my assertion charitably, as the result of a delusion conceived in
illness. You heard him tonight. But it no longer disturbs me."

"Has he ever written any plays of his own? Or had any more produced over
his name?" asked Larcher.

"No. He put the greater part of his profits into theatrical management.
He multiplied his investment. Then he 'branched out;' tried Wall Street
and the race-tracks; went into real estate. He speculates now in many
things. I don't know how rich he is. He isn't openly in theatrical
management any more, but he still has large interests there; he is what
they call an 'angel.'"

"He spoke of being your good angel."

"He has been the reverse, perhaps. It's true, many a time when I've been
at the last pinch, he has come to my rescue, employing me in some affair
incidental to his manifold operations. Unless you have been hungry, and
without a market for your work; unless you have walked the streets
penniless, and been generally 'despised and rejected of men,' you,
perhaps, can't understand how I could accept anything at his hands. But
I could, and sometimes eagerly. As soon as possible after our break, he
assumed the benevolent attitude toward me. I resisted it with proper
scorn for a time. But hard lines came; 'my poverty but not my will'
consented. In course of time, there ceased to be anything strange in the
situation. I got used to his service, and his pay, yet without ever
compounding for the trick he played me. He trusts me thoroughly--he
knows men. This association with him, though it has saved me from
desperate straits, is loathsome to me, of course. It has contributed as
much as anything to my self-hate. If I had resolutely declined it, I