'If I could avoid seeing them at all,' she said, 'it would be better, and, indeed, I hardly feel equal to the exertion. I cannot forget the face I saw to-night, so full of interest and delight, beaming with youth, beauty, and happiness; I cannot forget the pride and pleasure with which that poor fellow showed me its miniature presentment in the watch, which was his wife's parting gift. The two pictures will haunt me all night, and when the morn comes, what shall we do?' 'I do not know,' said Bryan Duval, 'what my part may have to be; I must be well advised in that matter: but one grand object would be to secure access to Mrs. Griswold. How well I remember poor Foster talking of the pleasure it would give his wife to make our acquaintance, and telling me that he could not give me a letter of introduction to her, because it might lead to the leaking out, through some other members of the company, of the fact that they had known him as Mr. Foster. If the poor fellow had only made his confidence in me complete, if he had told me what was the real name which he had hidden under a false one, it might be easier for me now to help in this terrible calamity. There is no way of getting at Mrs. Griswold without startling her, if, indeed, we must be the persons to reveal the truth.' 'Perhaps we may devise one,' said Miss Montressor; 'but we must break up now. I am quite worn out.' 'Do not return to the supper-room at all,' said Bryan Duval; 'here is a side door by which you can get away. I will apologise for you, though, indeed, no apology is needed.' During the conversation the hum of voices in the next room had been distinctly audible. The English actors had suddenly found themselves invested with a new importance and interest in New York; the very latest intelligence of the murdered man was to be had from them; and when Bryan Duval returned, he found his companions the centre of an eager group, who were all listening with absorbed avidity to every detail which could be furnished by the party concerning their acquaintance with Mr. Foster. The telegraph had given accurate particulars of the place and time at which the murder had been committed, which had so immediately followed the farewell scene on board the Cuba, that every utterance of Mr. Foster's which could be retailed by his companions on that occasion was regarded and noted with all the impressiveness due to last words. CHAPTER VII. ONLY TOO TRUE. Mr. Jacobs was as punctual as usual in his early attendance in the box-office of the Varieties on the morning after the first appearance of the Bryan Duval troupe, when he was lightly touched on the shoulder, and, turning round, was astonished to perceive the great London star himself.