The horrid truth broke upon me one day as we discussed the conduct of one of my two housemaids. Trewlove, returning one evening (as I gathered) from a small _reunion_ of his fellow-sectarians in the Earl's Court Road, had caught her in the act of exchanging railleries from an upper window with a trooper in the 2nd Life Guards, and had reported her. "Most unbecoming," said I. "Unwomanly," said Trewlove, with a sudden contortion of the face; "unwomanly, sir!--but ah, how like a woman!" I stared at him for one wild moment, and turned abruptly to the window. The rascal had flung a quotation at me--out of _Larks in Aspic!_ He knew, then! He had penetrated the disguise of "George Anthony," and, worse still, he meant to forgive it. His eye had conveyed a dreadful promise of complicity. Almost--I would have given worlds to know, and yet I dared not face it--almost it had been essaying a wink! I dismissed him with instructions--not very coherent, I fear--to give the girl a talking-to, and sat down to think. How long had he known?--that was my first question, and in justice to him it had to be considered: since, had he known and kept the secret in my uncle's lifetime, beyond a doubt, and unpleasant as the thought might be, I was enormously his debtor. That stern warrior's attitude towards the playhouse had ever been uncompromising. Stalls, pit, and circles--the very names suggested Dantesque images and provided illustrations for many a discourse. Themselves verbose, these discourses indicated A Short Way with Stage-players, and it stood in no doubt that the authorship of _Larks in Aspic_ had only to be disclosed to him to provide me with the shortest possible cut out of seventy thousand pounds. I might, and did, mentally consign Trewlove to all manner of painful places, as, for instance, the bottom of the sea; but I could not will away this obligation. After cogitating for awhile I rang for him. "Trewlove," said I, "you know, it seems, that I have written a play." "Yessir! _Larks in Aspic_, sir." I winced. "Since when have you known this?" The dog, I am sure, took the bearings of this question at once. But he laid his head on one side, and while he pulled one whisker, as if ringing up the information, his eyes grew dull and seemed to be withdrawing into visions of a far-away past. "I have been many times to see it, Mr. George, and would be hard put to it to specify the first occasion. But it was a mattinay." "That is not what I asked, Trewlove. I want to know when you first suspected or satisfied yourself that I was the author." "Oh, at once, sir! The style, if I may say so, was unmistakable: _in_-nimitable, sir, if I may take the libbaty." "Excuse me," I began; but he did not hear. He had passed for the moment beyond decorum, and his eyes began to roll in a manner expressive of inward rapture, but not pretty to watch.