"May I not even tell Nadine?" she faltered.

"Ah!" carelessly said Alan Hawke, "she is a mere child; I shall probably never see her. It is you alone that I would trust. Will you not come here again? I dare not, for your own sake, detain you longer now." The timid woman glanced hurriedly at her watch.

"I have been here already too long, and I must go! And there is so much I would say to you!" She was almost handsome in her blushing confusion.

"Then you will come again, here? Ram Lal is my old factotum!" the young Major pleaded.

"I will come!" the half-subjugated woman whispered under her breath. "But when?" Her eyes were meekly downcast and her faltering voice trembled.

"The day after to-morrow, at the same time," said Alan Hawke, his heart leaping up in a secret victory, "but no living soul must ever know of it. I will be here in the pagoda, waiting for you. Ram Lal will wait for you himself and admit you. Do you promise?" he said, with a glance which set her pallid cheeks aflame.

"I promise! I promise! Let me go, now!" gasped the excited woman. With stately courtesy, the Major then led her back into the jewel merchant's luxurious lounging-room.

"Wait here for a single moment!" he whispered as he quickly poured out a glass of cordial. And, then, returning in a few moments, he clasped upon the woman's wrist a bracelet of old Indian gold, whose flexible links glittered with the fire of a row of old Indian mine stones. Justine Delande sat mute, as if dreaming.

"Our little secret is now all our own!" he pleasantly murmured. "Remember! Should we meet at the marble house, you do not know me! Can you trust yourself? You must—for my sake! This will help you to remember our first meeting."

"You may depend upon me, whenever you may wish to call upon me," she whispered. "I will come!" and then she fled away, with soft, gliding steps, to regain the safety of her own room before the trying hour of tiffin.

Major Alan Hawke closed the door, and laughed softly as he threw himself into a chair. "They are all the same!" he mused. "Not a bad morning's work! For she will never tell our little secret! And she will surely come again! She may be my salvation here! Madame Louison, I now debit you just thirty pounds!" laughed Major Alan Hawke, as he deftly blew a kiss in the direction of Allahabad. "You shall pay for this bracelet, and much more! You shall pay for all! And I'll set this soft-hearted Swiss woman on to watch you, and you shall pay her well, too! Now, for my old friend, Hugh Johnstone!" He waited in a most happy frame of mind till his carriage bore him to the club for an elaborate Anglo-Indian toilet.

There was a crowd of eager gossips secretly tracking him who watched him roll away in state to the marble house.

"By Jove! I believe that he is the coming man!" said old Captain Verner. "I wonder if this handsome young beggar is really going in for the Veiled Rose of Delhi. Just his damned luck!" And then the loungers left the club window and drank deeply confusion to the would-be wooer's stratagems.

All unconscious of their busy curiosity, the gallant Major Alan Hawke calmly descended at the marble house, with a secret oath now registered to ignore the very existence of Nadine Johnstone, "The old man is always harping on his daughter," he mused. "I must throw this old beggar off his guard thoroughly to-day, once and for all. He must never think that I, too, am 'harping on his daughter.'

"But only let me get to the core of this old secret of the jewels, and I will find a way to frighten the baronet-to-be until he opens his miserly old heart." And so the wary guest sought his old friend's presence. When Major Alan Hawke's neat trap drew up before the marble house there was an officious crowd of Hindu underlings in waiting to welcome the expected guest.

Casting his eyes around the wide hall gleaming with its superb trophies of priceless arms, with a quick glance at the crowd of sable retainers, Major Hawke realized in all the barren splendors of the first story the absence of any womanly hand. As he followed the obsequious house butler into a vast reception room, he murmured:

"A diplomatic tiffin, I will warrant! The old fox is sly." He wandered idly about the Commissioner's sanctum, admiring the precious loot of years, displayed with an artfully artless confusion. On the walls, a series of beautiful Highland scenes recalled the Land o' Lakes. Pausing before a sketch of a stern old Scottish keep of the moyen age, Major Alan Hawke softly sneered: "Oatmeal Castle! The family stronghold of the old line of the Sandy Johnstone's, nee Fraser." And, picking up the last number of the Anglo-Indian Times, he then affected a composure which he was far from feeling.

"Damn this sly Scotsman! Why does he not show up?" was the chafing soliloquy of the Major, now anxious to seal his re-entree into Delhi society with the open friendship of the most powerful European civilian within the battered walls of the wicked city. He needed all his nerve now, for Hugh Fraser Johnstone was a past master of the arts of dissimulation.

