“O for a heart from self set free

And doubt and fret and care,

Light as a bird, instinct with glee,

That fans the breezy air.

“O for a mind whose virtue moulds

All sensuous fair display,

And, like a strong commander, holds

A world of thoughts in sway!”

Professor Blackie

What has happened to Evereld?” said Ivy that morning, as Myra graciously cut out for her a second pattern of the sleeve which she wanted. “I have been to see her and it was like hurling words at a stone wall. I couldn’t have imagined that she would ever be like that.”

“Oh, you have just been in there,” said Myra reflectively. “I am sorry you went to-day.”

“What has come over her?” said Ivy. “She seemed almost to dislike me.”

“I think she was a little upset by something she had heard,” said Myra, handing the pattern to her visitor.

“What can she have heard that should make her different to me?” said Ivy hotly.

“Well, my dear,” said Myra with a swift glance at her, “you know people are beginning to say that you run after Mr. Denmead, and I daresay she knows that you cared for him when we were in Scotland. Though very innocent she can hardly help putting two and two together, and it is but natural that she should resent your making friends with her for the sake of being able to go about constantly with her husband. You made a mistake in professing such a very violent friendship for her.”

“It is all a horrible lie,” cried Ivy, crimson with anger and distress. “No wonder she hates me if she believes me to be such a hypocrite as that! I was her friend—but I never will be again, no, nor Ralph’s either. Oh! they will discuss it all and talk me over! and I believe it’s your doing. You told her this lie. How I hate you! how I hate you!”

Like a little fury she flung into the fire the pattern which Myra had just cut out for her, and was gone before her companion could get in a single word.

Down the street she sped, looking prettier than ever because her eyes were still bright with indignation and her cheeks aglow at the recollection of what had passed. As ill luck would have it, just as she reached the quiet road in which she was lodging with Helen Orme, she came suddenly face to face with Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes.

“I had been to inquire if you were in, and to try and persuade you to come and skate this afternoon,” he said eagerly. “The ice in the park will bear they say. Do come.”

“But I never skated in my life,” said Ivy.

“I’ll teach you, I am sure you would learn in a very little while, and it is just the sort of thing you would do to perfection.”

As he spoke a sudden thought darted into Ivy’s mind. Here was a man who for some time had seriously annoyed her by persistent attentions which she did not want. She would now change her tactics, would carry on a desperate flirtation with him, and show these detestable gossips that they were quite in the wrong. As for the Denmeads she would avoid them as much as possible, and to Myra she would not vouchsafe a single word, no—not though they shared dressing-rooms!

All this passed through her mind while Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes was assuring her that she would skate like one to the manner born.

“I don’t think I can go,” she said hesitatingly. “For one thing I have no skates, and then——”

“I will manage the skates if only you will just come and try,” he said persuasively, and after a little more discussion Ivy consented, and the Honorable Bertie in the seventh heaven of happiness hurried away into the High Street, there to procure the most dainty little pair of skates that the place could supply, while Ivy, forgetting her anger in the satisfaction of her new scheme, ran in to make a hasty meal, and to put on the prettiest walking-dress and hat she possessed.

Late in the afternoon, Ralph and George Mowbray bicycling back from Brookfield Castle dismounted for a few minutes to watch the skaters in the park, and to speculate as to the chances of the ice for the next day.

“Hullo!” exclaimed Ralph, suddenly perceiving a graceful little figure skimming past under the guidance of a tall fair-haired man, “Why there’s Ivy Grant pioneered by the Honorable Bertie! Wonders will never cease.”

“So she has caved in at last,” said George Mowbray with a laugh, “having snubbed him all these months I thought she would have contrived to send him about his business. How cock-a-hoop he does look!”

It was quite patent to every one after this that Ivy’s objections to Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes were a thing of the past. She accepted every votive offering he brought her, skated with him at every available opportunity, and listened in the most flattering way to his extremely vapid talk. For each inch she granted him he was ready enough to seize an ell, and Macneillie who had no confidence at all in the character of his wealthy amateur, soon saw that things must be promptly checked.

