they
were not, suddenly comprehended among them another soul who understood
her own. She met the eyes of the man, and a wonderful comfort, as of a
cool breeze blowing over the face of clear water, came to her. She knew
that the man understood. She knew that she had his fullest sympathy. She
saw also a comrade in the toils of comic tragedy, for Sydney Lord was in
the same case. He was a mountain of flesh. As a matter of fact, had
he not been known in Greenhill and respected as a man of weight of
character as well as of body, and of an old family, he would have
rivaled Margaret. Beside him sat an elderly woman, sweet-faced, slightly
bent as to her slender shoulders, as if with a chronic attitude of
submission. She was Sydney's widowed sister, Ellen Waters. She lived
with her brother and kept his house, and had no will other than his.

Sydney Lord and his sister remained when the rest of the audience had
drifted out, after the privileged hand-shakes with the queen of
the show. Every time a coarse, rustic hand reached familiarly after
Margaret's, Sydney shrank.

He motioned his sister to remain seated when he approached the stage.
Jack Desmond, who had been exploiting Margaret, gazed at him with
admiring curiosity. Sydney waved him away with a commanding gesture. "I
wish to speak to her a moment. Pray leave the tent," he said, and Jack
obeyed. People always obeyed Sydney Lord.

Sydney stood before Margaret, and he saw the clear crystal, which was
herself, within all the flesh, clad in tawdry raiment, and she knew that
he saw it.

"Good God!" said Sydney, "you are a lady!"

He continued to gaze at her, and his eyes, large and brown, became
blurred; at the same time his mouth tightened.

"How came you to be in such a place as this?" demanded Sydney. He spoke
almost as if he were angry with her.

Margaret explained briefly.

"It is an outrage," declared Sydney. He said it, however, rather
absently. He was reflecting. "Where do you live?" he asked.

"Here."

"You mean--?"

"They make up a bed for me here, after the people have gone."

"And I suppose you had--before this--a comfortable house."

"The house which my grandfather Lee owned, the old Lee mansion-house,
before we went to the city. It was a very fine old Colonial house,"
explained Margaret, in her finely modulated voice.

"And you had a good room?"

"The southeast chamber had always been mine. It was very large, and the
furniture was old Spanish mah