And so she did. There was no longer coldness--no longer indifference. Everybody was agog with expectation, everybody was pleased. Lavinia's triumph was complete. Night after night it was the same. Palmer had never had so successful a season. He put money in his pocket and he paid his new star fairly well. Two or three times a week for over a month Lavinia went to Gay's lodgings and rehearsed the songs she did not know and those also with which she was already acquainted. The words Gay gave her to sing were not those to which she was accustomed and she found the change confusing. Moreover, at each rehearsal some alterations in the words were made, occasionally by Gay, occasionally at the suggestion of Dr. Arbuthnot. But she never wearied, and so she was sufficiently rewarded for her trouble when Gay bestowed upon her a word of praise. But Lancelot Vane? He came not in spite of his earnest entreaty that she would meet him. At first she was wounded, then she was indignant. She remembered how faithless he had proved, and all her bitterness against him and Sally Salisbury revived. Then came a revulsion of feeling. Why should he not be ill? Nay, he might even be dead. Perhaps worse. If he had carried out his despairing threat? She pictured him floating on the surface of a Hampstead pond and a shudder went over her at the gruesome thought. Finally she subsided into dull resignation and strove to think no more about him. It was September; with the colder weather came the waning of the Hampstead season, the fashionable folk were returning to London and preparing for masquerades, ridottos, the theatres and the opera. The Great Room concerts were but thinly attended and for a whole fortnight Lavinia had not sung twice. But this did not matter to her. She had been written to by John Rich, and he had engaged her at a little higher salary than he had hitherto paid. Lavinia sang for the last time at Hampstead and quitted the Great Room not without regrets and doubts. Would she be as successful at the Duke's Theatre? Would she have her chance? She well knew the rivalries a rising actress would have to encounter. But what disturbed her most was that Gay's enthusiasm over his opera did not seem so keen as it had been. She dared not ask him the cause of his depression. She could only watch his varying moods and hope the melancholy ones would pass. Hitherto Betty had always been waiting for her to accompany her across the heath, but this last night she was not in her usual place at the door. Lavinia was not surprised as Betty had a bad cold. She hurried out, anxious to get home. Some one a yard or so from the entrance shrank into the darkness as she passed out but not so rapidly that he was not noticed and recognised. Lavinia was full of generous impulses that evening. Everything had gone so well with her, and the future in spite of her doubts was so bright.