In fact, the mauvais quart d'heure was really due to the innate womanly weakness of Mademoiselle Justine Delande. This guileless Swiss maiden had been carried off her feet by the romantic episode of the morning. Her cool palm still tingled with the meaning pressure of the handsome Major's hand! She had hastened away to her own apartment, as a wounded tigress seeks its cave for a last stand! The concealment of the diamond bracelet was a matter of necessity, and, with a beating heart, she buried it deep under the poor harvest of paltry Delhi trinkets which she had already gathered, with a mere magpie acquisitiveness.

Alan Hawke had builded better than he knew, when he selected this same bauble. He had been guided by a chance remark of Ram Lal's. "Give her that," said the crafty old jeweler. "She has priced it a dozen times since her first coming here." It was the Ultima Thule of personal decoration to her. The Swiss governess reserved the secret delight of donning the glittering ornament until she was positive that no tell-tale spy had observed her innocent assignation with her sister's chivalric friend. "He must be rich and powerful," she murmured as she fled from her room to play the safety game of being found with the heiress when her Prince Charming should arrive. Miss Nadine Johnstone failed not to observe the unusual color mantling her sedate friend's cheeks.

"You look as if you had received some good news. Is the mail in?" queried Miss Johnstone.

"Not yet. I hastened back, for I forgot to take my watch and was belated. I fear I am late, even now, for tiffin," demurely replied the Swiss maiden, dropping for the first time in her life into the baleful arts of the other daughters of Eve. She had broken the ice of propriety in which her past life had been congealed and an insidious pleasure now thrilled her quickened veins, as she felt herself possessed of a secret, one linking her to an attractive member of the dangerous sex, and a hero of romance, a very Don Juan in seductive softness. Her knees trembled at a sudden summons to report to the Master of the marble house, forthwith.

Her bosom heaved with a vague alarm as she timidly descended the grand stair, and was conducted to the private snuggery of the Commissioner adjoining his own apartments. "Does he know aught of the meeting?" she questioned herself, in the throes of a sudden fright. She was somewhat reassured as she observed the carriage drawn up in the compound and, by hazard, caught a glance of Alan Hawke's graceful martial figure, as he stood regarding her intently from the safe shelter of the darkened reception-room. Her heart bounded with delight as her Prince Charming smilingly placed his finger on his lip.

A sense of manly protection, never felt before, gave her the strength of ten as she then glided along boldly to face her gray-headed master. For now she knew that she had a champion at her side, a man professionally brave, both resolute and charming. Her promise to meet Alan Hawke again at the jeweler's now took on a roseate hue.

"I must surely keep my plighted word at all risks," she murmured to herself. For the sage reflection that she owed a sacred duty to her sister's friend, now came to comfort her, in her heart of hearts. It was almost a pious duty which lay before her now. And so she became brave in the knowledge of the innocent secret shared between herself and the handsome official visitor.

To her delight and relief she found it an easy task to face Hugh Johnstone, after that one reassuring glance. Her stern employer failed to pierce the muslin fortifications of her guilty bosom and discern the moral turpitude lurking there. She stole a last anxious glance at her still plump wrist where the diamond bracelet had softly clasped her flesh, and then softly sighed in relief as the master calmly said:

"Miss Justine, I have a gentleman of some distinction to entertain to-day at tiffin. An official visitor. I would be thankful if you would do the honors. Will you kindly join us in the reception room in half an hour, and I will present Major Hawke, my old friend. He has just returned from England."

"And Miss Nadine?" meekly demanded the happy woman. The old Commissioner's brow darkened, as he shortly said: "My daughter will be served in her rooms, as usual on such formal occasions. These interlopers are no part of her life. We may soon leave for Europe, and she is therefore better off to remain a stranger to these merely local acquaintances. It is very unlikely that we shall ever re-visit India! Will you see her and say that I purpose driving out with her later?"

No woman in India was as happy, at that particular moment, as the Genevese, who merely bowed in silence, and glided softly away, having escaped the levin-bolt of Hugh Johnstone's wrath, ever ready, lurking under his bushy, white eyebrows. It was the work of a moment for her to fulfill her simple task as messenger, and this done, she burned to hide herself in her own coign of vantage, for certain new-born ideas of personal decoration were crystallizing in her excited brain. For the first time in her life, she would be fair to man's views; so as to justify the partner of her momentous secret in the complimentary remarks which, even now, made her ears tingle in delight.

"Do you know aught of this Major Hawke who comes to-day?" wearily, said the listless girl. "Some one of these red-faced old relics of my father's early life, I suppose!" The Rose of Delhi was gazing wistfully out upon the wilderness of beauty in the tangled gardens, sweeping far out to where the high stone wall shut off the glare and flying dust of the Chandnee Chouk.

