Will paused, and reflected. He saw he must absolutely take measures to protect this hot passionate creature against the social consequences of her own hot passion. “You’ve got an understudy, I suppose,” he said; “someone who could fill the part pretty decently in your enforced absence? They don’t depend altogether upon you, I hope, for to-night’s performance.” “Yes; I’ve got an understudy,” Linnet answered, in a very careless voice, clasping his hand tight in hers, and gripping it hard now and again, as though understudies were a matter of the supremest indifference to her. “She doesn’t know her part very well, and I’m the soul of the piece; but I daresay they could get along with her very tolerably enough somehow. Besides,” she added, in a little afterthought, looking down at her wounded arm, “after what Andreas has done to me, I’m too ill and too shaken to appear to-night, whatever might have happened. Even if I’d stopped at home, instead of coming here, I couldn’t possibly have undertaken to sing in public this evening.” “Very well, then,” Will replied, making up his mind at once. “We must act accordingly. If that’s the case, the best thing I can do is to go out and telegraph to the management, without delay, that Signora Casalmonte is seriously indisposed, and won’t be able to appear in _Carmen_ this evening.” “To go out!” Linnet cried, clutching his arm in dismay. “Oh, dear Will, don’t do that! Don’t leave me for a moment. Suppose Andreas were to come, and to find me here alone? What on earth could I do? What on earth could I say to him?” Will stroked her cheek once more, that beautiful soft cheek that he loved so dearly, as he answered in a grave and very serious tone, “Now, Linnet, you must be brave; and, above all, you must be practical. This is a crisis in our lives. A great deal depends upon it. If you love me, you must do as I advise you in this emergency. You have done quite right to come away from Andreas—instantly, the very moment you discovered this letter—the very moment he offered you such unmanly violence. In that, you were true woman. You’re in the right now, and if you behave circumspectly, all the world will admit it; all the world will say so. But you mustn’t stop here one second longer than is absolutely necessary. You must spend the night with some friend whom we know, some lady of position and unblemished reputation; and the world must think you went straight from your husband’s roof to hers, when all these things happened.” Linnet drew back, all aghast. “What, go from you!” she cried: “this first night of our love. O Will, dear Will! Go, go right away from you!”