Sheila went to the theater with the joyous haste of a child going up to the teacher’s desk for punishment. She wondered how Reben could have learned of the marriage.   
She wished she had told him of it when it was celebrated. She felt that poor Reben had a just grievance against her. It would be only fair to let him scold his anger 
 
out, and bear his tirade in quiet resignation.
 
Bret thought that he might as well come along, since he had been unearthed. But Sheila would not permit him to enter the theater lest Reben and he fall to blows. She 
 
did not want Reben to be beaten up. She left Bret in the alley, and promised to call for him if she were attacked.
 
The theater was quite deserted at this hour. Sheila found Reben pacing the corridor before her dressing-room. She advanced toward him timidly with shame that he 
 
misinterpreted. He fairly lashed her with his glare and groaned in all contempt:
 
“My God, Sheila, I’d never have thought it of you!”
 
“Thought what?” Sheila gasped.
 
He laughed harshly: “And you called me down for insulting you! And you got away with it! But, say, you ought to use your brains if you’re going to play a game like 
 
that. Coarse work, Sheila; coarse work!”
 
Sheila bit her lip to keep back the resentment boiling up in her heart.
 
He went on with his denunciation: “I warned you that you would be known everywhere you went. I told you your picture was all over town. And now your name is. A 
 
stranger comes up to me and says he saw you and your—your ‘husband,’ Mr. Winfield? Who’s the man? What’s his real name?”
 
“Mr. Winfield, of course.”
 
“Oh, of course! Where did you meet him? Does he live here?”
 
“Live here! Indeed, he doesn’t!”
 
“He followed you here, then?”
 
“He preceded me here.”
 
“It’s as bad as that, eh? Well, you leave him here, at once. If he comes near you again I’ll break every bone in his body.”
 
Sheila laughed. “You haven’t seen my husband, have you?”
 
“Your husband?” Reben laughed. “Are you going to try to bluff it out with me, too?”
 
Sheila blenched at this. “He is my husband!” she stormed. “And you’d better not let him hear you talk so to me.”
 
Reben’s knees softened under him. “Sheila! you don’t mean that you’ve gone and got yourself married!”
 
“What else............