The date had been set for the night before, and, since it was not to be exclusively a performance for professionals, the manager of the theater, who was a friend of Nick Carter’s, had presented the detective with a box. Much to Nick’s regret, however, and that of his male assistants, an emergency had prevented them from attending. To cap the climax, Adelina Garvan had not been feeling well, so decided not to go. Consequently, Ida Jones had occupied the box with several of her friends. Nick shook his head in response to his pretty assistant’s question. “I haven’t, anyway,” he said, glancing from her face back to his paper. “Ah, here’s something about it--a long article!” he added. “I hadn’t seen it before. It looks very serious. Tell us all about it.” Ida needed no urging, for she was full of her subject. “Oh, it was terrible!” she exclaimed, shuddering. “Helga Lund had been perfectly wonderful all through the first and second acts. I don’t know when I have been so thrilled. But soon after the third act began she stopped right in the middle of an impassioned speech and stared fixedly into the audience, apparently at some one in one of the front rows of the orchestra. “I’m afraid I can’t describe her look. It seemed to express merely recollection and loathing at first, as if she had recognized a face which had very disagreeable associations. Then her expression--as I read it, at any rate--swiftly changed to one of frightened appeal, and then it jumped to one of pure harrowing terror. “My heart stopped, and the whole theater was as still as a death chamber--at least, the audience was. Afterward I realized that the actor who was on the stage with her at the time had been improvising something in an effort to cover up her lapse; but I don’t believe anybody paid any attention to him, any more than she did. Her chin dropped, her eyes were wild and seemed ready to burst from their sockets. She put both hands to her breast, and then raised one and passed it over her forehead in a dazed sort of way. She staggered, and I believe she would have fallen if her lover in the play hadn’t supported her. “The curtain had started to descend, when she seemed to pull herself together. She pushed the poor actor aside with a strength that sent him spinning, and began to speak. Her voice had lost all of its wonderful music, however, and was rough and rasping. Her grace was gone, too--Heaven only knows how! She was positively awkward. And her words--they couldn’t have had anything to do with her part. They were incoherent ravings. The curtain had started to go up again. Evidently, the stage manager had thought the crisis was past when she began to speak. But when she only made matters worse, it came down with a rush. After a maddening delay, her manager came out, looking wild enough himself, and announced, with many apologies, that Miss Lund had suffered a temporary nervous breakdown.