invaluable services. The
menace was at last executed, in good earnest, and the cause of Grace
Danver's excitement was that she, as Miss Walcott's understudy, would
to-night, in all probability, be called upon to take the leading part.

'I'm glad to hear it,' Clara replied, very soberly.

'You don't look as if you cared much,' rejoined the other, with a
little irritation.

'What do you want me to do? Am I to scream with joy because the
greatest actress in the world has got her chance at last?'

There was bitterness in the irony. Whatever their friendship in days
gone by, these two were clearly not on the most amiable terms at
present. This was their first engagement in the same company, and it
had needed but a week of association to put a jealousy and ill-feeling
between them which proved fatal to such mutual kindness as they had
previously cherished. Grace, now no less than in her schooldays, was
fond of patronising: as the elder in years and in experience, she
adopted a tone which Clara speedily resented. To heighten the danger of
a conflict between natures essentially incompatible, both were in a
morbid and nervous state, consumed with discontent, sensitive to the
most trifling injury, abandoned to a fierce egoism, which the course of
their lives and the circumstances of their profession kept constantly
inflamed. Grace was of acrid and violent temper; when stung with words
such as Clara was only too apt at using, she speedily lost command of
herself and spoke, or even acted, frantically. Except that she had not
Clara's sensibilities, her lot was the harder of the two; for she knew
herself stricken with a malady which would hunt her unsparingly to the
grave. On her story I have no time to dwell; it was fall of
wretchedness, which had caused her, about a year ago, to make an
attempt at suicide. A little generosity, and Clara might have helped to
soothe the pains of one so much weaker than herself; but noble feeling
was extinct in the girl, or so nearly extinct that a breath of petty
rivalry could make her base, cruel, remorseless.

'At all events I _have_ got my chance!' exclaimed Grace, with a harsh
laugh. 'When you get yours, ask me to congratulate you.'

And she swept her skirts out of the room. In a few minutes Clara put a
stamp on her letter and went out to the post. Her presence at the
theatre would not be necessary for another two hours, but as the
distance was slight, and nervousness would not let her rem