ew our friend as well as I did,
and visited him. Why, the whole tour has been under your management.
You have arranged everything--most excellently; I have been quite
surprised."

My anger came later. For the moment, the sudden light blinded me to
everything but fear.

"But you told me," I cried, "it was only a matter of form, that you
wanted to keep your name out of it because--"

He was looking at me with an expression of genuine astonishment. My
words began to appear humorous even to myself. I found it difficult to
believe I had been the fool I was now seeing myself to have been.

"I am sorry," he said, "I am really sorry. I took you for a man of the
world. I thought you merely did not wish to know anything."

Still, to my shame, fear was the thing uppermost in my heart. "You are
not going to put it all on to me?" I pleaded.

He had risen. He laid his hand upon my shoulder. Instead of flinging it
off, I was glad of its kindly pressure. He was the only man to whom I
could look for help.

"Don't take it so seriously," he said. "He will merely think the
manuscript has been lost. As likely as not, he will be unable to
remember whether he wrote it or merely thought of writing it. No one in
the company will say anything: it isn't their business. We must set to
work. I had altered it a good deal before you saw it, and changed all
the names of the characters. We will retain the third act: it is the
only thing of real value in the play. The situation is not original; you
have as much right to dish it up as he had. In a fortnight we will have
the whole thing so different that if he saw it himself he would only
imagine we had got hold of the idea and had forestalled him."

There were moments during the next few weeks when I listened to the
voice of my good angel, when I saw clearly that even from the lowest
point of view he was giving me sound advice. I would go to the man, tell
him frankly the whole truth.

But Vane never left my elbow. Suspecting, I suppose, he gave me clearly
to understand that if I did so, I must expect no mercy from him. My
story, denounced by him as an outrageous lie, would be regarded as the
funk-inspired subterfuge of a young rogue. At the best I should handicap
myself with suspicion that would last me throughout my career. On the
other hand, what harm had we done? Presented in some twenty or so small
towns, where it would soon be forgotten, a play something like. Most
plays were something li