n that farewell night. It was just possible that Whitaker would
not recognize his wife; and _vice versa_; but it was a chance that
Drummond hadn't the courage to face. Even so, he might have hidden
himself somewhere in the house, waiting and watching to see what would
happen.

On the other hand, Max to a certainty was ignorant of the relationship
between his star and his old-time friend, just as he must have been
ignorant of her identity with the one-time Mary Ladislas. For that
matter, Whitaker had to admit that, damning as was the evidence to
controvert the theory, Drummond might be just as much in the dark as Max
was. There was always the chance that the girl had kept her secret to
herself, inviolate, informing neither her manager nor the man she had
covenanted to wed. Drummond's absence from the house might be due to any
one of a hundred reasons other than that to which Whitaker inclined to
assign it. It was only fair to suspend judgment. In the meantime....

The audience was getting beyond control. The clamour of comment and
questioning which had broken loose when the curtain fell was waxing and
gaining a high querulous note of impatience. In the gallery the gods
were beginning to testify to their normal intolerance with shrill
whistles, cat-calls, sporadic bursts of hand-clapping and a steady,
sinister rumble of stamping feet. In the orchestra and dress-circle
people were moving about restlessly and talking at the top of their
voices in order to make themselves heard above the growing din. Had
there been music to fill the interval, they might have been more calm;
but Max had fallen in with the theatrical _dernier cri_ and had
eliminated orchestras from his houses, employing only a peal of gongs to
insure silence and attention before each curtain.

Abruptly Max himself appeared at one side of the proscenium arch. It was
plain to those nearest the stage that he was seriously disturbed. There
was a noticeable hesitancy in his manner, a pathetic frenzy in his
habitually mild and lustrous eyes. Advancing halfway to the middle of
the apron, he paused, begging attention with a pudgy hand. It was a full
minute before the gallery would let him be heard.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he announced plaintively, "I much regret to
inform you that Miss Law has suffered a severe nervous shock"--his gaze
wandered in perplexed inquiry toward the right-hand stage-box, then was
hastily averted--"and will not be able to continue for a f