“I want you to take me down there among the carriages, to be quite sure it is she. Do take me, George! If you won’t, I must go alone.” “I will take you, if you wish it; but, my child, you had better not go. If you were to see them together again, it would break your heart.” “Oh, no; my heart is not so tender as that, George!” said she, wearily. “Let us make haste.” She was afraid of her strength giving way again if there was any more delay. So he took her down, across the course, and in and out among the carriages until they came in sight of the one she was in search of. Harry was no longer beside the drag; but there sat Muriel, her complexion carefully made up, and dressed with more extravagance than good taste; and in her ears were the ear-rings and at her throat was the brooch which Annie had sent to Harry to help him out of his difficulties a week before. She turned away quickly, and whispered to George, clinging to him like a child, and with a little tremor in her voice: “Now let us go away--let us go away--as fast--as we can--straight back home!” She bore up bravely all the way to the station and during the journey in the train; but when they were driving along together in a hansom, she said suddenly: “Talk about the races, George, please.” But he could not, for there was a lump in his throat, and all he could say, as a lift to the conversation, was: “Curse him!” CHAPTER XXV. “Don’t go to the theater to-night, Annie! Send a note to say you are not well,” suggested George, when they reached the house where his sister-in-law was living. “You are not fit to act to-night; they must get somebody else,” he added, with the charming simplicity of the “outsider” in theatrical matters, who does not know how loath the rising actress is to give her “understudy” a chance of proving that she herself is not indispensable to the success of the piece. “I must go, George; and it will be the best thing for me,” said she, with a grateful look at his anxious face. “Come and see me to-morrow; I want to talk to you.” He left her unwillingly, and that night he took a stall at the theater where she was acting that he might be at hand in case she broke down. But there was no need of such a fear for the trained actress; her performance that night was, to a close observer, somewhat fitful and unequal; but she gave no other sign of the shock she had sustained that day--in fact, the excitement caused by it prevented her physical weariness from being so apparent. The next morning, however, when George called, he found her sad and subdued, in spite of the efforts she made to seem as cheerful as usual. When she referred to the previous day, she did so quite calmly; but his self-command about the matter was not so great as hers, and he broke out in a few minutes and swore that he would find Harry out and upbraid him for his infamous conduct to the most perfect woman in the world.