ich he discreetly withdrew. The waiting scoundrel sat and
complacently pinched the ends of his small dark mustache. It could be
seen that he was one of those who believe that money will buy anything.

The fair girl entered and was leeringly entreated to go out to dinner
with him. It appeared that she never went out to dinner with any one,
but spent her evenings with her mother who was very, very ill. Her
unworthy admirer persisted. Then the telephone on the manager's desk
called her. Her mother was getting worse. The beautiful face was now
suffused with agony, but this did not deter the man from his loathsome
advances. There was another telephone call. She must come at once if she
were to see her mother alive. The man seized her. They struggled. All
seemed lost, even the choice gown she still wore; but she broke away to
be told over the telephone that her mother had died. Even this sad news
made no impression upon the wretch. He seemed to be a man of one idea.
Again he seized her, and the maddened girl stabbed him with a pair
of long gleaming shears that had lain on the manager's desk. He fell
lifeless at her feet, while the girl stared in horror at the weapon she
still grasped.

Merton Gill would not have lingered for this. There were tedious waits,
and scenes must be rehearsed again and again. Even the agony of the girl
as she learned of her mother's passing must be done over and over at
the insistence of a director who seemed to know what a young girl should
feel at these moments. But Merton had watched from his place back of the
lights with fresh interest from the moment it was known that the girl's
poor old mother was an invalid, for he had at first believed that the
mother's bedroom would be near by. He left promptly when it became
apparent that the mother's bedroom would not be seen in this drama. They
would probably show the doctor at the other telephone urging the girl
to hurry home, and show him again announcing that all was over, but the
expense of mother and her deathbed had been saved. He cared little for
the ending of this play. Already he was becoming a little callous to the
plight of beautiful young girls threatened with the loss of that which
they held most dear.

Purposely all day he had avoided the neighbourhood of his humble miner's
home. He thought it as well that he should not be seen much around
there. He ate again at four o'clock, heartily and rather expensively,
and loafed about the stages unt