‘Acting where?’ said Fenwick, still gripping him.

The stage-manager rubbed his nose in perplexity.

’I really can’t remember.  Leeds—­Newcastle—­Halifax—­was it?  It’s altogether escaped my memory.’

‘For God’s sake, remember!’ cried Fenwick.

The stage-manager shook his head.

’I really didn’t take notice.  I liked the young lady very well.  We got on, as you may say, at once.  I talked to her while you were discussing over there.  But I had to tell her there was no room for her—­and no more there is.  Her sister—­or her friend—­whichever it was—­was an uncommonly pretty girl.  I noticed that as she went out—­which reminds me—­she asked me to tell her who you were.’

Fenwick gazed at the speaker in passionate despair.

‘And you can’t tell me any more—­can’t help me?’ His voice rose again into a shout, then failed him.

‘No, I really can’t,’ said the other, decidedly, pulling himself away.  ‘You go and ask the door-keeper.  Perhaps he’ll know something.’

But the door-keeper knew only that he had been asked for ‘Mr. Fison’ by two nice-spoken young ladies, that he had directed them where to go, and had opened the stage-door for them.  He hadn’t happened to be in his ‘lodge’ when they went out, and couldn’t say in which direction they had gone.

‘Why, lor’ bless you, sir, they come here in scores every week!’

Fenwick rushed out into the Strand, and walked from end to end of the theatrical section of it several times, questioning the policemen on duty.  But he could discover nothing.

Then, blindly, he made his way down a narrow street to the Embankment.  There he threw himself on a bench, almost fainting, unable to stand.

What should he do?  He was absolutely convinced that he had seen Carrie—­his child; his little Carrie!—­his own flesh and blood.  It was her face—­her eyes—­her movement—­changed, indeed, but perfectly to be recognised by him, her father.  And by the cruel, the monstrous accidents of the meeting, she had been swept away from him again into this whirlpool of London, before he had had the smallest chance of grasping at the little form as it floated past him on this aimless stream of things.  His whole nature was in surging revolt against life—­against men’s senseless theories of God and Providence.  If it should prove that he had lost all clue again to his wife and child, he would put an end, once for all, to his share in the business—­he swore, with clenched hands, that he would.  The Great Potter had made sport of him long enough; it was time to break the cup and toss its fragments back into the vast common heap of ruined and wasted things.  ’Some to honour—­and some to dishonour’—­the words rang in his ears, mingling with that deep bell of St. Paul’s, whereof the echoes were being carried up the river towards him on the light southeasterly wind.

But first—­he tried to make his mind follow out the natural implications and consequences of what had happened.  Carrie had asked his name.  But clearly, when it was given her, it had meant nothing to her.  She could not have left her father there—­knowing it was her father—­without a word.  No; Phoebe’s first step, of course, would have been to drop her old name, and the child would have no knowledge of it.