es and streaming hair over her
slain paramour on the marble stairway, a dagger in her hand. People
would crowd again behind the scenes at the close of the play. The
magazines would add their chorus of praise.

And over against this stood the slim, poetic figure of _Enid_, so white
of soul, so simple, so elemental of appeal. A whole world lay between
the two parts. All that each stood for was diametrically opposed to the
other. One was modern as the telephone, true, sound, and revealing. The
other false from beginning to end, belonging to a world that never
existed, a brilliant, flashing pageant, a struggle of beasts in robes of
gold and velvet--assassins dancing in jewelled garters. Every scene,
every motion was worn with use on the stage, and yet her own romance,
her happiness, seemed to depend upon her capitulation as well as his.

"If they accept _Alessandra_ he will come back to me proudly--at least
with a sense of victory over his ignoble enemies. If I return it he will
know I am right, but will still be left so deeply in my debt that he
will never come to see me again." And with this thought she determined
upon a course of action which led at least to a meeting and to a
reconciliation between the author and the manager, and with the thought
of seeing him again her heart grew light.

When she came to the theatre at night Westervelt was waiting at the
door.

"Well?" he asked, anxiously. "What do you think of it?"

"I have sent for the author," she answered, coldly. "He will meet me
to-morrow at eleven. Come to the hotel and I will introduce him to you."

"Splendid! splendid!" exclaimed the manager. "You found it suited to
you! A great part, eh?"

"I like it better than _The Baroness_," she replied, and left him
broad-faced with joy.

"She is coming sensible again," he chuckled. "Now that that crank is out
of the way we shall see her as she was--triumphant."

Again the audience responded to every line she spoke, and as she played
something reassuring came up to her from the faces below. The house was
perceptibly less empty, but the comfort arose from something more
intangible than an increase of filled chairs. "I believe the tide has
turned," she thought, exultantly, but dared not say so to Hugh.

That night she sent a note to Douglass, and the words of her message
filled him with mingled feelings of exultation and bitterness:

"You have won! Westervelt and Hugh are crazy to meet the author of
_Alessandr