While she waited she picked up a newspaper and carelessly scanned its pages.  Suddenly to the amazement and consternation of the other girl who was dressing in the same room she uttered a sharp little cry and for the first time in her healthy young life slid to the floor in a merciful faint.  Her frightened companion called for help instantly and it was only a moment before Tony’s brown eyes opened and she pulled herself up from the couch where they had laid her.  But she would not speak or tell them what had happened and it was only when they had gotten her off in a cab with a motherly, big hearted woman who played shrew’s and villainess’ parts always on the stage but was the one person of the whole cast to whom every one turned in time of trouble that the rest searched the paper for the clew to the thing which had made Tony look like death itself.  It was not far to seek.  Tony looked like death because Alan Massey was dead.

They all knew Alan Massey and knew that he and Tony Holiday were intimate friends, perhaps even betrothed.  More than one of them had seen and remembered how he had kissed her before them all on the night of Tony’s first Broadway triumph and some of them had wondered why he had not been seen since with her.  So he had been in Mexico and now he was dead, his heart pierced by a Mexican dagger.  And Tony—­Tony of the gay tongue and the quick laughter—­had the dagger gone into her heart too?  It looked so.  The “End of the Rainbow” cast felt very sad and sober that day.  They loved Tony and just now she was not an actress to them but a girl who had loved a man, a man who was dead.

Jean Lambert telegraphed at once for Doctor Holiday to come to Tony who was in a bad way.  She wouldn’t talk.  She wouldn’t eat.  She did not sleep.  She did not cry.  Jean thought if she cried her grief would not have been so pitiful to behold.  It was the stony, white silence of her that was intolerable to witness.

In her uncle’s arms Tony’s terrible calm gave way and she sobbed herself to utter weariness and finally to sleep.  But even to him she would not talk much about Alan.  He had not known Alan.  He had never understood—­never would understand now how wonderful, how lovable, how splendid her lover had been.  For several days she was kept in bed and the doctor hardly left her.  It was a hard time for him as well as his stricken niece.  Even their love for each other did not serve to lighten the pain to any great extent.  It was not the same sorrow they had.  Doctor Holiday was suffering because his little girl suffered.  Tony was suffering because she loved Alan Massey who would never come to her again.  Neither could entirely share the grief of the other.  Alan Massey was between them still.

Finally Dick came and was able to give what Doctor Philip could not.  He could sing Alan’s praises, tell her how wonderful he had been, how generous and kind.  He could share her grief as no one else could because he had learned to love Alan Massey almost as well as she did herself.