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 the sort who pauperized others as well as himself. And he had an idea of what was coming.

“Nell Grosvenor is going to marry that stockbrokin' johnny next week,” went on Gwendolyn; “what's his name?—oh, yes—Madison, and she's goin' to quit the stage straight off.”

“Who's going to substitute for her?” asked Tollemache; and then the answer which he expected—and feared:

“I am—if you'll come through with a bit of the ready. You know how it is in the profession. A girl hasn't got a chance unless she slips something to the manager—and …”

“But, my dear!” expostulated Tollemache. “I haven't a red, you know, and I'm head-over-heels in debts, and …”

“If you can't, Reggie Bullivant will!” came Gwendolyn's terse, brutal rejoinder.

The result was that Tollemache Wade paid another and humiliating call on Sam Lewis, the usurer of Lombard Street, and, by signing a note for fifteen thousand guineas, received five thousand in cash and the remaining ten thousand in champagne and unsalable rugs; that Gwendolyn de Vere appeared the next week in Nell Grosvenor's rôle, coming on in the first act as an English milkmaid, a posy of property daisies in her hand, dressed in a simple little milking-costume of rose madder charmeuse and a diamond tiara; and that, early in September, Mr. Sam Lewis went to Sussex and interviewed the Earl of Dealle.

He came prepared for the usual scene: hard words,