In the midst of it, Aleppo Mendez put his head in the door and asked what had Jack done with his partner's program? Jack, not discovering it in his pocket, very much vexed at being interrupted, went to look for it with Aleppo in the supper-room, and I was left alone. For a few moments I sat listening to the music. Then this ended with a soft chord, and on the other side of the curtain I heard the quick rustling of a girl's frock, and a girl's voice, "Just wait, I must put one more hair-pin in it or it never will stay up." I recognized Estrella's tones. There was a little pause, and then, evidently resuming the main thread of her discourse she went on, "Of course, as I was saying, it was awfully brave of her to do it, but how could she! Why, if I had been in such a position just thinking what it would have meant to him, I know I couldn't have made a sound!" "Well, if I could I wouldn't have!" It was Laura speaking with great bitterness. "It wasn't as if she had to tell. She was the only one in the city who saw it. No one would have known anything if only she had held her tongue!" "Oh, but," Estrella broke in, in a deprecating voice, "it was an awful thing he did!" "Oh, was it?" Laura retorted scornfully, "Lots of men do the same thing and aren't so very bad; and lots more would do it if they dared. Just because he is handsomer and braver and has a higher temper than most, lots of people hate him. And because Ellie Fenwick is little and looks young, and every one was saying how pale and pathetic she looked and how convincing it was, the way she told her story, oh, I heard the talk all around the court room!--she just worked on the sympathies of the jury! It wasn't justice that convicted him! It was Ellie Fenwick!" I sat perfectly still, grasping my cold little ice-cream plate in one hand, not hearing anything more, not even seeming to think, until I heard Jack Tracy's voice beside me. "Good Heavens! what's the matter?" And then, calling out in absurd alarm, "Don't faint, don't faint!" "I am not going to faint," I said, though I had a very strange feeling of floating, and his face looked a little misty to me. "I want to go home. Get me a carriage!" "But you're ill! Let me call Estrella." I caught hold of his sleeve. "Don't say a word to her! Don't dare, promise me!" I shook his sleeve fiercely. He looked quite scared. "Get me a carriage," I said, "and mind you don't say anything to any one until I have gone. Then you can tell Estrella that I was feeling ill and decided to go home." CHAPTER X A LIGHT IN THE DARK Fortunately it was late, after midnight, and a few early ones, dragged away by their fathers and mothers, were already going; and muffled in my long cloak and lace scarf I managed to slip out in the wake of a group of these--hoping they would not notice my being alone--and into my carriage, evading Jack's insistence that he must see me home by shutting the door in his face.