Strangely comforted, and looking to see if we were alone, I dropped a tiny kiss on his rough cheek, and ran in gaily, wiping my eyes as I went. That night I sang my little song with renewed feeling, and ended to a burst of applause. As I was standing at the wings, flushed and radiant, a note was put into my hand. I opened it, and read: “_You are in danger. Don’t go home._” I never learned who had sent it; some one, probably, from amongst the few friends I could still number in that wicked household. It had been handed in at the stage door by a messenger, and that was all I could discover. The lights of my triumph were darkened. I knew myself at last hunted--and alone. Why had I not bid my monster wait for me? But it were idle now to moan. Despair gave me readiness. I finished my part quite brilliantly, without a stumble, and chatted gaily, while disrobing, with the poor pretty little _coryphée_ who was my chief friend in the dressing-rooms. By one pretext or another I detained her until we were alone. Then, “Fanny,” I said, “keep mum; but I think it unlikely I shall come here again.” She looked at me with her large grey eyes. We were much of a figure, and not unlike in features. “O, Miss Rush!” she whispered. “And I’d ’oped always to ’ave you for a friend.” “So you shall, Fanny,” I said: “but there are contingencies--you understand?” Her lip was trembling. I think she wanted to tell me to keep good. “And so,” I said hastily, “as I have liked you so, I want to exchange little presents with you, as a remembrance, if you will.” The poor child had often cast admiring eyes on a calash which it was my habit to wear to the theatre, and which was indeed a very becoming thing of crimson velvet and cherry-coloured lining, with a frame of costly fur to the face. It had been given me by Bob, and certainly nothing short of my present desperation would have brought me to part with it; but it was, more than anything I wore of late, associated with me; and necessity has no conscience. Fanny’s eyes sparkled against her will, as I held the thing out to her. “O no, miss!” she entreated; “it’s too good for me, and I can’t give you nothing the same in exchange.” “You shall give me your neckerchief,” I said; and, cutting the discussion short, drove her away at length, with her pretty face in the hood, and tears in her eyes. I gave her five minutes’ start, then followed her out, with a brain as hot as my heart was shivering. “They must discover their mistake very soon,” I thought, “and will be returning on their tracks.” However, I reached home, running by byways, in safety; and there, quite unnerved now the terror was passed, threw myself into Patty’s arms and told her everything. She was the sweet, simple counsel and consoler she always was to grief, and distressed me only by some concern she could not help showing for the fate of Fanny.