, or that at least every one was whom he saw in the
streets; and there was a kind of incentive and inspiration in this
thought. The vision of wresting her from the mighty multitude set him
off again, to stride through the population that would fight for her. It
was not too late, for he felt strong; it would not be too late even if
she should already stand there before thousands of converging eyes. He
had had his ticket since the morning, and now the time was going on. He
went back to his hotel at last for ten minutes, and refreshed himself by
dressing a little and by drinking a glass of wine. Then he took his way
once more to the Music Hall, and saw that people were beginning to go
in--the first drops of the great stream, among whom there were many
women. Since seven o'clock the minutes had moved fast--before that they
had dragged--and now there was only half an hour.
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