The Damnation of Theron Ware

I

No such throng had ever before been seen in the building during all its eight years of existence. People were wedged together most uncomfortably upon the seats; they stood packed in the aisles and overflowed the galleries; at the back, in the shadows underneath these galleries, they formed broad, dense masses about the doors, through which it would be hopeless to attempt a passage.

The light, given out from numerous tin-lined circles of flaring gas-jets arranged on the ceiling, fell full upon a thousand uplifted faces⁠—some framed in bonnets or juvenile curls, others bearded or crowned with shining baldness⁠—but all alike under the spell of a dominant emotion which held features in abstracted suspense and focused every eye upon a common objective point.

The excitement of expectancy reigned upon each row of countenances, was visible in every attitude⁠—nay, seemed a part of the close, overheated atmosphere itself.