, cold beef,
and a bottle of claret.

"'Tis my supper," said Madge. "If I had known I should have such
guests--you will do me the honour, will you not?"

Her manner was so tentative and humble, so much that of one who scarce
feels a right even to plead, so different from that of the old petted
and radiant Madge, that 'twould have taken a harder man than Philip to
decline. And so, when the servant had placed additional chairs, down
we sat to supper with Miss Warren, of Drury Lane Theatre, who had sent
her maid to answer the inquiries of the alarmed house concerning the
recent tumult in the street.

CHAPTER XX.

_We Intrude upon a Gentleman at a Coffee-house._

Little was eaten at that supper, to which we sat down in a constraint
natural to the situation. Philip was presently about to assume the
burden of opening the conversation, when Madge abruptly began:

"I make no doubt you recognised him, Bert--the man with the coach."

"Yes. Philip and I saw him outside the theatre."

"And followed him, in following you," added Philip. "We had
intended--"

"You must not suppose--" she interrupted; but, after a moment's halt
of embarrassment, left the sentence unfinished, and made another
beginning: "I never saw him or heard of him, after I left New York,
till I had been three years on the stage. Then, when the war was over,
he came back to London, and chanced to see me play at Drury Lane. He
knew me in spite of my stage name, and during that very performance I
found him waiting in the greenroom. I had no desire for any of his
society, and told him so. But it seems that, finding me--admired, and
successful in the way I had resorted to, he could not be content till
he regained my--esteem. If I had shown myself friendly to him then, I
should soon have been rid of him: but instead, I showed a resolution
to avoid him; and he is the kind of man who can't endure a repulse
from a woman. To say truth, he thinks himself invincible to 'em all,
and when he finds one of 'em proof against him, even though she may
once have seemed--when she didn't know her mind--well, she is the
woman he must be pestering, to show that he's not to be resisted.

"And so, at last, to be rid of his plaguing, I went away from London,
and took another stage name, and acted in the country. Only Mr. and
Mrs. Sheridan were in the secret of this: 'twas Mr. Sheridan gave me
letters to the country managers. That was in the Fall of '83. Well, I
heard aft