our before she had received a telegram from him.

Yes, Phrida--the woman I trusted and loved with such a fierce, passionate
affection, had lied to me deliberately and barefacedly.

But I was on the fellow's track, and cost what it might in time, or in
money, I did not intend to relinquish my search until I came face to face
with him.

That night, as I tossed restlessly in bed, it occurred to me that even
though he might be in Brussels, it was most probable in the circumstances
that he would exercise every precaution in his movements, and knowing
that the police were in search of him, would perhaps not go forth in the
daytime.

Many are the Englishmen living "under a cloud" in Brussels, as well as in
Paris, and there is not a Continental city of note which does not contain
one or more of those who have "gone under" at home.

Seedy and down-at-heel, they lounge about the cafes and hotels frequented
by English travellers. Sometimes they sit apart, pretend to sip their cup
of coffee and read a newspaper, but in reality they are listening with
avidity to their own language being spoken by their own people--poor,
lonely, solitary exiles.

Every man who knows the by-ways of the Continent has met them often in
far-off, obscure towns, where they bury themselves in the lonely
wilderness of a drab back street and live high-up for the sake of fresh
air and that single streak of sunshine which is the sole pleasure of
their broken, blighted lives.

Yes, the more I reflected, the more apparent did it become that if the
man whom Inspector Edwards had declared to be a gross impostor was still
in the Belgian capital, he would most probably be in safe concealment in
one or other of the cheaper suburbs.

But how could I trace him?

To go to the bureau of police and make a statement would only defeat my
own ends.

No; if I intended to learn the truth I must act upon my own initiative.
Official interference would only thwart my own endeavours.

I knew Digby Kemsley. He was as shrewd and cunning as any of the famous
detectives, whether in real life or in fiction. Therefore, to be a match
for him, I would, I already realised, be compelled to fight him with his
own weapons.

I did not intend that he should escape me before he told me, with his own
lips, the secret of my well-beloved.

CHAPTER XVI.

REVEALS ANOTHER ENIGMA.

"The identity of the victim has not yet been established, sir."

These words were spoken to th