know? Ah! who had betrayed my love?

CHAPTER XXIII.

LOVE'S CONFESSION.

I dined alone at the Club, and afterwards sat over my coffee in one of
the smaller white-panelled rooms, gazing up at the Adams ceiling, and my
mind full of the gravest thoughts.

What had Edwards meant when he promised me an unpleasant surprise? Had
the woman Petre already made a statement incriminating my well-beloved?

If so, I would at once demand the arrest of her and her accomplices for
attempted murder. It had suggested itself to me to make a complete
revelation to Edwards of the whole of my exciting adventure at
Colchester, but on mature consideration I saw that such a course might
thwart my endeavours to come face to face with Digby.

Therefore I had held my tongue.

But were Edwards' suspicions that the assassin Cane and the man I knew as
Sir Digby Kemsley were one and the same, correct, or were they not?

The method by which the unfortunate Englishman in Peru had been foully
done to death was similar to the means employed against myself at
Colchester on the previous night. Again, the fact that the victim did not
shout and call for aid was, no doubt, due to the administration of that
drug which produced complete paralysis of the muscles, and yet left the
senses perfectly normal.

Was that Indian whom they called Ali really a Peruvian native--the
accomplice of Cane? I now felt confident that this was so.

But in what manner could the impostor have obtained power over Phrida?
Why did she not take courage and reveal to me the truth?

Presently, I took a taxi down to Cromwell Road and found my well-beloved,
with thin, pale, drawn face, endeavouring to do some fancy needlework by
the drawing-room fire. Her mother had retired with a bad headache, she
said, and she was alone.

"I expected you yesterday, Teddy," she said, taking my hand. "I waited
all day, but you never came."

"I had to go into the country," I replied somewhat lamely.

Then after a brief conversation upon trivialities, during which time I
sat regarding her closely, and noting how nervous and agitated she
seemed, she suddenly asked:

"Well! Have you heard anything more of that woman, Mrs. Petre?"

"I believe she's gone abroad," I replied, with evasion.

Phrida's lips twitched convulsively, and she gave vent to a slight sigh,
of relief, perhaps.

"Tell me, dearest," I said, bending and stroking her soft hair from her
white brow. "Are you still so full