He was thinking confusedly of many things. It was hard to think at all. One of the stage hands whistled a waltz that people liked. The melody caught at Mark’s mind and drew it away from the moment, forward and back. He hunted justice. Things went wrong. People weren’t kind. Next week the new play would glitter and people would applaud. Gurdy might come to write plays, the best possible plays. He watched the wreck melt. People would forget this. It would sink into shadow. No one would understand but they would forget. It was trivial in his long success. It horribly hurt him. He had been fooled in love. It was laughable. Things happened so. One must go on and forget about them. One of the horses neighed and stamped. A blue spark jetted up from the pavement, above a pool. “Here goes nothin’,” a stage hand yelled, letting down the last screen. The iron shutter closed over the laughter. The carters whined and the drays were backed down the alley. The rain fell silently between Mark the red of the wall making it purple--a wonderful colour. The guiding lights went out. Mark sighed and took Gurdy’s arm. They walked together toward the gleaming crowd of the street. Yet feeling this warmth beside him Mark walked without much pain. THE END TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fair Rewards, by Thomas Beer