nd true
would be in after witnessing "The Purple Slipper" as played by Miss
Hawtry in her compelling animality, and his angry eyes suddenly blazed
with another light than anger, as with a hard breath he admitted the
big, beautiful, treacherous cat into his arms and allowed her bare arms
to coil around his neck and her body to cling to his.

"How could you--how can you?" he asked, and the question on his lips
made them cold, and kept them from hers--long enough.

Mr. Vandeford stood in the dressing-room door without so much as rapping
for permission to enter, and his face was dead white while his eyes
blazed in a great terror. He seemed not to notice the purport of the
scene he had interrupted, but his voice cut into the situation like cold
steel.

"Denny, we can't find Miss Adair anywhere, and here's a note she left
Miss Lindsey. What do you make of it?" He handed Mr. Farraday a sheet of
hotel note-paper, which he took with a trembling hand while Miss Hawtry
shrank back against her lace-covered dressing-table and gathered her
forces to annihilate Mr. Vandeford. This was the note, which Mr.
Farraday read with one glance, but failed to read to Miss Hawtry,
because its few lines struck all consciousness of her existence entirely
from his mind.

_Dear Mildred_:

Dishonor has never smirched the name of Adair until I put it on
that theater program. I have branded the annals of my family, and I
never want to look into a human face again. Good-by. You've been
good to me.

PATRICIA.

"My God! What do you suppose she means?" Mr. Farraday gasped, as he
looked in abject terror at Mr. Vandeford, who returned his glance in
kind.

"And I promised Roger to take care of her," Mr. Farraday gasped, and
without so much as a glance at Miss Hawtry, both men departed with all
the rapidity possible. There must be some reason that all bonds
without-the-law are so brittle, and those of friendship and honor and
love so strong within the code.

Miss Hawtry did some rapid thinking, as unaided, she slipped from the
costume of the star of "The Purple Slipper" into her normal raiment and
character. Then she called a wheel-chair and had herself trundled to the
hotel. While she was propelled, many other wheels were turning and
turning fast.

"What does Miss Lindsey think is the matter, and where she is?" Mr.
Farraday questioned Mr. Vandeford as they strode along together down the
board-walk towards the hotel.