“My dear,” he said one day to Evereld when their stay at Marden-town was drawing to a close. “I wish you would somehow contrive to give Ivy Grant a hint; she is going on very foolishly with Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes, and it is quite impossible that she can really have any regard for him.”

“I can’t manage to get hold of her,” said Evereld sighing. “She won’t come here and see me, but always makes some excuse.”

“Well, I shall get rid of Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes then,” said Macneillie. “He has been an insufferable nuisance ever since he came. Would you believe it—he actually had the presumption to grumble because Ralph was to play Hamlet! I believe he seriously thinks he would do it much better himself! The conceit of that fellow beats everything I ever knew. You should have seen his face when he found that he was cast for Rosencrantz! It was a picture!”

“I never can understand why you yourself don’t play Hamlet,” said Evereld. “You would do it splendidly.”

“Ralph understands,” said Macneillie a shade crossing his face. “He will tell you why it is.”

There was silence for some minutes. Then, as though shaking himself free from thoughts he did not wish to dwell upon, Macneillie began to pace the room and to consider how best to rid the company of the undesirable presence of the Honorable Bertie.

“I have it!” he exclaimed,—suddenly bursting into a fit of laughter. “Great Scott! That will be the very thing!” he rubbed his hands with keen satisfaction, chuckling to himself in high glee over the thought of the fun he anticipated. “Come to the theatre to-night, my dear, and I will treat you to a new transformation scene which, if I’m not mistaken, will bring down the house. But mind, not a word of it to any one beforehand.”

It was not only his fellow actors who objected to the Honorable Bertie, he was detested by the stage carpenters and scene shifters, not so much because of his conceit as because he had an objectionable habit of being always in the way. For the past week they had been giving a play in which he took the part of a dragoon guard and though the insignificance of the character chafed him sorely, he found some consolation in the knowledge that in uniform he presented a really splendid appearance.

Now it chanced that there was a property chair used in this play of remarkably comfortable proportions, and the Honorable Bertie being long and lazy invariably lounged at his ease in this chair between the acts, for he had no change of dress and no opportunity of amusing himself with Ivy just in the intervals because she happened to have rather elaborate changes.

Macneillie, who was his own Stage Manager, had for some time observed the cool disregard shown by the amateur of the peremptory call of “Clear!” on the part of his Assistant stage manager. Deaf to the order Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes invariably took his ease in the big chair, lazily watching the busy workers with an air of irritating superiority.

“I think I shall cure him of this little habit,” reflected Macneillie with a smile, and seizing a moment when his victim was the only person visible on the stage he suddenly rang up the curtain.

A roar of laughter rose from the audience, for there in full view sat the Honorable Bertie with his legs dangling in unconventional comfort over the arm of the chair.

He sprang to his feet in horror, dashed to the practicable door at the back of the stage deeming it his nearest escape, forgot that he still wore his guard’s helmet, crashed it violently against the lintel, and by the time he had staggered back, and with lowered crest disappeared behind the scenes, left the house in convulsions of merriment.

The curtain descended again, and the Honorable Bertie choking with rage contemplated his battered helmet with a fiery face, and vowed vengeance on Macneillie, but had not the sense to join in the laughter which even Ivy could not suppress, do what she would. The sight of her mirth put the last touch to his wrath, and at the close of the performance he had an angry interview with the manager who, as he furiously declared, had made him ridiculous before the whole house.

“The curtain was rung up too early,” admitted Macneillie. “But the order had been given to clear the stage; you persistently disregard that order every night and must take the consequences.”

“I will not stay another day in your d——d company,” said the Honorable Bertie, fuming.

Macneillie bowed in acquiescence; gravely assured the Earl’s son that a cheque for the amount of his weekly salary should be sent the next day to his hotel, and bade him good evening. Perhaps Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes did not quite like to be so promptly taken at his own word, perhaps the quiet dignity of Macneillie’s manner was too much for him; the threats and denunciations he longed to pour forth somehow stuck in his throat, and with a muttered oath he took his departure, leaving Macneillie well satisfied with the result of his stratagem.

