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about giving up the part, but he . . . Mr. Roberts, I'm worried. I've never seen Morgan so strange before. He's not himself. I don't know what's the matter, I have a feeling that something———"

The electricians were still fooling about with their spotlights, and a great arrow of brilliance sliced across the stage and groped about us. It blazed brutally upon her tear-stained face, and then see-sawed among the little flock of rolling chairs. It was that shaft of light that dispelled, once for all, the feeling I had had that this was all some sort of theatrical gibberish, pantomime stuff intended to impress the greenhorn press agent. For when she recoiled under the blow of that sudden stroke of brightness I could read unquestionable trouble on her face. There was not only perplexity, there was fear.

She was silent, turning her face away. Then she stepped down from the chair, in a blind sort of way.

"I begged him to give it up," she said, quietly. "He said that no one but the author could take him out of this part. I wish the author would.—Oh, I don't know what to wish! Morgan's making himself ill fighting against Fagan."

We walked across Fortieth Street together,