stopped. Miss
Mardon was furious. There was an altercation.

"This," said Charmian to herself, "is my idea of Hell."

She felt that she was being punished for every sin, however tiny, that
she had ever committed. She longed to creep away and hide. She thought
of all she had done to bring about the opera, of the flight from
England, of the life at Djenan-el-Maqui, of the grand hopes that had
lived in the little white house above the sea.

"Start it again, I tell you!" roared Crayford. "We can't stand here all
night to hear you talking!"

"Yes," a voice within Charmian said, "this is Hell!"

She bent her head. She felt like one sinking down.

When the act was over she went out at once. She was afraid of Mrs.
Shiffney.

The smiling colored man took her up in the elevator to a room where she
found Claude in his shirt sleeves, with a cup of black coffee beside
him, working at the score. He looked up.

"Charmian! I've just finished all I can do to-night. What's the time?"

"Nearly two."

"Did the third act go well?"

She looked at his white face and burning eyes.

"Yes," she said.

"Sit down. You look tired."

He went on working.

Just as two o'clock struck he finished, and got up from the table over
which he had been leaning for hours.

"Come along! Let's go down. Oh!"

He stopped, and drank the black coffee.

"By the way," he said, "won't you have some?"

"Yes," she said eagerly.

He rang and ordered some for her. While they were waiting for it she
said:

"What an experience this is!"

"Yes."

"How quietly you take it!"

"We're in for it. It would be no use to lose one's head."

"No, of course! But--oh, what a fight it is. I can scarcely believe that
in a few days it must be over, that we shall _know_!"

"Here's the coffee. Drink it up."

She drank it. They went down in the lift. As they parted--for Claude had
to go to Meroni--Charmian said:

"Adelaide Shiffney's still here."

"If she stays to the end we must find out what she thinks."

"Or--shall we leave it? After all--"

"No, no! I wish to hear her opinion."

There was a hard dry sound in his voice.

"Very well."

Claude disappeared.

The black coffee which Charmian had drunk excited her. But it helped
her. As she went back into the theater for the fourth and last act she
felt suddenly stronger, more hopeful. She was able to say to herself,
"This is only a rehearsal. Rehearsals always go badly. If they don't
actors and s