Not the least curious of the conditions which he began to note as he grew to feel more at home behind the scenes was the strange, almost psychic influence which Mortimer appeared to have over Sybil Merivale. Almost one might have believed that he hypnotized her; only there was nothing about him that suggested abnormal spiritual powers, and the girl herself was neither morbid nor weak. Barrison, now at liberty to roam about “behind” as he willed, overheard Miss Merivale one day talking to Claire McAllister, the extra woman. “Say, I heard him ordering you about to-day as if he had a mortgage on you,” said Claire, who was practical and pugnacious. “What do you let him play the grand mogul with you for?” “I don’t believe I can make you understand,” said Sybil, breathing quickly, “but I don’t seem able to disobey him. When he looks at me I—it sometimes seems as if I couldn’t think quite straight.” “D’you mean,” demanded Claire McAllister sharply, “that you’re in love with him?” Sybil flushed indignantly. “That’s just what I do not mean!” she exclaimed. “Can’t you see the difference? I—I hate him, I tell you! It’s something outside that, but—but it frightens me. Sometimes it seems, when I meet his eyes, that I can’t move—that he can make me do what he likes.” She shivered and hid her face in her hands. “It’s _that_ which makes me so frightened,” she whispered in a broken way. The extra girl regarded her curiously, then hunched her shoulders in the way of extra girls when they wish to indicate a shrug of indifference. “Well,” she remarked cheerily, “when little Morty takes the last high fall, we’ll look round to see if there wasn’t a certain lady handy to give him the extra shove.” Sybil turned on her quickly. “What do you mean?” she cried. “What do you mean by that?” Miss McAllister stared in surprise. “Sa-ay!” she remonstrated. “I was just kiddin’! Say, you didn’t suppose I thought you were goin’ to murder the guy, did you?” Sybil was rather white. “Awfully silly of me!” she apologized. “Only—sometimes I’ve felt as though——And it sounded awful, coming from some one else like that.” “Sometimes felt—what?” “As though—I almost—could!” She turned abruptly and walked away. Barrison, standing leaning against a piece of scenery, felt a hand upon his arm. He looked around into the agitated face of Norman Crane. The boy had heard just what he himself had heard, and the effect thereof was written large upon his handsome, honest young countenance. “Think of her—think of Sybil up against that!” he whispered huskily. “And me able to do nothing! Oh, it’s too unspeakably rotten, that’s what it is! If I could just wring that bounder’s neck, and be done with it——”