Three days after, the company moved on to Gloucester, Ivy however had made the Business Manager put her in a different railway carriage from the Denmeads with whom she usually travelled, and Evereld could only contrive to exchange a few words with her at the station.

The following week when they went to Bath matters seemed rather more favourable. Ralph who had a great liking for the old theatre there with its many memories, declared that it was the most interesting theatre in England, and Evereld, partly for the sake of seeing it, partly with the hope of patching up the quarrel, went with him on the Monday morning to rehearsal.

The play was “The Merchant of Venice” and fortune favoured her, for Ivy had not a great deal to do, and quickly yielded to the gentle kindly manner of Ralph’s wife. Together they laughed over Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes’ discomfiture, and agreed that it was a great relief to be well quit of him; then, as the rehearsal bid fair to be a lengthy one, Ivy ran out to buy Bath buns at Fort’s and handed them impartially to all present including Myra, and Evereld began to think that things would soon come straight once more.

“Do come in to tea with me to-day,” she begged. “I shall be alone for hours for they mean to go through some of Hamlet this afternoon for Ralph’s sake, and I shall be going to London next week you know for some time.”

It was difficult to resist the friendly look in her eyes, and Ivy consented to come, arriving soon after four at the rooms in Kingsmead Terrace in a somewhat silent mood. However tea and a good laugh over the vagaries of Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes soon thawed her.

“I only wish I had never flirted with him,” she said regretfully. “All the time I hated and despised him.”

“What made you do it then?” said Evereld.

Ivy crimsoned.

“It was Myra’s fault. I believe she was in league with him. When I found that she had told you such a lie about me, I thought I would show everyone how false it was.”

“But I knew it to be false almost directly,” said Evereld. “It was only for an hour or so, before there had been time to think things over that I believed it, dear. Indeed if I had been well and strong I don’t think I should have believed it for a moment.”

To her surprise Ivy suddenly broke down and began to sob.

“Oh,” she said, “I am so dreadfully alone in the world! I don’t think I can do without you two.”

“Why should you do without us?” said Evereld. “I hope you are not going to punish me any more for having been cold and repellent the other day? Ralph and I shall always want you to be our friend.”

“But how can I be your friend when all these days you have been discussing me?”

“We haven’t discussed you. Ralph has never heard one word of what Myra said. The only thing he did say was that he thought you did not realise the sort of man Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes really was, or you would be more careful. Of course he can’t help knowing, too, that you have quarrelled with Myra, because you don’t speak to her.”

“I am going to tell you just the whole truth,” said Ivy, drying her eyes and looking straight up at Evereld with an air of resolute courage that made her winsome little face actually beautiful. “I did love Ralph once. At first he was just a sort of hero to me, but in Scotland when we were all so miserable and he was always trying to help me, then I began to love him; and when the Skoots disappeared and left us stranded at Forres I couldn’t bear to be parted from him and let him see that I cared. I knew he understood; for he showed me that it would not do for us to stay together when the company dispersed, and he told me how he cared for you, not of course saying your name, but I knew he meant you. At first it made me angry and miserable, but I liked him so for being true, and for speaking straightforwardly as very few men do to women; and always he made me feel that he respected me and liked and trusted me. When later on the Brintons told me he was engaged to you I was able to be glad of it—I was indeed; and when Myra told me the other day that you believed such a lie about me, and I guessed at once it was all her doing—why it seemed as if she had trodden under foot the very best part of me, and afterwards I didn’t much care what I did. I think I could almost have married Mr. Vane-Ffoulkes.”

“That would have been an awful fate,” said Evereld with a shudder, as she realised how much harm her ready suspicions had done. “Ivy dear, you must promise me never to let anyone come between us again. Ralph and I are always your friends—do believe that once for all, or I shall never feel at rest about you.”

They kissed each other warmly and the misunderstanding was quite at an end, leaving them much closer friends than they had been before. To set things straight with Myra Brinton would probably not prove so easy, but Evereld was very anxious to effect a reconciliation before she went to London.

