ve known better. I
hardly know what I am saying or doing just now--but Caffyn has found
out everything, and--and who could have told him?'

'If any one betrayed you, it must have been yourself!' said Vincent.
'Look here, Ashburn, don't give it up like this--keep your head, man!
He can't really _know_ this, it must be all guesswork. Did he mention
my name?'

'Yes,' said Mark.

'Well, I must have it out with him, then. What does it matter what he
says if we both contradict him? I think I shall be able to manage
him; only, for Heaven's sake, keep cool, leave everything to me, try
to be your usual self. Where is this rehearsal going on? Let us go
there at once--you'll be wanted!'

Mark said no more just then; he led the way to the music-room, and
then went himself to the part which was screened off as a green-room.

The music-room was a long high gallery, at one end of which the stage
had been set up. There was a small audience of a dozen or so, who were
mostly related to the performers, and admitted only because it had not
been found practicable to keep them out. The rehearsal had just begun
as Vincent entered.

It was much like most rehearsals, and would hardly lose its
tediousness in description. There were constant interruptions and
repetitions, and most of the characters wore the air of people who had
been induced to play a game they thought silly, but who were resolved
to maintain their self-respect as long as possible; this appearance
might be due to an artistic reserve of force in some cases, in others
to nervousness, in nearly all to a limited knowledge of the lines they
had to deliver, and all these causes would certainly be removed 'on
the night,' because the actors said so themselves. Still, on that
particular evening, they prevented the play from being seen to the
best advantage.

It was not a good play, and as a dramatisation of 'Illusion' was worse
than the most sanguine of Mrs. Featherstone's acquaintances could have
foreseen; and yet, as Vincent stood and looked on from the background,
he felt strangely stirred when Mabel was on the stage. She, at least,
had too intense a sympathy with her part to be able to walk through
it, even at a rehearsal, though it would have been absurd to exert her
full powers under the circumstances.

But there were moments in the later scenes (which even Mrs.
Featherstone had not been able to deprive of all power or pathos) when
Mabel was carried away by the emotion sh