“Keep your heart up, miss,” she said cheerily, noticing that Celia’s tears were making havoc with her make-up. “You can’t rely on some of them ha’penny papers, you know. I don’t suppose it’s really so bad as they put it there. Not but what you’ve not cause to be anxious, for all that. I remember when my poor daughter--her that was on the trapeze business at the ’alls--fell right down from the roof to the floor without so much as a net to catch her, they sent for me--I was dresser to Mrs. Potter Wemyss at the Haymarket then--and I arrived at the ’all just in time to find the poor gel stiffening. They told me at first it was only a slight accident; but she was stretched out dead when I got there, miss, and looking as calm as calm can be. Them accidents are nasty things, I reckon. I do hope as you won’t find your poor brother laid out ready----” “Oh, for goodness’ sake, stop!” called out Grace, imperatively. “Can’t you see that you are frightening Miss Franks?” She felt ready to throw the hand-glass or any other convenient missile at the woman for her arrant thoughtlessness. Poor Celia was pale and trembling, whilst visions of her brother lying dead flashed before her mind’s eye. How she managed to get through that last act she never knew. The dim faces of the audience looming out of the semi-darkness seemed to her like rows of grisly skeletons mocking her with sardonic mirth. The sweep of the violins in the orchestra sounded like a funeral dirge. Two or three times she was almost overcome with dizziness; but at length all was over, and, for the last time, the curtain fell. “You did splendidly, Cely,” Guy Haviland said to her on the way home. “You are what I have a great admiration for: a brave girl--a girl with ‘grit.’” But Celia felt brave no longer. She leant back in the brougham with her head against Grace’s shoulder, and cried quietly all the way. She was utterly worn out. CHAPTER XVIII “NEITHER JEW NOR GREEK”--ONE GOD OVER ALL An unmistakable air of gloom hung over the factory club at Durlston. The members, instead of playing cards or chess as usual, gathered round the fire and smoked their pipes in silence; whilst one of them sat over in the corner, and with his velvet cap carelessly donned, droned prayers to himself out of a well-thumbed Hebrew book. They were all anxiously awaiting the result of the medical consultation concerning their benefactor, Herbert Karne; and could settle to nothing until their suspense had been relieved. Now that they had relinquished their enmity towards him, they went to the other extreme, and exalted him into a kind of demi-god. If he lived they would do all in their power to make amends for their past ingratitude; if he died they would lament him as a martyr, for it was by one of themselves that he had been struck down. Presently the door swung open to admit the foreman, Emil Blatz; and at his appearance the men looked up with expectancy plainly written on their faces.