“Not her name, ma’am, but her face. She was that pretty little actress that played in the theater here last night. I knew her again as soon as I clapped eyes on her face, but I don’t know as I ever heard her name.”
“This is wonderful, mysterious!” cried the lady. “Oh, what shall I do? It seems too bad to break up the ball with this shocking news, but there seems nothing else to do.”
Sam Cline hesitated, then said humbly:
“If I might make so bold as to advise you, ma’am, I’d say let the ball go on, because it won’t last much longer, anyway, I guess, and see Mr. Bonair yourself before you alarm his sisters.”
“I believe you are right, Sam; I hate to stir up a panic in the ballroom if I can avoid it. Wait outside for me till I get a wrap, and I will go with you to the cottage and see Charley.”
If she had cherished the least doubt of it being her nephew, she soon had proof of it on reaching the keeper’s cottage, for Mrs. Cline had succeeded in reviving the patient, and he lay pale and nervous on a narrow cot in the same room where they had placed the seemingly dead actress upon a neat white bed.
“Charley, dear, this is terrible!” the lady cried, sinking down on her knees and kissing his pallid brow, damp with the dew of pain.
He took the kiss impatiently, crying fervently:
“Aunt Florence, do not think about me! I’m all right, sure!—see about that poor girl over there, please! Is she really dead, or only in a very deep swoon? By Heaven, if Zilla has killed her, I’ll put the brute to torture, I’ll burn her at the stake!”
He ended with a groan of commingled fury and stifled pain, and just then there came a loud rap upon the door. The physician had fortunately arrived.