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sequences and there was one scene on the steps of a hotel just off the racecourse which returned so vividly to his mind that he sat up abruptly. That was it! Her name was Chrissie and they must have played this part together.
    It wasn’t such a coincidence, if one thought of it. He had played in the provinces for fifteen years and there must have been a great many actresses who claimed to have played with Tadema. Some of them Sir Geoffrey could remember much more clearly.
    This woman was only a vague memory. But he knew her. Her name was Chrissie something and she had been rather sweet. It had been very long ago, he decided; in his early days. He didn’t think there had been a ghost of an affair. If there had he would have remembered. He turned his attention to the stage. Whole scenes, he realised, were modern interpolations. Much of the bravura had been dropped. It was all very interesting.
    When the lights of the first interval went up he looked at the programme. “Lady Mary… Miss Chrissie Dilling.” Chrissie Dilling; that was the name. How could a woman have gone through a lifetime of leading ladyship with a name like that?
    He was debating whether to send his card round and had indeed half decided to when he remembered his predicament with a start and the whole dreadful business poured back into his mind. He did not go out of the theatre, however, but sat there till the curtain rose again. At least he was hidden and inspiration must surely come in time.
    Fortunately for him the second act opened with a scene in an attic room which he remembered. It was a tragic parting in which the impoverished lord refused for his honour’s sake to accept the overtures of the infatuated Lady Mary. The words came back to him so clearly that he was irritated by the rather hopeless boy playing the part when his inflections and interpretations were unfamiliar.
    Chrissie had improved. She was almost good in an old-fashioned way. Not West End standard, of course, but first class for the provinces. She held the audience, too. They loved her.
    Something else returned to Tadema’s memory. He seemed to hear Chrissie complaining that someone always struck a match in her big scenes and it put her off. Always at the most dramatic part that little pin point of light out in the dark audience would catch her eye, telling her that there was someone whose attention she was not holding.
    Softly and feeling indescribably guilty, Tadema drew a box from his pocket. He waited for the right moment and struck the match. He was leaning forward and the flickering light caught his face, accentuating the hollows and darkening eyes.
    Miss Dilling wavered, her glance rested on the box, and then, with a little shrill cry, she clasped her hand over her heart.
    Tadema started back in his box. He did not see her gallant recovery, did not see her struggling on with the scene. The only thought in his mind was one of intense excitement, and, curiously enough, of relief. He was alive. The secret was out; whatever disaster might accompany the revelation he was alive again. Somebody knew it. He slipped out of the box and hurried round to the stage door.
    He was sitting in the dressing room when she came in from the stage, still a little pale under her make-up. Tadema rose and gallantly held out his hands.
    “Why, Chrissie!” he said.
    The woman stared at him and for an uncomfortable moment he thought that she was going to faint. Stock company actresses are more or less inured to shock, however, and Miss Dilling revived. She came into the room, shutting the door carefully behind her.
    “Well, Geoff,” she said, and added awkwardly after a pause, “I was only thinking of you this evening.”
    As soon as the words left her mouth she bit her lower lip sharply and regarded him apologetically with round eyes. Tadema remembered the trick. He remembered the eyes, too, and it must have been some sort of little romance here; nothing serious; just a boy and girl flirtation