"Certainly not, Nadine!" softly said the governess. "This is only a peopled wilderness to me!" Her heart smote her as the girl, with a sudden lonely sinking of the heart, threw her arms around the neck of her startled companion.

"I am so unhappy here—so wretched, this is but a gleaning white stone prison, Justine! I stifle in this wretched land! Why did my father bring me here to die by inches?" There was no pretense in her stormy sobs.

"We are soon going home, Darling!" cried the affrighted Swiss. "Just now your father told me that we were all to leave India forever, and at once." And so, gently soothing the unhappy girl, orphaned in her heart, Justine Delande escaped to the first essay of her life in high decorative art. "There is some strange mystery of the past in all this! He has a heart of flint, this old tyrant!" murmured Justine, as with fingers trembling in haste she completed a toilet, which later caused even old Hugh Johnstone to growl "By Gad! This Swiss woman's not half bad looking!" A last pang, caused by the keen secret sorrow of not daring to wear her diamond bracelet, was effaced by the rising tide of indignation in Justine Delande's awakened heart. There were strange emotional currents fitfully thrilling through her usually placid veins as she stole a last glance at herself in the mirror. "A tyrant to the daughter. I warrant that in the old days he broke the mother's heart! He never mentions her! Not a picture is here—nothing—not even a memento, not a reference to the woman who gave him this lovely child! Her life, her death, even her resting place, are all wrapped in the selfish and brutal silence of a selfish tyrant! He should have been only a drill sergeant to knock about the half-crazed brutes who stagger under a soldier's pack over these burning plains!" It suddenly occurred to her that in some mysterious way Major Alan Hawke's coming would contribute to the rescue of the captive Princess.

Justine Delande really loved her beautiful charge with all the fond attachment of a mature woman for the one rose blossoming in her lonely heart. Their gray passionless lives had run on together since Nadine's childhood, as brooks quietly mingle, seeking the unknown sea! She now felt the wine of life stirring within her, and, seizing upon another justification for her dangerous secret association with Alan Hawke, she murmured: "I will tell him of all this. He has high influence with the Home Government. This Captain Anstruther on the Viceroy's staff is certainly his firm friend. We must leave here and return to dear old Switzerland. Perhaps the Major himself knows the secret of the family history!"

And there was a meaning light in her eyes as she stole back to Nadine's room when the silver gong sounded, and throwing her arms around the girl, whispered: "We are going home soon, darling! Be brave and trust to me! I will find out the story of the past and tell you all, my darling!" Justine Delande unwound the girl's arms from round her neck, while honest tears trembled in her eyes.

The low cry: "My mother! My darling mother! He never even breathes the name!" had loosened all the tide of repressed feeling long pent up in Justine Delande's heart.

"Trust to me! You shall know all, dearest! I am sure that Euphrosyne knows, and we shall see her soon!" So with an added reason for their second meeting, Miss Justine descended the grand marble stair, murmuring: "He shall tell me all he knows; he can search the past here! He can help me, and he must—for Nadine's sake!"

And as he bowed low before her in courteous acknowledgment of the master's presentation, Alan Hawke caught the lambent gleam of the newly awakened fires in Justine Delande's eyes. "She is another woman," he mused. With one silent glance of veiled recognition, Alan Hawke returned to his diplomatic fence with the wary old nabob who sat at the head of the glittering table. He was in no doubt now as to the second meeting at Ram Lal Singh's shop, for Justine Delande's eyes promised him more than even his habitual hardihood would have dared to ask. "What the devil's up now?" he mused, "Something about the girl, I warrant. I suppose that the old brute has exiled her here for safety." And then and there, Alan Hawke swore to reach the side of the Veiled Rose of Delhi, though the cold gray eyes of the host never caught him off his guard a moment in the two hours of the pompously drawn-out feast. Both the men were keenly watching each other now.

It had been no mere accidental slip of the tongue which guided Alan Hawke in his greeting of the old ex-Commissioner when Hugh Johnstone entered the reception-room, a study in gray and white, with only the three priceless pigeon-blood rubies lending a color to his snowy linen. "Upon my word, Sir Hugh, you are looking younger than I ever saw you," said the visitor gracefully advancing.

"You're a bit premature, are you not, Hawke?" dryly said the civilian, opening a silver cheroot box, once the property of a Royal Prince of Oude. Hugh Johnstone motioned his visitor to be seated, and keenly watched the younger man.

"I am on the inside of the matter," soberly said Alan Hawke. "It was an open secret when I left London, and I've heard more since. A brief delay only,—a matter of a few months—no more."

"Take a weed! They serve in half an hour!" abruptly said Hugh Johnstone, as if anxious to change the subject. The old man then strode forward and closed the door. Then, turning sharply upon his visitor, frankly demanded, "Now, tell me why you are here?"

