Jessie Kennedy turned out to be a very companionable little person, and after this first interview the two girls spent a good deal of time with each other.

But the question of funds was of infinitely greater consequence than any social intercourse, and with alarming rapidity Evarne had arrived at the point when her resources were no longer represented by even the smallest gold coin of the realm. This thoroughly aroused her, and the very next time she was again put off by excuses, her usual gentleness was swept away beneath one of those torrents of hot wrath that were a heritage from her mother. Her beautiful dark eyes seemed to positively flash fire as she fiercely declared that this sort of thing would have to stop, that Mr. Punter's action in offering her this mock engagement, and so preventing her from seeking genuine work, was absolutely unjustifiable and infamous; that it was not far short, if at all, from cheating and defrauding! She concluded by hotly stating that if Mr. Sandy could not or would not come, his part, in mere justice to others, ought to be given at once to an actor who would take it. She finished up by the statement that she was voicing the opinion of others besides her own.

These words did not fall on barren ground. Mr. Punter definitely settled on the evening of the following day for the long-deferred first rehearsal, and further announced that Mr. Sandy had now finally lost his splendid chance, for Pat should go out immediately and telegraph for Mr. Heathmore, an even better actor, whom he knew to be anxiously longing for the opportunity of appearing in "Caledonia's Bard."

On the strength of all this Evarne allowed herself to be pacified, and was amiably willing to admit that perhaps the real blame rested with the faithless Mr. Sandy alone. Hereupon Mr. Punter had a suggestion to make.

"My wife and I have been talking the matter over, and we have decided to offer you—you, Miss Stornway—the rÔle of 'Highland Mary' in place of that of 'Bess.' It is not a very long part, and you'll soon learn it. Your remuneration then would be twenty-three and six in place of a guinea. There now! Does not the notion appeal to you?"

"I don't mind," replied the girl dubiously. "If you could have told me sooner than the very day before the rehearsals are at length to start—but there, if you give me the script at once, I'll commence to study it. But what about costumes?"

"Quite simple! Mrs. Punter herself has resolved to undertake the rÔle of 'Jean Armour,' so she will buy one of your dresses for the purpose. She says the blue cotton you showed her will serve nicely for you to wear when you go to meet 'Burns' in the glen, and with the money she gives you for the other you can buy some white stuff and make a robe that will do to die in, and likewise for the vision."

"I agree then, willingly. Who is to play 'Bess'?"

"We see no reason why Miss Kennedy should not undertake that inferior part. Madame Cheape—our 'Clarinda,' you remember—will arrive in a day or so, thus all the female rÔles will be most satisfactorily filled."

As Evarne walked back to Shamrock Street, she thought somewhat ruefully that she had fallen among a very queer and reckless—not to say shady—set of people. Everything connected with them and their enterprise seemed a matter of makeshifts. She could not help smiling to recall the grandiose announcements printed at the head of the official notepaper. "Company of Star Artistes," indeed! Fancy herself, then, never having yet set foot upon the boards or spoken one word in public, being created leading lady amid these universal stars! Still, it was such a silly soft part in such a silly soft play she had to act, that she was troubled by no apprehensions as to whether she was sufficiently powerful, or emotional, or capable, or anything else. She was fully convinced of her ability to rise to equal heights with the other stars—at all events as far as those constellations, Mrs. Punter and Jessie, were concerned.

The following evening, sure enough, rehearsals of a sort did indeed commence. Mr. Heathmore was not forthcoming, and "Caledonia's Bard" without "Bobbie" was even worse than "Hamlet" without the "Prince of Denmark." Still, it was a comfort to make a start of any sort.

Jessie Kennedy at once brought up Harry Douglas, and presented him to Miss Stornway. He was undertaking two minor rÔles in addition to managing the limelight and helping to shift scenery, and within the first five minutes' conversation this all-round genius had incidentally remarked that for several years he had been a professional lightweight prize-fighter.

Two men—besides the ubiquitous "Bobbie"—had dialogue parts with Evarne.

Joe Harold—who played her stage father—she had heard much of already. Jessie had procured him this engagement, and had confided to her new friend that ere the tour ended she hoped to have brought to pass another engagement of a more romantic and lasting type. He was absolutely the dearest boy alive, she declared. He was a Jew, his real name being Joe Moses, but no one would ever guess it. He hadn't got a hook nose, and he would share his last penny with a pal. He had only one failing in the world, sometimes he took a "wee drappie" too much to drink, but she would help him to conquer that weakness. He was a commercial traveller, but, being out of a job, had been pleased to join her in "Caledonia's Bard."

John Montgomery—the stage doctor who had to aid "Bess" to persuade "Mary" to die respectably in bed—had great pretensions to good looks; moreover, he was both tall and stalwart. But he was no more a professional actor than the remainder of the company—as a rule he earned his bread as a compositor.

There was, indeed, one taller than Montgomery, one whose height numbered two or three inches over six feet, but who paid for longitude by a painful meagreness. Archie—for so Jessie called him—was, in very sooth, a protracted tragedy. The son of a groom, he had been, until the age of fifteen or thereabouts, the tiniest, lightest little chap imaginable. Always amid horses, his one ambition was to become a jockey, and he might have succeeded in attaining this aspiration, had not cruel Nature taken it into her head to make him grow! He had sprouted almost visibly, beneath the horrified eyes of his horsey friends, and ere he came to eighteen years had reached the proud—yet hated—height of six feet three. Poor Archie's ambition being thus hopelessly blighted, he had made no effort to settle to any less fascinating career, but earned his daily bread by doing more or less badly whatever came next to hand.

