her cross-roads.

It is hardly necessary to review in detail what her life had been since
she joined the theatrical profession. It is mostly hard work and
disillusion and disappointment for all in the beginning, and only a
very small percentage ever win through to the forefront.

But for Lorraine, on the top of all the rest, was a mercenary,
unscrupulous, intriguing mother, who added tenfold to what must
inevitably have been a heavy burden and strain - a mother who taxed her
utmost powers of endurance, and brought her shame as well as endless
worry; and yet to whom, let it be noted down now, to her everlasting
credit, no matter in what other way she may have erred, she never
turned a deaf ear nor treated with the smallest unkindness.

It would be impossible to gauge just what Lorraine had to go through in
her first few years on the stage. She seemed to make no headway at
all, and at the end of the third year she felt herself as far as ever
from getting her chance.

That she was brilliantly clever and brilliantly attractive had not so
far weighed the balance to her side. There were many others also
clever and attractive. She felt she had practically everything except
the one thing needed - influence.

Thus her spirits were at a very low ebb. She was still touring the
provinces, and heartily sick of all the discomfort involved. Dingy
lodgings, hurried train journeys, much bickering and jealousy in the
company with which she was acting, and a great deal of domestic worry
over that handsome, extravagant mother, who had once taken her, in