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Shortly after the outraged rehearsal had been resumed, she unfortunately uttered a loud, dry sob, startlingly irrelevant to the matter in hand. It came during the revelation of “Roderick Hanscom’s” secret, and Potter stopped instantly.

“Who did that?”

“Miss Lyston, sir,” Packer responded loyally, such matters being part of his duty.

The star turned to face the agitated criminal. “Miss Lyston,” he said, delaying each syllable to pack it more solidly with ice, “will you be good enough to inform this company if there is anything in your lines to warrant your breaking into a speech of mine with a horrible noise like that?”

“Nothing.”

“Then perhaps you will inform us why you do break into a speech of mine with a horrible noise like that?”

“I only coughed, Mr. Potter,” said Miss Lyston, shaking.

“Coughed!” he repeated slowly, and then with a sudden tragic fury shouted at the top of his splendid voice, “COUGHED!” He swung away from her, and strode up and down the stage, struggling with emotion, while the stricken company fastened their eyes to their strips of manuscript, as if in study, and looked neither at him nor Miss Lyston.

“You only coughed!” He paused before her in his stride. “Is it your purpose to cough during my speeches when this play is produced before an audience?” He waited for no reply, but taking his head woefully in his hands, began to pace up and down again, turning at last toward the dark auditorium to address his invisible manager:

“Really, really, Mr. Tinker,” he cried, despairingly, “we shall have to change some of these people. I can’t act with–Mr. Tinker! Where’s Mr. Tinker? Mr. Tinker! My soul! He’s gone! He always is gone when I want him! I wonder how many men would bear what I–” But here he interrupted himself unexpectedly. “Go on with the rehearsal! Packer, where were we?”

“Here, sir, right here,” brightly responded Packer, ready finger upon the proper spot in the manuscript. “You had just begun, ‘Nothing in this world but that one thing can defeat my certain election and nothing but that one thing shall de–“

“That will do,” thundered his master. “Are you going to play the part? Get out of the way and let’s get on with the act, in heaven’s name! Down stage a step, Miss Ellsling. No; I said down. A step, not a mile! There! Now, if you consent to be ready, ladies and gentlemen. Very well. ‘Nothing in this world but that one thing can defeat my certain election and noth–‘” Again he interrupted himself unexpectedly. In the middle of the word there came a catch in his voice; he broke off, and whirling once more upon the miserable Miss Lyston, he transfixed her with a forefinger and a yell.

“It wasn’t a cough! What was that horrible noise you made?”

Miss Lyston, being unable to reply in words, gave him for answer an object-lesson which demonstrated plainly the nature of the horrible noise. She broke into loud, consecutive sobs, while Potter, very little the real cause of them, altered in expression from indignation to the neighborhood of lunacy.

“She’s doing this in purpose!” he cried. “What’s the matter with her? She’s sick! Miss Lyston, you’re sick! Packer, get her away–take her away. She’s sick! Send her home–send her home in a cab! Packer!”

“Yes, Mr. Potter, I’ll arrange it. Don’t be disturbed.”

The stage-manager was already at the sobbing lady’s side, and she leaned upon him gratefully, continuing to produce the symptoms of her illness.

“Put her in a cab at once,” said the star, somewhat recovered from his consternation. “You can pay the cabman,” he added. “Make her as comfortable as you can; she’s really ill. Miss Lyston, you shouldn’t have tried to rehearse when you’re so ill. Do everything possible for Miss Lyston’s comfort, Packer.”

He followed the pair as they entered the passageway to the stage door; then, Miss Lyston’s demonstrations becoming less audible, he halted abruptly, and his brow grew dark with suspicion. When Packer returned, he beckoned him aside. “Didn’t she seem all right as soon as she got out of my sight?”