As she was entering the cab, I heard a muffled exclamation, which came from the shadow opposite the stage door. Dimly in that shadow could be seen a form with arms outstretched toward the woman, as in an involuntary gesture. The cab rolled away. The form emerged from the darkness and wearily strode by. It was that of my manuscript man. He had the same straw hat, stick, and frock coat.
“That queer old chap must be really in love with her,” I thought, smiling. Such things often happen. I knew a gallery god—but that will keep. Evidently here was an amusing case, not without its aspect of pathos.
Being in that vicinity on the following night, I strolled up to the stage door, merely to see whether the straw hat would be there again. There it was, patiently waiting, scourged by the most ferocious of January winds.
Doubtless the man came here every night to catch a glimpse of his divinity. He was quite unobtrusive, and I was probably the only one who noticed his constant attendance. I learned at the newspaper office that he had called for the rejected manuscript bearing his name,—Ernest Ruddle. Then for a time I neither saw nor thought of him.
One night, in the last of January,—the coldest of that savage winter,—I happened again to be in the corridor leading to the stage door, having come from within the theatre in advance of my friend the comedian, with whom I was to have supper at the Actors' Athletic Club. The actress's cab was waiting. The dark little portion of the world back there was deserted.
Along the corridor, through which the sound of chorus girls' laughter came, strolled the comedian, his cigar already lighted and behind it his cheerful, hearty, smooth-shaven visage appearing ruddy from the recent washing off of “make-up.”
“Hello!” he began, thrusting his hand into his overcoat pockets. “By the way, while I think of it, I just passed Miss Moran coming from the dressing-room, and suddenly that name came back to me, the name of her husband. It was a peculiar name,—Ernest Ruddle.”
Ernest Ruddle! the name on the manuscript! The man of the restaurant and the gallery, the tears, the waiting at the stage door, were explained now. Ere we reached the stage door, the actress herself appeared in the corridor, on the arm of her maid. She was laughing, rather coarsely. We stepped aside to let her pass out into the night.
“So the manager said he'd give me $50 more on the road,” she was saying, “and I said he would have to make it $75 more—gracious! what's this?”
She had stumbled over something just outside the threshold of the stage door. Her companion stooped, while the actress jumped aside and looked down at the large black object with both fright and curiosity.