of amazement upon the actress. In a twinkling the pitiful
counterfeit of the shop-girl was rent and torn away; it hung only in
shreds and tatters upon an individuality wholly strange to Whitaker: a
larger, stronger woman seemed to have started out of the mask.

She turned, calling imperatively into the wings: "_Ring down!_"

Followed a pause of dumb amazement. In all the house, during the space
of thirty pulse-beats, no one moved. Then Max rapped out an oath and
slipped like quicksilver from the box.

Simultaneously the woman's foot stamped an echo from the boards.

"Ring down!" she cried. "Do you hear? Ring down!"

With a rush the curtain descended as pandemonium broke out on both sides
of it.

VII

THE LATE EXTRA

Impulsively Whitaker got up to follow Max, then hesitated and sank back
in doubt, his head awhirl. He was for the time being shocked out of all
capacity for clear reasoning or right thinking. Uppermost in his
consciousness he had a half-formed notion that it wouldn't help matters
if he were to force himself in upon the crisis behind the scenes.

Beyond all question his wife had recognized in him the man whom she had
been given every reason to believe dead: a discovery so unnerving as to
render her temporarily unable to continue. But if theatrical precedent
were a reliable guide, she would presently pull herself together and go
on; people of the stage seldom forget that their first duty is to the
audience. If he sat tight and waited, all might yet be well--as well as
any such hideous coil could be hoped ever to be....

As has been indicated, he arrived at his conclusion through no such
detailed argument; his mind leaped to it, and he rested upon it while
still beset by a half-score of tormenting considerations.

This, then, explained Drummond's reluctance to have him bidden to the
supper party; whatever ultimate course of action he planned to pursue,
Drummond had been unwilling, perhaps pardonably so, to have his romance
overthrown and altogether shattered in a single day.

And Drummond, too, must have known who Sara Law was, even while denying
knowledge of the existence of Mary Ladislas Whitaker. He had lied, lied
desperately, doubtless meaning to encompass a marriage before Whitaker
could find his wife, and so furnish him with every reason that could
influence an honourable man to disappear a second time.

Herein, moreover, lay the reason for the lawyer's failure to occupy his
stall o