I had but one refuge in mind, Carter Brooks, and to him I fled on the wings of misery in the street car. I burst into his advertizing office like a fury. "Where is he?" I demanded. "Where have you and your plotting hidden him?" "Who? Beresford?" he asked in a placid manner. "He is at his hotel, I believe, putting beefsteak on a bad eye. Believe me, Bab----" "Beresford!" I cried, in scorn and wretchedness. "What is he to me? Or his eye either? I refer to Mr. Egleston. It is time for the curtain to go up now, and unless he has by this time returned, there can be no performance." "Look here," Carter said suddenly, "you look awfully queer, Bab. Your face----" I stamped my foot. "What does my face matter?" I demanded. "I no longer care for him, but I have ruined Miss Everett's cousin's play unless he turns up. Am I to be sent to Switzerland with that on my soul?" "Switzerland!" he said slowly. "Why, Bab, they're not going to do that, are they? I--I don't want you so far away." Dear Dairy, I am unsuspicious by nature, believing all mankind to be my friends until proven otherwise. But there was a gloating look in Carter Brooks' eyes as they turned on me. "Carter!" I said, "you know where he is and you will not tell me. You WISH to ruin him." I was about to put my hand on his arm, but he drew away. "Look here," he said. "I'll tell you something, but please keep back. Because you look like smallpox to me. I was at the mill this morning. I do not know anything about your actor-friend. He's probably only been run over or something. But I saw Beresford going in, and I--well, I suggested that he'd better walk in on your father or he wouldn't get in. It worked, Bab. HOW IT DID WORK! He went in and said he had come to ask your father for something, and your father blew up by saying that he knew about it, but that the world only owed a living to the man who would hustle for it, and that he would not be forced to take any one he did not want. "And in two minutes Beresford hit him, and got a response. It was a million dollars worth." So he babbled on. But what were his words to me? Dear Diary, I gave no thought to the smallpox he had mentioned, although fatal to the complexion. Or to the fight at the mill. I heard only Adrian's possible tragic fate. Suddenly I collapsed, and asked for a drink of water, feeling horrible, very wobbly and unable to keep my knees from bending. And the next thing I remember is father taking me home, and Adrian's fate still a deep mystery, and remaining such, while I had a warm sponge to bring out the rest of the rash, followed by a sleep--it being measles and not smallpox. Oh, Dear Diary, what a story I learned when having wakened and feeling better, my father came tonight and talked to me from the doorway, not being allowed in.