"Why have you done this dreadful thing?" she demanded in a low, fierce tone as soon as he came up with her. "Are you a fool as well as a knave that you come here and risk losing your only support by a thing like this?" "I wanted to see you--I had to see you--and it was the only way," he gave back in the same guarded tone. "The wife is dead. She died last night, and I've got to get money somewhere to bury her. I'd no one to send, since you've taken Ted away and sent him to school, so I had to come myself." The knowledge that it was for no more desperate reason than this that he had forced himself into her presence came as a great relief to Miss Larue. She hastened to get rid of him by sending him to Trent & Son with the note that she had written, and to tell him to carry the parcel that would be handed to him to the rooms she was occupying in Portman Square--and which she made up her mind to vacate the very next day--and there to wait until she came home from rehearsal. He took the note and left the theatre at once, upon which Miss Larue, considerably relieved, returned to the duties in hand, and promptly banished all thought of him from her mind. It was not until something like two hours afterward that he was brought back to mind in a somewhat disquieting manner. "I say, Miss Larue," said the stage manager as she came off after thrice rehearsing a particularly trying scene, and, with a weary sigh, dropped into a vacant chair at his table, "aren't you worried about that chap you sent with the note to Trent & Son? There's been time for him to go and return twice over, you know; and I observe that he's not back yet. Aren't you a bit uneasy?" "No. Why should I be?" "Well, for one thing, I should say it was an extremely risky business unless you knew something about the man. Suppose, for instance, he should make off with the jewels? A pretty pickle you'd be in with the parties from whom you borrowed them, by Jove!" "Good gracious, you don't suppose I sent him for the originals, do you?" said Miss Larue with a smile. "Trent & Son _would_ think me a lunatic to do such a thing as that. What I sent him for was, of course, merely the paste replicas. The originals I shall naturally go for myself." "God bless my soul! The paste replicas, do you say?" blurted in Mr. Lampson excitedly. "Why, I thought--Trent & Son will be sure to think so themselves under the circumstances! They can't possibly think otherwise." "'Under the circumstances'? 'Think otherwise'?" repeated Miss Larue, facing round upon him sharply. "What do you mean by that, Mr. Lampson? Good heavens! not that they could possibly be mad enough to give the man the originals?" "Yes, certainly! Good Lord! what else can they think--what else can they give him? They sent the paste duplicates here by their own messenger this morning! They are in the manager's office--in his safe--at this very minute; and I was going to bring them round to you as soon as the rehearsal is over!"