"I wouldn't go alone, Mr. Berrington," the stranger said in a tone of warning. "You don't know the people you have to deal with as I know them. If you would like to come to Paris with me to-night I could show you something that would amaze you—and you would come face to face there with Connie Stapleton and Miss Challoner, and others. Be advised by me, and do that. I am telling you to do what I know will be best for you. I don't ask you to pay me until we return to England." I paused, uncertain what to decide. Thoughts crowded my brain. Supposing, after all, that this were a ruse to entrap me. Supposing that Dulcie were not going to Paris. But no, the man's statements seemed somehow to carry conviction. "If we cross by the same boat as they do," I said suddenly, "we shall be recognized." He smiled grimly. "Not if you disguise yourself as you did at Hugesson Gastrell's the other night," he said. "Good heavens!" I exclaimed, "how do you know that?" He looked to right and left, then behind him. Nobody was near. Then, raising his hat, like lightning he pulled off his wig, eyebrows and moustache, whiskers and beard, crammed them into his jacket pocket, and, with his hat on the back of his head, sat back looking at me with a quiet smile of amusement. "Preston!" I gasped. "Good heavens, man, how do you do it?" Producing his cigarette case, in silence he offered me a cigarette. Then he spoke—now in his natural voice. "I always test my 'impersonations' when I get a chance of doing so," he said, "upon people who know me well, because if one can completely deceive one's friends it gives much confidence when one comes to serious business. Mr. Berrington, all I have just told you is absolute truth. I have found it all out within the last eleven hours. More than that, I am myself now one of the gang, and if I 'turn traitor' I shall be done to death by them just as certainly as I am sitting here. I flatter myself that I have arranged it all rather cleverly—I have succeeded in placing in confinement that man who shadowed you last night, without any member of the gang's knowing anything about his arrest or in the least suspecting it, and I have literally stepped into his shoes, for these clothes and boots that I am wearing are his. I believe the end of this abominable conspiracy is now within sight. To-night you must come with me to Paris on the boat that Miss Challoner, the woman Stapleton, Gastrell, and one or two others will cross by. I shall assume the disguise I have just removed. You will become once more Sir Aubrey Belston, we shall travel from Victoria in separate compartments, and on board the boat I shall casually mention to my 'friends' that Sir Aubrey Belston is on board. In Paris we ought to find out a lot—I have a friend there named Victor Albeury, who already knows a lot about this affair—and we shall, unless I am greatly mistaken. Now I must go home and get some hours of sleep, for I have been busy since we parted in the