s play.
Stones had been rolled to-day from tombs in which he had sought to bury
many ghosts of the past. With the resurrection came undeniable fears and
equally undeniable flashes of instinctive elation. He was seeing
Conscience, not across an interval of years but of hours--and to-morrow
he was to see her again.

When the first act ended the man who had written the comedy became
conscious that he had followed its progress with an incomplete
absorption, and when the curtain fell, to a flattering salvo of
applause, he came, with a start, back from thoughts foreign to the
theater.

The conclusion of the second act, with its repeated curtain calls and
its cries of "Author, Author!" assured him that his effort was not a
failure, and when at last it was all over and he stood in the wings
congratulating the members of his company, the wine of assured success
tingled in his veins--and his thoughts were for the moment of that
alone.

"They don't hate us quite so much now," said Mr. Grady as he clapped a
hand on Stuart's shoulder. "The thing is a hit--and for once I've got a
piece that I can take into town without tearing it to pieces and doing
it over."

Yet in his room afterward he paced the floor restively for a long while
before he sought his bed.

He was balancing up the sheets of his life to date. On the credit side
were such successes as most men would covet, but on the debit side stood
one item which offset the gratification and left a heavy balance.

This visit of to-morrow was a foolish thing. It might be wiser to
telegraph Tollman that unexpected matters had developed, necessitating a
change of plan.

It is a rash courage which courts disaster. From the small writing desk
near his bed he took a telegraph blank, but when he had written, torn up
and rewritten the message he halted and stood dubiously considering the
matter. The hand which had been lifted to ring for a bell-boy fell at
his side.

After all this was simply a running away from the forms of danger while
the danger itself remained. Into such action Conscience must read his
fear to trust himself near her--and he had undertaken to make her feel
secure in her own contentment. It was too late to draw back now. He must
go through with it--but he would make his stay brief and every moment
must be guarded.

At noon the next day he dropped, clad in flannels, from the train at the
station. It had been a hot trip, but even with a cooler temperature he
mi