. Perhaps you don't recognize him under
that name. On the bills he's Professor Haughwout. Stage people have
so many names, you know."

"Yes, so have--some other people."

I laughed, and he grinned back at me.

"Now that's mean of you," I said; "I never had but one. It was all I
needed."

It flashed through me then what a thing like this might do to a name.
You know, Mag, every bit of recognition an actress steals from the
world is so much capital. It isn't like the old graft when you had to
begin new every time you took up a piece of work. And your name--the
name the world knows--and its knowing it makes it worth having like
everything--that name is the sum of every scheme you've planned, of
every time you've got away with the goods, of every laugh you've
lifted, of every bit of cleverness you've thought out and embodied, of
everything that's in you, of everything you are.

But I didn't dare think long of this. I turned to him.

"Tell me about this charge," I said. "Where was the purse? Whose was
it? And why haven't they missed it till after a week?"

"They missed it all right that night, but Mrs. Gates wanted it kept
quiet till the servants had been shadowed and it was positively proved
that they hadn't got away with it."

"And then she thought of me?"

"And then she thought of you."

"I wonder why?"

"Because you were the only person in that room except Mrs. Gates, the
lady who lost the purse, Mrs. Ramsay, and--eh?" "N--nothing. Mrs.
Ramsay, you said?"

"Yes."

"Not Mrs. Edward Ramsay, of Philadelphia?"

"Oh, you know the name?"

"Oh, yes, I know it."

"It was printed, you know, in gold lettering on the inside flap and--"

"I don't know."

"Well, it was, and it contained three hundred dollars, Mrs. Ramsay
says. She had slipped it under the fold of the spread at the top of
the bed in the room where you took off your things in Mrs. Gates'
presence, and put them on again when no one else was there."

"And you mean to tell me that this is all?" I raged at him; "that every
bit of evidence you have to warrant your treating an innocent girl
like--"

"You didn't behave like a very innocent girl, if you'll remember," he
said dryly, "when I first came into the box. In fact, if that fellow
hadn't just come in then I believe you'd 'a' confessed the whole
job.... 'Tain't too late," he added.

I didn't answer. I put my head back against the cushions and closed my
eyes. I could feel the sc