Dick considered this a very telling argument, and, not wishing to spoil its effect, he remained silent, so as to give Kate time to digest the truth of what he had said. He waited for her to ask him when he would take her to see the manager, but she said nothing, and he was at last obliged to admit that he had made an appointment for to-morrow. She whined a bit but accompanied him to the theatre. The manager was delighted with her appearance. He told her that the photo that Dick had forwarded did not do her justice; and, handing her the script, he said: 'Now you must make your entrance from this side.' 'What's the cue?' 'Here it is. I think I shall now beat a retreat in the direction of home.' 'Ah! I see.' And, striving to decipher the manuscript, Kate walked towards the middle of the stage. 'I haven't seen the Duke for twenty-four hours, and that means misery.' 'You'll get a laugh for that if you'll turn up your eyes a bit,' said Dick. Then, turning to the manager, he murmured, 'I wish you'd seen her as Clairette. The notices were immense. But I must be off now to my own show.' This engagement relieved the Lennoxes for the time being of their embarrassments. At four they dined, at six bade each other good-bye, and repaired to their respective theatres. Dick was playing in drama, Kate in _opéra bouffe_; and something before a quarter to eleven she expected him to meet her at the stage-door of the Prince's. On this point she was very particular; if he were a few moments late she questioned him minutely as to where he had been, what he had been doing, and little by little the jealousies and suspicions which her marriage had appeased returned, and tortured her night and day. At first the approach of pain was manifested by a nervous anxiety for her husband's presence. She seemed dissatisfied and restless when he was not with her, and after breakfast in the mornings, when he took up his hat to go out, she would beg of him to stay, and find fault with him for leaving her. He reasoned with her very softly, assuring her that he had the most important engagements. On one occasion it was a man who had given him an appointment in order to speak with him concerning a new theatre, of which he was to have the entire management; another time it was a man who was writing a drama, and wanted a collaborator to put the stage construction right; and as these séances of collaboration occupied both morning and afternoon, Kate was thrown entirely on her own resources until four o'clock. The first two or three novels she had read during her convalescence had amused her, but now one seemed so much like the other that they ended by boring her; and, too excited to be able to fix her attention, she often read without understanding what she was reading: on one side the memory of her baby's death preyed upon her--she still could not help thinking that it was owing to her neglect that it had died--on the