Forrester looked at me very earnestly. He had small gray eyes, and when he was moved by any strong feeling, the light that came into them conveyed it with most singular effect. At this moment, in his eyes and in his voice, there was an unmistakable expression of grief and compassion as he pronounced the name of the dwarf. I confess I was startled at the sound. The mystery that had always hung over Forrester was darker than ever. He was utterly unlike all other men. Whatever subject or business he took an interest in, seemed to grow into solemn importance under his hands, and to acquire an unaccountable fascination from his connection with it. His attenuated figure, the habit of loneliness which imparted such severe and inflexible gravity to his features, his very dress, loose, careless, and slouching, all helped to give a peculiar force to his words. Had the Wandering Jew suddenly appeared before us, and mentioned the name of the dwarf, I could not have been more astonished. My steward was ignorant of my acquaintance with him, and Forrester had left England before it began. By what means, then, could Forrester have obtained a clew to him? It really looked like a stroke of diablerie. "You knew him, then?" inquired Astræa, quite as much surprised as I was myself. "I have known him many years," he returned. "How very strange!" I observed. "This gentleman," I continued, turning to Astræa, "is a very old friend of mine. Long before I knew you, we were much together; at one time inseparable. Yet I never heard him speak of--did you know him _then_?" I inquired of Forrester. "Yes, intimately. I was in his confidence. There is nothing surprising in that." "Oh, no; only it _does_ seem odd, that, in London, where there are so many hundreds of thousands of human beings, people should find so many common acquaintances in the crowd." "We can generally trace the wonder to very natural causes, if we will only take the trouble to look into it. You made his acquaintance through a friend of mine--in fact, through me!" It was so; and I had forgotten all about it. Forrester's knowledge of the dwarf was, therefore, antecedent to my own; and, curiously enough, it was my acquaintance with him that led to my introduction to the family. How very strangely these things seemed to come about, and to bring me back to the time when Forrester held my destiny in his power!--an age of exciting experiences, equal in emotion and reaction to a whole life-time, had passed in the interval, and here he was now returned suddenly, and sitting at my hearth, with the threads of my fate again in his hands! I was all impatience to know whether the dwarf still lived, but was afraid to ask the question, or, rather, to betray my anxiety about it. Astræa, as usual, was more courageous. "You have seen him, then? It was to him, I presume, the steward directed your inquiries?"