'It struck me in an instant, and every word that you have spoken has confirmed the suspicion. He told me that his wife had no notion that he had been obliged to assume a false name; he spoke of her to me only casually--with great affection it is true--but my only distinct recollection of any quality which he assigned to her was a negative one: that she knew nothing about business, and that, therefore, he could not have told her that the assumption of a name not his own was a necessary precaution without alarming her. He had, not very wisely I thought at the time, kept her in ignorance of this detail, and arranged for her letters to him passing through the hands of a friend, who was to redirect them to him under his assumed appellation, known only to this friend. How well I recollect that the whole story struck me as the sort of thing which, had it occurred in a play or a book, would have been pronounced rather unnatural, and likely to involve so much confusion of detail as to hamper rather than aid business operations! How little I dreamt of such a complication as that which has arisen now! I do not think you see it?' 'I confess I do not,' said Miss Montressor. 'Well, it is simply this: the lady you saw in the theatre to-night was Mrs. Griswold, but none the less was she the original of the miniature which Mr. Foster showed you as that of his wife. The unhappy woman has no conception that the news with which all New York is ringing concerns her--that the murdered man is her husband.' 'I see it now, I see it now!' said Miss Montressor. 'You do not see it all even yet,' resumed Bryan Duval impressively. 'You don't see how it touches us. We two are the only people in this city who know the truth--we two are the only people on whom the task of making the truth known can possibly devolve, except, indeed, the friend through whom Foster received his wife's letters; and I know neither his name, his address, nor his business--I have, indeed, no clue whatever to him. The position of this unfortunate man's wife is one of the most terrible and tragic that can be conceived. What is to be done?' 'What, indeed!' said Miss Montressor, whose mind, however, glanced rapidly towards her sister. 'I suppose you must communicate with the authorities.' 'Of course, of course!' said Bryan Duval. 'But I am not thinking so much of the public and official steps to be taken in this horrible affair; it is the wife, whose position, poor unconscious creature, is so very awful.' To this Miss Montressor assented with ready sympathy, but it was agreed between them, as at that late hour nothing whatever could be done until the morning, there was nothing for it but that they should keep their own counsel. Bryan Duval impressed upon Miss Montressor the absolute necessity of appearing to be totally unconcerned in the matter, lest she should expose herself to indiscreet questioning by any member of the party, which it had now become necessary they should rejoin.