or every letter.

And yet she wrote again, patiently, sweetly, asking him to come to her.
"I don't know what Hugh said to you--no matter, forgive him. We were all
at high tension last night. I know you didn't intend to hurt me, and I
have put it all away. I will forget your reproach, but I cannot have you
go out of my life in this way. It is too cruel, too hopeless. Come to me
again, your good, strong, buoyant self, and let us plan for the future."

This message, so high, so divinely forgiving, came back to her unopened,
with a line from the clerk on the back--"Mr. Douglass left the city this
evening. No address."

This laconic message struck her like a blow. It was as if Douglass
himself had refused her outstretched hand. Her nerves, tense and
quivering, gave way. Her resentment flamed up again.

"Very well." She tore the note in small pieces, slowly, with painful
precision, as if by so doing she were tearing and blowing away the great
passion which had grown up in her heart. "I was mistaken in you. You are
unworthy of my confidence. After all, you are only a weak, egotistical
'genius'--morbid, selfish. Hugh is right. You have proved my evil
genius. You skulked the night of your first play. You alternately
ignored and made use of me--as you pleased--and after all I had done for
you you flouted me in the face of my company." She flung the fragments
of the note into the fire. "There are your words--all counting for
nothing."

And she rose and walked out to her brother and her manager, determined
that no sign of her suffering and despair should be written upon her
face.

The day dragged wearily forward, and when Westervelt came in with a
sorrowful tale of diminishing demand for seats she gave her consent to a
return to _Baroness Telka_ on the following Monday morning.

The manager was jubilant. "Now we will see a theatre once more. I tought
I vas running a church or a school. Now we will see carriages at the
door again and some dress-suits pefore the orchestra. Eh, Hugh?"

"I'm glad to see you come to your senses," said Hugh, ignoring
Westervelt. "That chap had us all--"

She stopped him. "Not a word of that. Mr. Douglass was right and his
plays are right, but the public is not yet risen to such work. I admire
his work just as much now as ever. I am only doubting the public. If
there is no sign of increasing interest on Saturday we will take _Enid_
off. That is all I will say now."

It seemed a pitiful, a mons