secret from all my friends,
knowing they would betray me if they paid us visits. As for my
mysteriously-closed study, it was the place in which I privately
rehearsed my new part. When I left you in the mornings, it was to go
to the theater rehearsals. My evening absences began of course with the
first performance.

"Your father's arrival seriously embarrassed me. When you (most
properly) insisted on my giving up some of my evenings to him, you
necessarily made it impossible for me to appear on the stage. The one
excuse I could make to the theater was, that I was too ill to act. It
did certainly occur to me to cut the Gordian knot by owning the truth.
But your father's horror, when you spoke of the newspaper review of the
play, and the shame and fear you showed at your own boldness, daunted me
once more.

"The arrival at the theater of my written excuse brought the manageress
down upon me, in a state of distraction. Nobody could supply my place;
all the seats were taken; and the Prince was expected. There was what
we call a scene between the poor lady and myself. I felt I was in the
wrong; I saw that the position in which I had impulsively placed myself
was unworthy of me--and it ended in my doing my duty to the theater and
the public. But for the affair of the bracelet, which obliged me as an
honorable man to give my name and address, the manageress would not have
discovered me. She, like every one else, only knew of my address at
my bachelor chambers. How could you be jealous of the old theatrical
comrade of my first days on the stage? Don't you know yet that you are
the one woman in the world....?

"A last word relating to your father, and I have done.

"Do you remember my leaving you at the telegraph office? It was to send
a message to a friend of mine, an architect in Edinburgh, instructing
him to go immediately to Cauldkirk, and provide for the repairs at my
expense. The theater, my dear, more than trebles my paternal income,
and I can well afford it. Will your father refuse to accept a tribute
of respect to a Scottish minister, because it is paid out of an actor's
pocket? You shall ask him the question.

"And, I say, Felicia--will you come and see me act? I don't expect your
father to enter a theater; but, by way of further reconciling him to his
son-in-law, suppose you ask him to hear me read the play?"

MR. PERCY AND THE PROPHET.

PART 1.--THE PREDICTION.

CHAPTER I.

THE QUACK.

THE disast