Partly with a view to this, and partly because she had not yet seen the “Merchant of Venice” she got Ralph to take her that night behind the scenes.

Unlike so many of the modern theatres the old theatre at Bath in which Mrs. Siddons had often acted in former days could boast a comfortable green room, and here, she and Ralph and Helen Orme did their best to draw Ivy and Myra Brinton into more pleasant relations.

Ivy might have been persuaded to relent, but Myra withdrew into a shell of cold reserve which made Ralph think of the days when he had first known her at Dumfries. She looked on with chilling surprise and disapproval while Evereld chatted in a friendly fashion with Ivy, and quite refused to join in the general conversation. While all the rest were pinning each other’s draperies she stood by the fireplace busily occupied with her powder-puff, apparently quite self-engrossed, but in reality noting with jealous pangs the easy good fellowship of her fellow artists and the expression of Ralph’s face as he talked with Evereld and Ivy. She made up her mind to hold entirely aloof and show how she despised them all, and it proved quite impossible to make any way with her.

Evereld made one last effort in the interval after the third act when Myra, looking extremely handsome in her lawyer’s cap and gown came into the green room ready for the Trial scene, and Ivy, in good spirits after receiving much applause for her sprightly rendering of Jessica’s part, was quite disposed to break the silence which had now lasted so long between them. But as it takes two to make a quarrel it also takes two to make an atonement, and Mrs. Brinton calmly turned her back upon the girl and sailed across the room to the inevitable powder-box.

“I don’t care,” said Ivy under her breath as she shrugged her shoulders and left the room. “If it pleases her to go about with a black dog on her back, let her! Now you are going to stand at the wings, Evereld, and enjoy the Trial scene; you will have a capital view of it just from here. As for me, I shall run up and change for my moonlight scene. Au revoir!”

She felt in a mischievous mood, resenting Myra’s absurd behaviour, and yet too much pleased by her good reception and by the satisfaction of being on comfortable terms with Ralph and Evereld again to be exactly angry.

“I will dress quickly and run down before Myra comes up for her next change,” she reflected. “It is just hateful sharing a dressing-room with anyone when you are not on speaking terms. I wish Mr. Macneillie would have let her have the ‘Star’ room, but he always will keep the one nearest the stage for himself whether it is good or bad. Bother! there’s not room to swing a cat in this place! I wish they would give us more decent rooms.” Jessica’s dress required a great deal of pinning and draping. It was by no means easy to dispose of the long trailing fold of light Liberty silk, and Ivy was in an impatient mood. Suddenly as she tossed the end of a bit of light gauze drapery over her shoulder it caught by some mischance in the gas jet from which she had, against rules, removed the guard while curling her fringe. In an instant it was flaring all about her, and wild with fright she found it impossible to free herself from its serpent like coils.

Presence of mind had never been one of her characteristics and now the awful sense of her danger and her horrible loneliness drove her to distraction. She cried for help, but it seemed to her that she might burn to death before anyone heard her in that remote place.

Meanwhile Evereld standing at the wings was watching with keen interest Macneillie’s masterly representation of Shylock, and thinking how handsome Ralph looked as Bassanio, when she was startled by a distant cry.

“You take my house when you do take the prop that doth sustain my house,” pleaded Shylock, and at that instant another much more distinct sound—unquestionably a scream—from behind, made Evereld’s heart stand still. Surely it was Ivy’s voice!

Without a moment’s hesitation she opened the door leading to the ladies’ dressing rooms, hurried up the stairs and had just gained the passage above, when to her horror she saw Ivy rushing forward her pale green dress all ablaze.

Snatching off the warm cloak she had been wearing as she stood at the wings Evereld flung it about the terrified girl, and exerting all her strength almost hurled Ivy to the ground, dismayed to see how the flames were rising towards her face.

“Don’t try to get up,” she cried, as Ivy mad with fear and pain would have leapt to her feet again. “Roll over and we shall crush out the fire.”

It could have been only two minutes yet it seemed to them hours before others hearing the screams came to the rescue, and by that time Evereld had succeeded in stifling the flames. Macneillie learning directly he came off the stage that something was amiss hurried up to them and was dismayed to find what had happened.

