“I call it a miracle of luck.  God’s good to some folks!  Here that girl gets all her troubles settled at a single stroke—­and tomorrow she’s the biggest headliner on Broadway ... and you, the feller that ought to be out hustling her business interests, stand there gaping like you was sore because she didn’t fliver.  I don’t get you.”

Mr. Lewis’s voice was freighted with disgust, then, seeing that the climax had been reached on the stage, he turned away and signaled to ring down.  “Take all the curtains you can get out of it,” he instructed the stage-manager—­as he once more rubbed his hands.

Smitherton stood silent, seeing the curtain descend, then rise and fall time after time to a thunder of applause.  He saw Mary Burton, with all her distaste masked behind the regal tranquillity of her splendid eyes and her cruelly wasted courage, bowing, not like an actress, but like an empress.  Then she passed them and closed the door of her dressing-room.

Smitherton heard Lewis’ voice once more, accompanied by something like a sigh.  “Now comes the tough part,” said the manager.  “I’ve got to go and break it to her.  Of course, just at first she ain’t likely to see the lucky side of it.”

The reporter stopped him.

“To hell with you!” he cried out fiercely.  “I’ll tell her myself—­and if you interrupt me or say a word to her—­I’m going to hurt you.”

He went slowly to the door, but the manager had followed him with some excitement, and with no realization that his voice was loud, as he prompted.

“Put it to her tactful.  Remind her that she’s made on Broadway, and, now that the old man and old woman are both dead, she’s free.”

The dressing-room door suddenly opened, and they saw the girl standing there unsteadily, but as they approached she took a backward step and leaned against the wall.

Her eyes had slowly widened, as they had widened before under the sickening and staggering blows of tragedy.  Her lips moved to speak, but for a while could shape no words.  From her shaken bosom came a long and pitiful moan, which was not loud, and then her voice returned, and she said, “I heard you.  They are—­gone.”

Smitherton knew that words could hardly help.  He closed the door again and turned aside.  Even Lewis moved away and stood silent.

But a few minutes later the dressing-room door once more swung outward and they saw her at the threshold.  She had thrown a cloak around her.  The deadly pallor of her cheeks was grotesquely heightened by the remnants of rouge which her shaking fingers had failed to completely remove.  Her eyes were wide and staring, gazing into the future or the past ... into eternity it might have been.

Mr. Abey Lewis laid a hand on her arm.

“Miss Burton,” he suggested, “you ain’t quite got the paint off yet.  It needs a little more cold cream, still.”  But Mary did not hear him.  She heard nothing; saw nothing of these surroundings which stood for the pitifully wasted crucifixion of all her instincts of delicacy.