ard
within, Sperry came rushing down the long dark passageway. He
was brushing past her when he saw who it was. "Too late!" he
cried. "Rehearsal's over."

"I didn't come to the rehearsal," explained Susan. "I thought
perhaps Rod would be going to lunch."

"So he is. Go straight back. You'll find him on the stage.
I'll join you if you'll wait a minute or so." And Sperry
hurried on into the street.

Susan advanced along the passageway cautiously as it was but
one remove from pitch dark. Perhaps fifty feet, and she came
to a cross passage. As she hesitated, a door at the far end
of it opened and she caught a glimpse of a dressing-room and,
in the space made by the partly opened door, a woman
half-dressed--an attractive glimpse. The woman--who seemed
young--was not looking down the passage, but into the room.
She was laughing in the way a woman laughs only when it is for
a man, for _the_ man--and was saying, "Now, Rod, you must go,
and give me a chance to finish dressing." A man's arm--Rod's
arm--reached across the opening in the doorway. A hand--Susan
recognized Rod's well-shaped hand--was laid strongly yet
tenderly upon the pretty bare arm of the struggling, laughing
young woman--and the door closed--and the passage was soot-dark
again. All this a matter of less than five seconds. Susan,
ashamed at having caught him, frightened lest she should be
found where she had no business to be, fled back along the
main passage and jerked open the street door. She ran
squarely into Sperry.

"I--I beg your pardon," stammered he. "I was in such a
rush--I ought to have been thinking where I was going. Did I
hurt you?" This last most anxiously. "I'm so sorry----"

"It's nothing--nothing," laughed Susan. "You are the one
that's hurt."

And in fact she had knocked Sperry breathless. "You don't
look anything like so strong," gasped he.

"Oh, my appearance is deceptive--in a lot of ways."

For instance, he could have got from her face just then no
hint of the agony of fear torturing her--fear of the drop into
the underworld.

"Find Rod?" asked he.

"He wasn't on the stage. So--I came out again."

"Wait here," said Sperry. "I'll hunt him up."

"Oh, no--please don't. I stopped on impulse. I'll not bother
him." She smiled mischievously. "I might be interrupting."

Sperry promptly reddened. She had no difficulty in reading
what was in his mind--that her remark had reminded him of
Rod's "affair,"