there was great activity among the lawyers. They were
confident of recovering the clue, and if Fenwick's identification was
a just one, the search was near its end.

Only, till they really _were_ on the track, better say nothing to
Lord Findon and Madame de Pastourelles. This was the suggestion of the
Findon's solicitor, and Fenwick eagerly endorsed it.

Presently inquiry had been made from every management in London as to
the touring companies of the year; confidential agents had been sent
to every provincial town that possessed a theatre; long lists of names
had been compiled and carefully scanned. Fenwick's drawing of the girl
whom he had seen had been photographed; and some old likenesses of
Phoebe and Carrie had been reproduced and attached to it, for the
use of Messrs. Butlin's provincial correspondents. The police were
appealed to; the best private detectives to be had were employed.

In vain! The smiling child of seventeen had emerged for that one
appearance on the stage of her father's life, only, it seemed, to
vanish again for ever. No trace could be found anywhere of a 'Miss
Larose,' either as a true or a theatrical name; the photographs
suggested nothing to those who saw them; or if various hints and clues
sometimes seemed to present themselves, they led to no result.

Meanwhile, day after day, Fenwick waited on the post, hurrying for and
scanning his letters with feverish, ever-waning hope. Not a sign, not
a word from Phoebe. His heart grew fierce. There were moments when
he felt something not unlike hatred for this invisible woman, who was
still able to lay a ghostly and sinister hand upon his life. And yet,
and yet!--suppose, after all, that she were dead?

During these same weeks of torment _The Queen's Necklace_ was
produced; it was a pretentious failure, and after three weeks of
difficult existence flickered to an end. The management went
into bankruptcy, and the greater part of Fenwick's payment was
irrecoverable. He could hardly now meet his daily living expenses,
and there was an execution in his house, put in by the last firm of
builders employed.

Close upon this disaster came the opening of his private exhibition.
Grimly, in a kind of dogged abstraction, he went through with it.
He himself, with the help of a lad who was his man-of-all-work in
Chelsea, nailed up the draperies, hung the pictures, and issued the
invitations for the private view.

About a hundred people came to the private