"Miss Lange, this is very important. Your sister told you she was planning to break her engagement to Ted Winters?"

"Yes." Elizabeth stared down at her hands. She remembered how she had put those hands on Leila's shoulders, then run them across Leila's forehead. Oh, stop it, Leila. You don't mean that.

But I do, Sparrow.

No, you don't.

Have it your way, Sparrow. But call me around eight,okay?

The last moment of being with Leila, of putting the cold compress on her forehead, of tucking the blankets around her and thinking that in a few hours she'd be herself again, laughing and amused and ready to tell the story. "So I fired Syd and threw Ted's ring, and quit the play. How's that for a fast two minutes in Elaine's?" And then she'd throw back her head and laugh, and in retrospect it would suddenly become funny-a star having a public tantrum.

"I let myself believe it, because I wanted to believe it," Elizabeth heard herself telling William Murphy.

In a rush she began the rest of her testimony. "I phoned at eight… Leila and Ted were arguing. She sounded as if she'd been drinking again. She asked me to call back in an hour. I did. She was crying. They were still quarreling. She had told Ted to get out. She kept saying she couldn't trust any man; she didn't want any man; she wanted me to go away with her."

"How did you respond?"

"I tried everything. I tried to calm her. I reminded her that she always got uptight when she was in a new show. I told her the play was really a good vehicle for her. I told her Ted was crazy about her and she knew it. Then I tried acting angry. I told her…" Elizabeth 's voice faltered. Her face paled. "I told her she sounded just like Mama in one of her drunks."

"What did she say?"

"It was as if she hadn't heard me. She just kept saying, 'I'm finished with Ted. You're the only one I can ever trust. Sparrow, promise you'll go away with me.'"