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“And now,” cried the young man, jumping up from his chair,” I have come to you, my father’s old friend, to ask you to help me. You know this great province of London as well as any man, and, moreover, your particular occupation gives you immense facilities for discovering what I want to know.”

“And that is?”

“I want to find Ally,” said Arbuthnot. “I am to blame for wasting time as I have, but I was really famishing.”

“What is she like, to begin with?” Asked Bowden Snell

“Oh, I forgot; you have never seen her, have you?” Replied the young man. “Look,” and taking a small case from his breast-pocket he handed it to Snell, who said as he took it —

“I was in Canada the afternoon you brought her to my house remember, so that, as you say, I never have seen her.” He then applied his eye to an aperture in the case, and pressed a knob. Instantly a faint ticking sound was heard, and the holder started violently. “Young man, who is this girl? What is her name?” He asked agitatedly as he returned the case.

“Do you know her?” Said Arbuthnot in surprise at the effect the vitograph had produced on his companion. “Her name is Seine; at least — ” and the young man hesitated a moment — “that is the name she goes by — Alexandra Seine. To tell you the truth, her real name is not known. She was discovered in Paris when we entered the city in ‘30. Of course, she was only a tiny child then, and as no clue to her identity could be found, they christened her Alexandra, after the then Dowager Empress, and Seine after the river on the banks of which she was found. An English lady adopted her, and that’s all her history.”

Bowden Snell had been sitting with his face buried in his hands whilst the young man had been speaking.

“Paris! — 1930! — My little Violet — can it be?” He cried disjointly. “The very same smile — her very movements!”

“Your daughter!” Exclaimed Arbuthnot in amazement, momentarily forgetting the urgency of his errand.

“Yes, yes. Come here a moment,” and the elder man led him to the far end of the apartment, which was curtained off and there, facing a blank white wall stood on a pedestal, a box-shaped machine somewhat resembling the old magic-lanterns pictured in the books of our boyhood. It was evidently fixed there for film-testing purposes.

Snell drew the curtains after them, and they stood almost in darkness. Carefully taking a small square sheet of gelatinous substance from his pocket-book, he inserted it in the instrument and pressed a knob at the side. Instantly a bluish flame kindled within, and on the blank wall appeared the life-sized figure of a pretty woman dressed in the late Victorian style — large sleeves, curled hair, skirts reaching to the ankles and all. She smiled bewitchingly, yet with a slight touch of sadness, and held out her arms towards the mute observers, her lips moving at the same time; then she seemed to step forward, and the vision faded.

“My Ally to the life!” Exclaimed Arbuthnot. “But how did you get her graphilm? And in that queer costume! Was it a masquerade?”

“That was not ‘Ally,’ as you call her,” replied Bowden Snell; “it was her mother and my dear dead wife. If I could have inserted her voice-record at the same time, I have no doubt it would have been a further proof, but the cylinder is at home.”

“Your wife!” Cried Arbuthnot. “Can it be?”

“I served with the City Imperial Volunteers at the Siege of Paris in ‘30,” replied Bowden Snell as he carefully replaced the film in his book. “My wife and child were in Paris when the war broke out. My wife was killed by a chance shell; our babe, it seems, escaped.” Then, subduing his emotion with an effort, he seized Arbuthnot by the arm and exclaimed, “Come, come, let us find her; don’t ask questions now, let us away!”

“Yes.” Said Arbuthnot.“But whither? We have no clue.”

“Let me think, let me think.” Said Snell, passing his hand over his forehead; then, stepping quickly across the room, he pressed a knob in the wall, causing a little shutter to fall.

“What place?” Asked a faint voice.

“Give