Phantoms

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Matt Elliott, a young stage manager, won the heart of Natalie Storm, a talented actress. He billed her as a star, and her acting so pleased the audience that she was obliged to go before the curtain many times to acknowledge the prolonged applause. The first moment she got she ran to the office of her beloved to thank him for making her a star. To her bitter disappointment she found that he had left for home to care for his invalid mother. Natalie's love turned to hatred and she wrote a note accusing him of spoiling her greatest triumph in order to satisfy the foolish impulses of an old woman. A realization of her hasty action came to her when she encouraged the attentions of another man, and she wrote asking forgiveness. But the letter was received too late, for his mother had passed away and the wrong his beloved did so affected him that he became firmer in resolution and forgot all about her. In years the strain began to tell on the physique of Natalie, and her doctor advised her to go abroad. She did not benefit by this change and returned to the scenes of her early youth. She had a feeling as if Matt had been waiting for her, and going immediately to his old home, she discovered that it was only a phantom. She later learned, to her horror, that her former lover had long since married, and in peering through the window of his home she saw him, a little older, fondling a baby his wife had just handed him. She goes away with only phantoms of her past to enlighten the gloom of coming age.