"Handsome young idiot," he said to the detective. "That's why they let her in; but she hasn't a gleam of intelligence concealed about her, and it would take her a lifetime to get rid of her crazy ideas and mannerisms, even if there were any hope of her amounting to anything after she did get rid of them. Her idea of stage life is a regular pipe dream, and she'd never be willing to begin at the bottom. She wouldn't stand the hard work twenty-four hours. She had sort of an idea that she was a howling beauty with a genius that didn't need any training, and that if she could only get to see me I'd throw a fit over her and start her out on the road at five hundred dollars a week to star in 'Camille,' or something of that kind. She made me tired. I've seen thousands of the same kind, but I talked to her like a Dutch uncle; told her she wasn't so much as a beauty, and that she had a voice like a hurdy-gurdy, and that all her ideas about acting were crazy. Kind of rough, of course, but wholesome, that sort of straight talk is. I told her genius in the stage line was twins with slaving night and day; that they looked so much alike you couldn't tell them apart, and that the kind of genius she was ranting about was all hot air. I said if she could take some lessons and learn to sing and dance a little she might go on in the chorus, but that I'd advise charwork ahead of that, and that I didn't see the faintest illusive twinkle of a star about her. She cried and looked sick, but she seemed to be discouraged and open to conviction. So then I told her the best thing she could do was to go home to her folks and marry some decent fellow and look at the stage across the footlights--not too much of that, either. Yet the Gerry Society doesn't think much of us managers, and nobody'd suspect me of heading rescue brigades. I've got a daughter of my own, and she isn't on the stage--not by a blamed sight." All this was interesting, but the clew began and ended at the manager's office door, and no further trace of Adelina was found during the day. About nine o'clock that evening Maria, the parlour maid at the school, knocked at Belinda's door in a fine state of excitement. "If you please, Miss Carewe, Miss Wilson's come back. I let her in and she's gone up to her room, and Miss Ryder ain't here, and she looks fit to drop, and her face is that swollen from crying, and----" Belinda cut the monologue short and hurried down to the front room on the third floor. It was dark, but by the gleam from the street lamps the teacher made out a bulky form on the bed, and the sound of stifled sobbing came to her ears. She went over and knelt by the bed. "I'm glad you've come back, dear," she said in a cheerful, matter-of-fact voice. "Your father will be so relieved, and it isn't quite right for a girl to be alone in a big city, you know." The figure on the bed gave a convulsive flop and the sobbing redoubled.