“Go at once and get hold of Dr. Grey,” he said turning to the business manager who had been the first to come up. “He is in the front row of the dress circle. Brinton,” he added turning to the Duke of Venice, who was the next to appear, “you will help me to lift her into her dressing-room.”

“It is so small and crowded,” said Evereld. “Would not the green room be better? she must be carried down the stairs sooner or later.”

“Yes, quite true. Give me your cloak, Brinton, we will throw it over her, and do you go first, Evereld, and see that no one is in the way. We shall get her safely to the green room before the end of the act.”

Ivy’s moans as they carried her were drowned in the applause which followed the end of the Trial Scene. And Evereld, not pausing to realise that she was trembling from head to foot, went on before to make ready a place where they could lay her down, and thanks to the promptitude of the business manager the doctor was on the spot almost as soon as they were.

Ralph, strolling up the stage a few minutes later, having heard nothing that had passed, was rudely recalled to the present as he approached the little group of people round the green room door. “The doctor has just gone in,” he heard some one say, and the words threw him into a sudden panic of terror.

“Let me get by,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

“You can’t go in,” said several voices! “Ivy Grant has been awfully burnt, they say Mrs. Denmead managed to get the fire out.”

“Where is my wife?” said Ralph distractedly.

“She is in the green room helping. It’s no good my dear boy. I tell you no one can go in.”

Ralph, sick with anxiety for Evereld, and only longing to get her out of the room, seemed on the point of taking the speaker by the collar and thrusting him aside, when to his relief the door opened and Macneillie came out. They all made way for him and heard him giving orders for a messenger to be sent at once for the ambulance, then before a single question could be put to him by Ralph, the Assistant stage manager came up to discuss the arrangements that were to be made for the last act. Fortunately Ivy’s understudy happened to be present so that no very great delay was to be feared, and when this matter had been disposed of, Helen Orme who had good naturedly hurried away to dress in order that she might be free to offer her help, came hastening back and begged leave to go in and do what she could for Ivy.

“Send Evereld to me,” was Ralph’s parting injunction, and Helen Orme, feeling very sorry for him, went in and finding that the preliminary dressing of Ivy’s burns was over, admitted him on her own authority.

It was a kindly meant act but under the circumstances a little risky, for at the first sight of him Evereld’s composure began to give way. The doctor noticed it at once.

“Now, Mrs. Denmead,” he said cheerfully. “Let this lady take your place for a minute, and you go and sit down. I shall be ready to dress that hand of yours directly.”

“Oh!” moaned Ivy who had spoken very little since they had carried her down. “Is Evereld hurt?”

“Just a little,” said the doctor. “But she won’t grudge that, for she has saved your life.”

“Do you think you could just manage to get me home,” whispered Evereld, suddenly realising that her strength would hold out no longer and that she could only agitate and harm Ivy by staying.

“Yes, darling,” said Ralph, “of course I can.”

But the cheery doctor had overheard and was beside them in a minute.

“Where are you staying?” he said crossing the room to them. “In Kingsmead Terrace? I will drive you there at once in my carriage. Wait for a minute and I will bring it round to the stage door. My little patient here will do well enough now, and before long they will carry her to the hospital in the ambulance. Just one word with you, Mr. Denmead.”

Ralph followed him out of the room.

“Now kindly pilot me through these passages,” said the doctor, having put a brief question or two as to Evereld. “Your part is not quite finished is it? Another scene yet if I remember right. You must leave me to see your wife safely home, and don’t be over anxious. Of course, it’s an unfortunate thing that she has had this fearful shock, but there is no reason why she should not get on well enough. Have you a decent sort of landlady with a head on her shoulders?”

“She is a capable sort of woman,” said Ralph, “but——”

“All right. That will do very well for the present. Here’s my carriage——”

He gave directions to the coachman, and in a few minutes time Ralph had put his wife into the brougham and with a heavy heart had turned back into the theatre to get through the rest of his work as best he could.