“Well well,” said Macneillie with a patient shrug of the shoulders, “it all comes in the day’s work. You will understand now how to render Claudio’s words ‘Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.’” Ralph thought it extremely obnoxious of the Manchester folk to have petitioned for a performance of “Much ado about Nothing” on this particular day, and though he acted Claudio very well it was always to him an uncongenial character. Macneillie’s Benedick was however considered one of his best parts and though perhaps he enjoyed playing it as little just then as Ralph enjoyed going through the wedding scene on the eve of his own marriage, he was the last man to let his private feelings interfere with his work either as actor or as manager. The play was carefully rendered, and after a most uncomfortable rush and scramble, Ralph, thanks chiefly to the help of his many friends in the company, found himself at the station just as the Scotch mail steamed up to the platform. Whether Macneillie would arrive in time seemed doubtful, however as the guard’s whistle sounded he emerged from the booking office, and with his usual imperturbably grave face sprang in while the train moved off. Ivy Grant and Myra Brinton had packed up a most tempting little supper for the two and had taken care to see that it was not forgotten in the hurry of the last moment; and Macneillie, who always retained the power of enjoying a holiday under any circumstances, proved a very genial companion until the advent of another passenger at Crewe, when they relapsed into silence and settled down to sleep. The night was stormy; torrents of rain washed the windows, and the wind howled and moaned as the train sped on through the darkness. Ralph tried in vain to follow the example of his two companions who, quite oblivious of their surroundings slept composedly through all the din. He was far too much excited to lose consciousness even for a minute. The carriage lamp was shaded and, in the dim light, visions of Evereld kept rising before him. She was a little girl once more, in a black frock, and with soft, bright hair falling about her shoulders. “Are you not hungry?” she said to him confidentially as they stood together, strangers and yet somehow already friends, in a drearily grand London drawing-room. Again she was sitting beside him on the stairs, a fairylike little figure in white, eating ice pudding supplied to them by the goodnatured Geraghty. “I somehow think your father and mine will be talking together to-night?” she said, her sweet blue eyes looking as though they could see right into that spirit world of which she spoke.