“I’m nursing my voice—­hope to be all right by night—­are you busy to-day, Maurice?”

“No; there is no House on Saturday,” Maurice made answer.

“I wish you would stay by me,” Lionel wrote, with rather a shaky hand.  “I’m in dreadful trouble.  I undertook to pay Percival Miles L1100 and Lord Rockminster L300 to-day without fail; and I haven’t a farthing, and don’t know where to send or what to do.”

“Oh, never mind about money!” Maurice said, almost impatiently, for there was something about the young man’s appearance he did not at all like.  “Why should you worry about that?  The important business is for you to get well.”

“I tell you I must pay Rockminster to-day,” the trembling pencil scrawled.  “He was the only one of them who stood my friend.  I tell you I must pay him—­if I have to get up and go out and seek for the money myself.”

“Nonsense!” Mangan exclaimed.  “What do people care about a day or two, when they hear you are ill?  However, you needn’t worry, Linn.  As for that other sum you mention, well, that is beyond me—­I couldn’t lay my hands on it at once; but as for the three hundred pounds, I will lend you that—­so set your mind at rest on that point.”

“And you’ll give it into Lord Rockminster’s own hands—­this day?”

“Surely it will be quite the same if I send the check by a commissionaire; he must get it sooner or later.”

The earnest, restless eyes looked strangely supplicating.

“Into his own hands, Maurice!”

“Very well, very well,” Mangan had just time to say, for here was the doctor.

Dr. Whitsen examined his patient with the customary professional calm and reticence; asked a few questions, which Lionel answered with such husky voice as was left him; and then he said,

“Yes, you have caught a severe chill, and your system is feverish generally; the throat is distinctly congested—­”

“But to-night, doctor—­the theatre—­to-night!” Lionel broke in, excitedly.  “Surely by eight o’clock—­”

“Oh, quite impossible; not to be thought of,” the doctor responded, with decision.

“Why can’t you do something to tide me over, for the one night?” the young man said, with appealing and almost pathetic eyes.  “I’ve never disappointed the public once before, never once; and if I could only get over to-night, there’s the long rest to-morrow and Monday.”

“Come, come,” said the doctor, soothingly, “you must not excite yourself about a mere trifle.  You know it is no uncommon thing, and the public don’t resent it; they would be most unreasonable if they did.  Singers are but mortal like themselves.  No, no, you must put that out of your mind altogether.”

Lionel turned to Maurice.

“Maurice,” he said, in that husky voice, and yet with a curious, subdued eagerness, “telegraph to Lehmann at once—­at once.  Doyle is all right; he has sung the part often enough.  And will you send a note to Doyle; he can go into my dressing-room and take any of my things he wants; Lingard has the keys.  And a telegram to mother, in case she should see something in the newspapers; tell her there is nothing the matter—­only a trifling cold—­”