a letter came from the manager: "Trust you are
rested and will soon be back. The prompter read your lines, but
everything has gone to pieces. Slack, slovenly, spiritless, stupid,
nobody acting, and nobody awake, it seems to me. 'All right at night,
governor,' and the usual nonsense. Shows how much we want you. But
envious people are whispering that you are afraid of the part. The
blockheads! If you succeed this time you'll be made for life, my dear.
And you _will_ succeed! Yours merrily," etc.

With this were three letters addressed to the theatre. One of them was
from a press-cutting agency asking to be allowed to supply all newspaper
articles relating to herself, and inclosing a paragraph as a specimen: "A
little bird whispers that 'Gloria,' as 'Gloria,' is to be a startling
surprise. Those who have seen her rehearse----But mum's the word--an' we
could an' we would," etc. Another of the letters was from the art editor
of an illustrated weekly asking for a sitting to their photographer for a
full-page picture; and the third inclosed the card of an interviewer on
an evening paper. Only three days ago Glory would have counted all this
as nothing, yet now she could not help but feel a thrilling, joyous
excitement.

Drake called after the absence of a fortnight. He had come to speak of
his last visit. His face was pale and serious, not fresh and radiant as
usual, his voice was shaking and his manner nervous. Glory had never seen
him exhibit so much emotion, and Rosa looked on in dumb astonishment.

"I was to blame," he said, "and I have come to say so. It was a cowardly
thing to turn the man out of his church, and it was worse than cowardly
to use you in doing it. Everything is fair, they say, in----" But he
flushed up like a girl and stopped, and then faltered: "Anyhow, I'm
sorry--very sorry; and if there is anything I can do----"

Glory tried to answer him, but her heart was beating violently, and she
could not speak.

"In fact, I've tried to make amends already. Lord Robert has a living
vacant in Westminster, and I've asked him to hand it over to the Bishop,
with the request that Father Storm----"

"But will he?"

"I've told him he must. It's the least we can do if we are to have any
respect for ourselves. And anyhow, I'm about tired of this anti-Storm
uproar. It may be all very well far men like me to object to the man--I
deny his authorities, and think him a man out of his century and
country--but for these pe