I felt his love reaching out to me and warming my chilled heart like a ray of sunshine that finds its way through shadows.
I must not fail.

For his sake, I must not fail.

I never had failed, and I would not now--above all, not now.
It was the thought of Raoul that gave me back my courage; and though I couldn't have said one word of my part before I came on the stage to answer that first cue, by the time the applause had died down enough to let me speak, each line seemed to spring into my mind as it was needed.
Then I got out of myself and into the part, as I always do, but had feared not to do to-night.

The audience was mine, to play with as I liked, to make laugh, to make cry, and clap its hands or shout "Brava-brava!" Yet for once I feared it, feared that great crowd of people out there, as a lion tamer must at some time or other fear one of his lions.

"What if they know all I've done ?" The question flashed across my brain.