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 brutal piece of work—to merely hint that some other woman might be coming more intimately into his life than this trustful, jolly-hearted companion. But it was honest and it must, therefore, be done.

Hampstead summoned grimly all his resolution and dipped his pen in ink.

"Dear Bessie," he wrote, and then his pen stopped, and an itching sensation came into the corners of his eyes and a lump into his throat.

Presently he laid the pen down as resolutely as he had taken it up. He could not write Bessie out of his life, after all; at least not like that. Instead he wrote a letter that was a lie, or that started out to be a lie; but the surprising thing to Hampstead was that while he wrote, visioning Bessie at home in Los Angeles, rose-embowered, or walking to school beneath rows of palms, he was himself transported to Los Angeles, and the letter was not false. He was back again in the old life, and Bessie was an interesting and necessary part of it.

Yet he found he could not seal himself into the old life when he closed the flap of the envelope. The moment the letter was mailed, his mind went irresistibly back to Marien, whom it was a part of his plan to see that very day. This was possible because Mowrey rehearsals were long and somewhat painful affairs.

Hurrying from the Sampson Stock, at the end of his own rehearsal, John was able to cross the bay and reach the Grand Opera House while Mowrey's people were still wearily at work, and to make his way apparently unseen through the huge, gloomy auditorium to a box which was deep in shadow, as boxes usually are at rehearsal time.

Marien was "on", and the big fellow's heart leaped at the sound of her voice; yet presently it stood still again, for his jealous ear had detected a disquieting note