said. "I
went to see her the other night. Pretty girl--going to get married and
leave the stage. My brother's a scene shifter at the Frivolity--knows
all about her."

"Who is she going to marry?"

"Oh, I don't know--some idle young chap that wants her money, I believe.
She ain't the common sort of actress, you know. Bit of a swell, with
sixty thousand pounds of her own."

"Oh," said his interlocutor, vaguely. "And--has she any relations?"

"Well, that I can't tell you. Stop a bit, though: I did hear tell of a
brother--a doctor, I believe. But I couldn't be sure of it."

"Could you get to know if you wanted?"

The young fellow turned and surveyed his questioner with some doubt.
"Dare say I could if I chose," he said. "What do you want to know for,
mate?"

"I've been away--out of England for a long time--and I think they're
people who used to know me," said Francis Trent, improvising his story
readily. "I thought they could put me on the way of work if I could come
across them; but I don't know if it's the same."

"Why don't you go to see her to-night? She's worth a look: she's a
pretty little thing--but she don't draw crowds: the gallery's never
full."

"I think I'll go to-night," said Francis, rising suddenly from his seat.
He fancied that the young man looked at him suspiciously. "Yes, no
doubt, I should know her if I saw her: I'll go to-night."

He made his way hastily into the street, while his late companion sent a
puzzled glance after him. "Got a tile loose, that chap has," he said to
the girl at the counter as he also passed out. "Or else he was a bit
screwed."

So that night Francis Trent went to the Frivolity, and witnessed, from a
half-empty gallery, a smart, sparkling little society play, in which
Ethel Kenyon had elected to say farewell to her admirers.

He saw her, but her face produced no impression upon his mind.

It was not familiar to him, although her name was familiar enough. Those
gleaming dark eyes in the saucy piquante face, the tiny graceful figure,
the silvery accents of her voice, were perfectly strange to him. They
suggested absolutely nothing. It was the name alone that he knew; and he
was sure that it was in some way connected with his own.

Before the end of the play, he got up and went out. The lights of the
theatre made him dizzy: his head ached from the hot atmosphere and from
his own physical weakness. He was afraid that he should cry out or do
something strange which w