refusal of your daughter to fulfil her engagements. The approximate value of the representation will also be deducted from her salary, and she shall not set her foot on the stage of the theatre until she shall have acted Bajazet for the second time.'
"'You can do what you like; she shall not act.'
"'Would you be good enough to withdraw, Monsieur; I have nothing more to say.' With which request he complied."
Immediately after this scene, Védel wrote Rachel an imploring letter, laying stress on all the personal and other reasons which could induce her not to follow her father's injunctions, and throw away her future so recklessly.
"I sent one of the boys about the theatre," he writes, "with orders to take this letter, and give it only to Rachel in person, to wait for her, whatever hour at night she returned, and to bring the answer to me at the theatre, where I had determined to wait. At 1 o'clock in the morning the boy brought me the following line, scribbled in pencil, on a scrap of paper, which I have kept religiously:—
Ne suis je pas a vos ordres? Quand on aime les gens, on fait tout pour leurs plaire
Tout à vous,
Rachel.
Meantime, on the very day of the second representation, November 26th, appeared an account of the fatal evening, in the Débats. It was remorseless and cruel:—
