The rehearsals were almost over. Scenery and properties took up much time, and made them very wearying, but there was a delightful break when Thrall made coffee in his office, and with Margaret, the ancient maid, doing propriety, in the corner, he served his "queen to be" with all the skill of a French waiter, and all the tenderness of a mother, while, with a hearty girl's appetite, she disposed of dainty sandwiches, coffee, and fruit--save on that one day when she ran out and gave every blessed sandwich there was to a poor waif whom she saw from the window. "Why did you not give him money?" Thrall asked. "I had none," she frankly answered. "You should have told me, then I would have given him something for you." She frowned a bit, and answered: "He would not have dared enter any place about here, and I could not put him to the torture of waiting--forgive me!" And one day--one threatening day, when gas was burning everywhere, so dark it was--Thrall told himself he could do no more for this creature who had grown so precious in his secret sight. Only one thing troubled his artistic sense: Sybil's Juliet was a trifle too frank--too boyishly honest in her love. The soft confusion, the flushing cheek and drooping eye, that sweetly contradict the open plainness of her speech, were missing. He knew why it was so; and when the artist in him asked if he would have it otherwise, the man, recalling that sick qualm of jealousy, answered: No! no! Rehearsal being over, Sybil had sent old Margaret home in the carriage that Thrall had hired for them, and had herself turned downtown a few blocks, and had then gone across to a little shop, where stage shoes were to be tried on. "I'm afraid Mrs. Van Camp will be angry if I leave you, Miss Sybil," the woman had protested. "There's an awful storm coming up, too!" "Nonsense!" said the girl, who even then had to hold her hat on with both hands, so high was the wind. "Go on, god-mother needs you at once! I'll be home in no time, but I can't leave those shoes another day. Suppose they should be wrong in some way? By-by!" and, laughing, she faced the tearing wind. Coming from the shop she felt the rain begin to fall. She fairly flew along the streets. Two cars passed without heeding her signal. What should she do? The theatre? She had a right to seek shelter there, surely, and that way she rushed. A sign came hurling through the air! She screamed, and the next moment dashed, damp, chill, dishevelled, into the vestibule.