"You see for yourself," said the doctor, stepping to the bed with the stranger, after having bowed to Olive and Roger. "She is alive, and really doing better than I expected; but a slight turn may be her instant death, or she may live several months yet with perfect rest and comfort. She can never be of further use to you, for her last note had been sung, and her last act given."
The manager scowled down at the death-like sleeper.
"Nevertheless, I have a claim on her. I paid her fifty dollars in advance to buy necessary stage-wardrobe," he said, with a heartless coolness. "I never was such a fool before, but she had a fine voice and good stage air, and I thought she'd last."
Almost before he finished speaking, Olive had leaped to her feet with flashing eyes and quivering white lips, but before she could speak, Roger's quiet voice interrupted:
"Will you step this way, sir, and make out your bill against the young lady? I am quite ready to cancel all or any demands."
The manager turned and looked at him for a moment, in silence, then crossed the room with a shrug of his shoulders, and took the pencil held out to him, also the little page of blanks.
"Sign her release, while I make out your check," said Roger, drawing his bank book from his pocket, and hastily filling a page, while the manager slowly scrawled a few words on the blank, attached his name, and passed it over, receiving the check in exchange.
"It's not half what I ought to receive," he said, with surly grimace. "Here I've got to go and look up some one else, and she made the performance fizzle out to-night, besides being a deal of trouble all along with her delicate airs."
"Leave the room!" cried Olive fiercely, trembling and white with uncontrollable rage. "You have killed her. I hope you will remember it to your last day. You are her murderer, and whatever you paid her, it is more than likely she had given her life to work out for you, so what you are paid now is wages for your brutish work. Leave the room, I say; you have no longer a right here, nor any claim, if indeed you ever had one, for I tell you I don't believe you ever paid her a cent, even what you owed her, and you shall not breathe the same air with her longer."
"Young woman, be careful!" thundered the manager, growing an irate scarlet, as the fiercely uttered words rolled in upon him; but Olive met his gaze with flashing, undaunted eyes, and then the good doctor recovered from his speechless amaze and came between them, after which, Bettine, trembling with awe and fright, let the two gentlemen out. Olive dropped back into her seat, and through it all, Ernestine slept, her thin hands folded over her quiet bosom, and an air of utter repose on her face, as of one too near another world to heed struggles in this, even though they reached her weary hearing.