y to their nests." It is needless that we should tell our
readers that we have reached that critical moment. The dull roll of
carriages to the door, and the clank of the let-down steps tell that the
hour of departure has arrived, and that the entertainer will very soon
be left all alone, without "One of Them."

As in the real world, no greater solecism can be committed than to beg
the uprising guest to reseat himself, nor is there any measure more
certain of disastrous failure; so in fiction, when there is a move in
the company, the sooner they all go the better.

While I am painfully impressed with this fact,--while I know and feel
that my last words must be very like the leave-takings of that tiresome
button-holder who, great-coated and muffled himself, will yet like to
detain you in the cold current of a doorway,--I am yet sensible of the
deference due to those who have indulgently accompanied me through my
story, and would desire to leave no questions unanswered with regard to
those who have figured before him.

Mr. Trover, having overheard the dialogue which had such an intimate
bearing on his own fortunes, lost no time, as we have seen, in quitting
the hotel at Bregenz; and although Winthrop expected to see him at
dinner, he was not surprised to hear that he had left a message to say
he had gone over to the cottage to dine with Mrs. Hawke. It was with
an evident sense of relief that the honest American learned this fact.
There was something too repulsive to his nature in the thought of
sitting down at the same table in apparent good fellowship with the man
whom he knew to be a villain, and whose villany a very few hours would
expose to the world; but what was to be done? Quackinboss had insisted
on the point; he had made him give a solemn pledge to make no change
in his manner towards Trover till such tine as the Laytons had returned
with full and incontestable proofs of his guilt.

"We'll spoil everything, sir," said Quackinboss, "if we harpoon him in
deep water. We must go cautiously to work, and drive him up, gradually,
towards the shallows, where, if one miss, another can strike him."

Winthrop was well pleased to hear that the "chase" was at least
deferred, and that he was to dine _tete-a-tete_ with his true-hearted
countryman.

Hour after hour went over, and in their eager discussion of the
complicated intrigue they had unravelled, they lost all recollection of
Trover or his absence. It was the charact