ements.

'There will be a fuss, if I do not find a quick way back among
those people,' she said, passing round him to the door. Then
paused with her hand on the knob, considering something.

'Why did you do it, Mr. Rollo?'

'I will try to explain, as soon as I get an opportunity. One
word,' he added, detaining her,--'Laugh it off as far as you
can, down stairs, as part of the play.'

'Easy to do,' said the girl with some emphasis. 'Unfortunately
I do not feel at all like laughing. If you had done _me_ a
little honour, sir, it would have been needless.'

She went first to the small dressing-room down stairs,
catching up her serge and muffling herself in it once more, so
that not a thread of her peasant's dress appeared; then went
silently in among the crowd, a very sober witch indeed. It was
a little while before she was molested. By and by, while
another charade was engaging people's interest, Mme. Lasalle
worked round to the muffled figure.

'My dear,' she whispered, 'who was that?'

'One of your dominoes, Madame. Acted with a good deal of
spirit, didn't you think so?'

'Magnifique! But that was none of _my_ dominoes. My dear, you
will never know how lovely your representation was. But, that
interruption was no part of our play, as we had planned it.
How came it? Who was it? Somebody who made play to suit
himself? How came it, Hazel?'

'Just what I have been trying to find out,' said the girl. 'I
shall not rest till I do.' But she moved off then, and kept
moving, and was soon too well taken possession of for many
questions to reach her. All of her audience but two or three,
took the interruption for part of the play, and were loud in
their praises. Hearing and not hearing, muffled in thoughts
yet more than in serge, as an actor or spectator the Witch of
Endor saw the charades through, and played with her supper,
and finally went out to her carriage and the dark world of
night. For there was no moon this time, and stars are
uncertain things.

As Stuart Nightingale came back from putting her into the
carriage, he encountered his aunt.

'Well!' he said in an impatient voice, smothered as it was,
'that job's all smoke.'

'Who was it?'

'That infernal meddler, of course.'

'Rollo?'

'Who else would have dared?'

'How did he get in?'

'That you ought to know better than I. It was no fault of
mine.'

'Rollo!' said Mme. Lasalle. 'And I thought I had cleverly kept
him out. The tickets were not tran