Everyone had waited in the dressing-room to hear the result of her interview, and a salvo of “Well’s” and “Did you fix anything?” was fired from the expectant circle. “I’d rather not say,” she answered evasively. “He particularly said I mustn’t mention it to anyone.” These were brave words, and brave also was the gaiety of the song she sang as she left the theatre. But that night, after the gas had been turned out in the lodging she shared with another girl, Eunice Terry found herself crying, and seemed in no great likelihood of stopping. Flora Wayne, her companion, heard the sobs in her sleep, and, instantly sitting bolt upright and wide awake, as only a woman can, demanded what was the matter. Whereupon Mary Kent forgot that she was Eunice Terry, and whimpered with piteous grief, because she hadn’t got on and didn’t understand why Mr. Cardomay should have sent for her and given her nothing. “Why don’t I get on?” asked the tear-stained one pathetically. And Flora, like the fool she undoubtedly was, whispered various reasons by which, according to her study of human beings, it appeared that to rise upon the stage was only possible for those who consented to fall in other ways. “It’s the only way to get a start,” said Flora. “Because I wouldn’t take it is why I have always stuck where I am.” And having sown the canker of this perilous seed in the fertile soil of the silly little brain beside her, Flora turned over and continued her broken sleep. But Eunice lay awake and turned the matter over in her mind. It was a disturbing thought that art and virtue could never be allied, and she wondered very deeply if it were so, approaching the subject as fearfully as a child with a strange dog. She had been in Mr. Cardomay’s company four months when this mental crisis occurred, and during these months Henry Churchill, to bury the sorrow of her loss, had plunged himself so deeply into work at the Real Estate Agent’s, that he had attracted the favourable attention of his superiors. One bright day he was sent for to the inner office, where he found Mr. Robins, senior partner of the firm of Robins, Robins and Crusoe, who informed him of their intention of starting a new branch at Lancingdon and placing him in charge, as manager, with a salary of two hundred and fifty a year and a commission on business transacted. This momentous interview took place on the day before Henry Churchill’s annual holiday, and it was not unnatural, after a night’s rest in which he set his mind in order, he should have packed a bag and after studying a theatrical paper hastened off to the town where his Mary was playing, to tell her the wonderful news and seek to rescue her from the paths of unrighteousness and sin.