“It was for me, dear. Do you see to what I have come? Forgive me,
Gogo.”
“I can’t help myself,” he groaned. “You are my destiny.”
“Gogo, I am frightened; I am in danger. Help me, Gogo.”
The poor fellow smiled.
“In everything but running away, Diana.”
“And that is just where I want your help. Come to me: come and see me
to-morrow, Gogo, will you? O, Gogo, will you?”
“Don’t be foolish, Diana. At what time?”
“You know my address?”
“Of course I do.”
“As early as early, then; the moment I am out of bed.”
Strangely comforted, and looking to see if we were alone, I dropped a
tiny kiss on his rough cheek, and ran in gaily, wiping my eyes as I
went.
That night I sang my little song with renewed feeling, and ended to a
burst of applause. As I was standing at the wings, flushed and
radiant, a note was put into my hand. I opened it, and read: “_You are
in danger. Don’t go home._”
I never learned who had sent it; some one, probably, from amongst the
few friends I could still number in that wicked household. It had been
handed in at the stage door by a messenger, and that was all I could
discover. The lights of my triumph were darkened. I knew myself at
last hunted--and alone. Why had I not bid my monster wait for me? But
it were idle now to moan. Despair gave me readiness. I finished my
part quite brilliantly, without a stumble, and chatted gaily, while
disrobing, with the poor pretty little _coryphée_ who was my chief
friend in the dressing-rooms. By one pretext or another I detained her
until we were alone. Then, “Fanny,” I said, “keep mum; but I think it
unlikely I shall come here again.”
She looked at me with her large grey eyes. We were much of a figure,
and not unlike in features.
“O, Miss Rush!” she whispered. “And I’d ’oped always to ’ave you for a
friend.”
“So you shall, Fanny,” I said: “but there are contingencies--you
understand?”
Her lip was trembling. I think she wanted to tell me to keep good.
“And so,” I said hastily, “as I have liked you so, I want to exchange
little presents with you, as a remembrance, if you will.”
The poor child had often cast admiring eyes on a calash which it was
my habit to wear to the theatre, and which was indeed a very becoming
thing of crimson velvet and cherry-coloured lining, with a frame of
costly fur to the face. It had been given me by Bob, and certainly
nothing short of my present desperation would have brought me to part
with it; but it was, more than anything I wore of late, associated
with me; and necessity has no conscience.
Fanny’s eyes sparkled against her will, as I held the thing out to
her.
“O no, miss!” she entreated; “it’s too good for me, and I can’t give
you nothing the same in exchange.”
“You shall give me your neckerchief,” I said; and, cutting the
discussion short, drove her away at length, with her pretty face in
the hood, and tears in her eyes.
I gave her five minutes’ start, then followed her out, with a brain as
hot as my heart was shivering. “They must discover their mistake very
soon,” I thought, “and will be returning on their tracks.”
However, I reached home, running by byways, in safety; and there,
quite unnerved now the terror was passed, threw myself into Patty’s
arms and told her everything. She was the sweet, simple counsel and
consoler she always was to grief, and distressed me only by some
concern she could not help showing for the fate of Fanny.
“You try to make me out a devil,” I cried passionately. “They will let
her alone, of course, when they find she isn’t who they want.”
We slept in one another’s arms that night, fearful of every sound in
the street. But morning brought the sun and Gogo--though the latter
inexcusably late to his appointment--and both were a heavenly joy to
me.
I saw at once by his expression that he carried news; but he did not
speak.
“Gogo!” I whispered.
He uttered a strange sound, like a wounded beast, and turned his face
from me.
“Did you exchange head-dresses with her last night?” he muttered.
“What do you mean?”
My heart seemed to stop.
“They said it was your hood. She was jostled by ruffians in the
street, it seems, and thrown under the traffic, and killed.”