Of such consisted the "star company"! Evarne deemed them all quite suitable individuals to be thus secretly conglomerated in an empty room of a deserted house hidden away behind a hoarding and seemingly forgotten in the very heart of Glasgow. Strange fate that had brought her to form one of the conspiracy!

The rehearsals now proceeded daily, Mr. Punter always giving the cues of "Burns's" and "Clarinda's" parts. The chief difficulty lay in remembering "who was whom" at any given moment. Without exception, all the men played a couple of characters, in some cases even three separate and distinct rÔles. Mad-looking Charles Stuart appeared as a prince and as "Clarinda's" footman—a proceeding that appeared to Evarne as the height of absurdity. Charlie swore he had no intention of visiting the barber, and no one, having once seen that weird head above royal robes, could possibly fail to recognise it again, even though the appended body might, next time, chance to be clad in servant's livery. They would at once discern the prince in disguise in "Clarinda's" establishment, and would accordingly look for intricacies of plot—doomed to be disappointed.

If it had not all been really a matter of such serious consequence to her, the girl would have spent her time during these rehearsals in struggling with inopportune laughter. As it was, her expression grew habitually more and more serious as the conviction forced itself like unto a barbed arrow into her brain: "This play is to fail! It is bound to fail! It can never succeed, never; and what can I do then?"

For the present, at all events, there was neither inaction nor loneliness. She made the more intimate acquaintance of Joe Harold and John Montgomery by inviting them, together with Jess, to her lodging one evening for a little private rehearsal of the death-bed scene. To her amusement the men had purchased sausage-rolls, cakes and ginger-beer from the shop round the corner, and the business over, they produced these edibles and invited themselves and their hostess to supper.

The unappetising topic that opened the meal was the universal poverty that prevailed. All had been out of work for some time, it appeared, and, like Evarne, were subsisting painfully on a few paltry and fast-failing savings, until the first week's salary from Mr. Punter should arrive to relieve the situation.

It was the second time in her short career that Evarne had been introduced into an absolutely fresh world. Live and learn! Had the girl given her opinion a month ago, it would probably have been to the effect that all commercial travellers, compositors, and daughters of scene-shifters (for this Jess owned had been her father's avocation in life) were necessarily common and uneducated—even though worthy enough folk. But there was very little either in the speech or ways of her three humble friends that could have appeared either absurd or offensive to the most dainty lady in the land, while Mont, the printer, was remarkably well-informed, handsome, and interesting. Thus for so long, at all events, as Evarne and her commercial traveller and her printer had mutual interests in "Caledonia's Bard," she found them infinitely more congenial than had been the majority of those men in the higher walks of life whom Morris had presented to her.

As a matter of fact, the nature of the society by which she had been surrounded in those bygone days had, from first to last, presented itself as one of the drawbacks of her unfortunate position. Time's progress had, to some considerable extent, blunted the keenness of her susceptibilities in this direction. Still, she now found it passing sweet to receive once again that vague indescribable deference and respect that distinguishes so subtly—perchance so unconsciously—a man's manner towards a "good" woman, from that which he assumes to one whose morals are understood to be "easy."

Yet more strongly did she experience a similar charm in the society of Jessie. The young girl—"who would sooner marry Joe with all his faults and without a penny, because she truly loved him, than marry a lord she didn't care for"—might not have been as witty, as merry, as brightly amusing as some other women whom Evarne could have named, but she was the first self-respecting and respectable member of her own age and sex—save Margaret—whom the girl had known since she left Heatherington.

Those years given to Morris—however brightened and redeemed by her pouring forth the most disinterested and sweetest affection—had been really very lonely—very desolate. When she had first been thrown into contact with the female associates that Morris's men friends had been willing to introduce to her, she had instinctively disliked and shrank from them, even although she had been far too childishly innocent at first to realise to the full the depravity of these "kept" women.

Even in the days of her naÏve ignorance of the real nature of their purchased love—when the consciousness of her own high impulses, combined with the all-embracing instinct of charity in her disposition, had led her to attribute only her own really beautiful motives and emotions to these other women, who led lives outwardly corresponding to her own—she, and they likewise, had felt that there was really nothing in common between them. They belonged to different worlds.

And even now, between Evarne and her lowly Scotch friends—honest and agreeable though they might be—there was still a barrier, that of caste, culture, habit. It might be totally disregarded amongst them by common consent, but was not thus easily annihilated. They were of an entirely different station—of another stamp—from the daughter of the refined Oxford student, with his lengthy pedigree and old traditions. They and their equals could never have entered thus intimately into her daily life had she not been dÉclassÉe. In one way or another, Evarne was indeed cut off from all open companionship with those men—and especially those women—who would have been really suited to one possessed of her training, her general refinement, her personal character and nature. Had her few brief years of love's happiness foredoomed her to lead for evermore the lonely life? Was it partly this that was foreboded in the grim smile of Sekhet?

But as comrades the four amalgamated splendidly, and at length the date on which the tour was to really start was actually settled. Mr. Heathmore and Madame Cheape were going direct from their homes to Ayr, since "Bobbie's" birthplace was to have the honour of witnessing the first performance of "Caledonia's Bard." The other members of the company were to leave Glasgow on Monday, rehearse with "Bobbie" for the first time that same evening, and open on Wednesday night.