The last rehearsal was over, a tedious dressrehearsal which had lasted all day and exhaustedthe patience of every one who had to do with it.When Hilda had dressed for the street andcame out of her dressing-room, she foundHugh MacConnell waiting for her in the corridor.

"The fog's thicker than ever, Hilda.There have been a great many accidents to-day.It's positively unsafe for you to be out alone.Will you let me take you home?"

"How good of you, Mac. If you are going with me,I think I'd rather walk. I've had no exercise to-day,and all this has made me nervous."

"I shouldn't wonder," said MacConnell dryly.Hilda pulled down her veil and they steppedout into the thick brown wash that submergedSt. Martin's Lane. MacConnell took her handand tucked it snugly under his arm."I'm sorry I was such a savage. I hopeyou didn't think I made an ass of myself."

"Not a bit of it. I don't wonder you werepeppery. Those things are awfully trying.How do you think it's going?"

"Magnificently. That's why I got so stirred up.We are going to hear from this, both of us.And that reminds me; I've got news for you.They are going to begin repairs on thetheatre about the middle of March,and we are to run over to New York for six weeks.Bennett told me yesterday that it was decided."

Hilda looked up delightedly at the tallgray figure beside her. He was the only thingshe could see, for they were moving througha dense opaqueness, as if they were walkingat the bottom of the ocean.

"Oh, Mac, how glad I am! And theylove your things over there, don't they?"

"Shall you be glad for--any other reason, Hilda?"

MacConnell put his hand in front of her to wardoff some dark object. It proved to be only a lamp-post,and they beat in farther from the edge of the pavement.

"What do you mean, Mac?" Hilda askednervously.

"I was just thinking there might be peopleover there you'd be glad to see," he broughtout awkwardly. Hilda said nothing, and asthey walked on MacConnell spoke again,apologetically: "I hope you don't mindmy knowing about it, Hilda. Don't stiffen uplike that. No one else knows, and I didn't tryto find out anything. I felt it, even beforeI knew who he was. I knew there was somebody,and that it wasn't I."

They crossed Oxford Street in silence,feeling their way. The busses had stoppedrunning and the cab-drivers were leadingtheir horses. When they reached the other side,MacConnell said suddenly, "I hope you are happy."

"Terribly, dangerously happy, Mac,"--Hilda spoke quietly, pressing the rough sleeveof his greatcoat with her gloved hand.

"You've always thought me too old foryou, Hilda,--oh, of course you've never saidjust that,--and here this fellow is not morethan eight years younger than I. I've alwaysfelt that if I could get out of my old case Imight win you yet. It's a fine, brave youthI carry inside me, only he'll never be seen."

"Nonsense, Mac. That has nothing to do with it.It's because you seem too close to me,too much my own kind. It would be likemarrying Cousin Mike, almost. I really triedto care as you wanted me to, away back in the beginning."

"Well, here we are, turning out of the Square.You are not angry with me, Hilda? Thank youfor this walk, my dear. Go in and get dry thingson at once. You'll be having a great night to-morrow."

She put out her hand. "Thank you, Mac,for everything. Good-night."

MacConnell trudged off through the fog,and she went slowly upstairs. Her slippersand dressing gown were waiting for herbefore the fire. "I shall certainly see himin New York. He will see by the papers thatwe are coming. Perhaps he knows it already,"Hilda kept thinking as she undressed. "Perhaps he will be at the dock. No, scarcelythat; but I may meet him in the street evenbefore he comes to see me." Marie placed thetea-table by the fire and brought Hilda her letters.She looked them over, and started as she cameto one in a handwriting that she did not often see;Alexander had written to her only twice before,and he did not allow her to write to him at all."Thank you, Marie. You may go now."

Hilda sat down by the table with theletter in her hand, still unopened. She lookedat it intently, turned it over, and felt itsthickness with her fingers. She believed thatshe sometimes had a kind of second-sightabout letters, and could tell before she readthem whether they brought good or evil tidings.She put this one down on the table in frontof her while she poured her tea. At last,with a little shiver of expectancy,she tore open the envelope and read:--

Boston, February--MY DEAR HILDA:--

It is after twelve o'clock. Every one elseis in bed and I am sitting alone in my study.I have been happier in this room than anywhereelse in the world. Happiness like that makesone insolent. I used to think these four wallscould stand against anything. And now Iscarcely know myself here. Now I knowthat no one can build his security upon thenobleness of another person. Two people,when they love each other, grow alike in theirtastes and habits and pride, but their moralnatures (whatever we may mean by thatcanting expression) are never welded. Thebase one goes on being base, and the nobleone noble, to the end.

The last week has been a bad one; I have beenrealizing how things used to be with me.Sometimes I get used to being dead inside,but lately it has been as if a windowbeside me had suddenly opened, and as if allthe smells of spring blew in to me. There isa garden out there, with stars overhead, whereI used to walk at night when I had a singlepurpose and a single heart. I can rememberhow I used to feel there, how beautifuleverything about me was, and what life andpower and freedom I felt in myself. When thewindow opens I know exactly how it wouldfeel to be out there. But that garden is closedto me. How is it, I ask myself, that everythingcan be so different with me when nothing herehas changed? I am in my own house, in my own study, in themidst of all these quiet streets where my friends live.They are all safe and at peace with themselves.But I am never at peace. I feel always on the edgeof danger and change.

I keep remembering locoed horses I usedto see on the range when I was a boy.They changed like that. We used to catch themand put them up in the corral, and they developedgreat cunning. They would pretend to eat their oatslike the other horses, but we knew they were alwaysscheming to get back at the loco.

It seems that a man is meant to live onlyone life in this world. When he tries to live asecond, he develops another nature. I feel asif a second man had been grafted into me.At first he seemed only a pleasure-lovingsimpleton, of whose company I was rather ashamed,and whom I used to hide under my coatwhen I walked the Embankment, in London.But now he is strong and sullen, and he isfighting for his life at the cost of mine.That is his one activity: to grow strong.No creature ever wanted so much to live.Eventually, I suppose, he will absorb me altogether.Believe me, you will hate me then.

And what have you to do, Hilda, withthis ugly story? Nothing at all. The little boydrank of the prettiest brook in the forest andhe became a stag. I write all this because Ican never tell it to you, and because it seemsas if I could not keep silent any longer. Andbecause I suffer, Hilda. If any one I lovedsuffered like this, I'd want to know it. Helpme, Hilda!

B.A.