On the stage matters were approaching a climax. Lord Bromley was making an excellent lover, as was proved by the fact that the audience was taking him seriously instead of laughing through the love scenes as usual. "Cynthia," he implored, "say that you will be mine, and I will brave all for your sake. I will follow you to the ends of the earth." He gazed tenderly into her eyes, and waited for the crash. A silence as of the tomb prevailed, and he continued to gaze tenderly, while a grin rapidly spread over the audience. "Hang Patty!" he murmured savagely. "Might have known she'd do something like this.--What was that? Did you hear a noise?" he asked aloud. "No," said Cynthia, truthfully; "I did not hear anything." "Pretend you did," he whispered, and they continued to improvise. After some five minutes of hopeless floundering, the prompter got them back on the track again, and the act proceeded, with the audience happily unaware that anything was missing. Ten minutes later Lord Bromley was declaiming: "Cynthia, let us flee this place. Its dark rooms haunt me; its silence oppresses me--" And the crash came. For the first moment the audience was too startled to notice that the actors were also taken by surprise. Then Lord Bromley, who was getting used to emergencies, pulled himself together and ejaculated, "Hark! What was that sound?" "I think it was a crash," said Cynthia. He grasped her hand and ran back toward the balcony. "Give us our lines," he said to the prompter, as he went past. The prompter had dropped the book, and couldn't find the place. "Make them up," came in a piercing whisper from behind the balcony. A silence ensued while the two dashed back and forth, looking excitedly up and down the stage. Then the despairing Lord Bromley stretched out his arms in a gesture of supplication. "Cynthia," he burst out in tones of realistic longing, "I cannot bear this horrible suspense. Let us flee." And they fled, fully three pages too early, forgetting to leave the letter which should have apprised the Irate Parent of the circumstance. Georgie was tramping up and down the wings, wringing her hands and lamenting the day that ever Patty had been born. "Hurry up that Parent before they stop clapping," said Lord Bromley, "and they'll never know the difference." The poor old man, with his wig over one ear, was unceremoniously hustled on to the stage, where he raved up and down and swore never to forgive his ungrateful daughter in so realistic a manner that the audience forgot to wonder how he found it out. In due time the runaways returned from the notary's, overcame the old man's harshness, received the parental blessing, and the curtain fell on a scene of domestic felicity that delighted the freshmen in the gallery. Patty crawled out from under the balcony and fell on her knees at Georgie's feet.