"That depends partly upon your affairs," said Hawke, meeting his questioner's gaze unflinchingly. "I may have something to say to you about the Baronetcy, by and bye." He paused to notice the keen old Scotchman wince under the thrust, "but, in the mean time, I am merely waiting orders here, and I want you to post me about the condition of affairs up there." He vaguely indicated with his thumb the far-distant battlement of the Roof of the World. Hugh Johnstone rang a silver bell, and muttered a few words in Hindostanee to an attendant. "I must know more from Calcutta before I can explain just where I stand," said the renegade soldier, with caution.

Before the silver tray loaded with ante-prandial beverages was produced, Hugh Johnstone quietly turned to his guest. "Did you see Anstruther in London?" he demanded, with a scarcely veiled eagerness.

"We were together some days," very neatly rejoined the now confident Major. "In fact, I'm to operate partly under his personal directions. We are old friends."

"I wonder when he will return?" dreamily said Johnstone, as if the subject was growing annoying in its bold directness.

"I believe that he has a long leave—a furlough of a year," lightly answered the Major. "In fact, I am to carry on some official matters for him in his absence, but he is wary and non-committal."

"What is his English address?" abruptly said Johnstone, as they bowed formally over their glasses.

"I do not know," frankly returned Hawke. "I am to send all reports to headquarters in Calcutta."

"Are you going down there soon?" asked the old nabob, with a growing uneasiness.

"Not unless I am sent for by the Viceroy," quietly said the Major, with a listless air, gazing around admiringly on the magnificence of the apartment.

"I will give you a letter to my nephew, Douglas Fraser, when you do go," said Johnstone. "He is a fine youngster, and he will have charge of all my Indian affairs, if I go home. He is in the P. and O. office. I would like you to know him."

"I did not know that you had any family connection here," replied the Major with a start of innocent surprise.

"Only this boy," hastily replied the incipient baronet, "and my daughter. She is, however, a mere child—a mere child. I have seen the leaves of the family tree wither and drop off one by one." The host then stiffly rose, and formally said, "Let us go in!"

"You are good for a score of years yet," jovially remarked Major Hawke, as he gazed at the well-preserved outer man of his uneasy entertainer. "The harpoon is deeply fixed in the old whale," mused Hawke, as he followed Hugh Johnstone. "He begins to flounder now."

Conscious of the mental alarm which Hugh Johnstone could not altogether conceal, Major Hawke had simply bowed, in his grand manner, when the host presented his guest to Mademoiselle Delande. "I will let the old beggar lead out," mused Hawke. "This royal spread is an excuse for any amount of silence." And the Anglo-Indian renegade gazed admiringly at the thousand and one adjuncts of a blended English comfort and Indian luxury.

"Ever been in Geneva?" suddenly demanded Hugh Johnstone, with a glance at his two companions.

"He's an uneasy old devil. He is trying to trap me now," thought Hawke, who innocently replied: "Long years ago, when I was a mere lad. I'm told the town has been vastly improved by the Duke of Brunswick's legacy. I've not seen it in later years."

"Miss Delande is a Genevese," remarked the host.

"I congratulate you, Mademoiselle," politely said the Major. "It is a famous city to date from."

It was evident that the spinster was held in reverent awe of her employer, for she guarded a judicious silence, as with a formal bow she at last left the table at the graciously permitting nod of Hugh Johnstone. There was a cold and brooding restraint, which had seemed to cast a chill even over the sultry Indian midday, but Justine's smile was bright and winning as she faintly acknowledged with a blushing cheek Major Hawke's gallantry as he sprang up and opened the door for the retiring lady. "She will come, she will come," gayly throbbed the Major's happy heart.

Alan Hawke was now thoroughly on his guard. He had never lifted an eyebrow at the mention of Miss Johnstone. He had dropped Justine Delande like a plummet into the lake of forgetfulness, and watched Hugh Johnstone's listless trifling with the dainties of the superb collation. The raw-boned old Scotsman leaned heavily back in his chair.

His bony hands were thin and claw-like, his bushy white beard and eyebrows gave him a "service" aspect, while his cold blue eye gleamed out pale and menacing as the Pole star on wintry arctic seas. His broad chest was sunken, his tall form was bent, and a visible air of dejection and unrest had replaced the sturdy vigor of his early manhood. He was sipping a glass of pale ale in silence when Hawke neatly applied the lance once more. "It must be a great change for you to leave India, Johnstone, but you need rest, and a general shaking up. You have a good deal to leave here. I suppose your nephew—"

"He's a good lad, but a stranger to me, Hawke," broke in the host. "The fact is, I am as yet undecided. I go home for my daughter's sake; it's no place for her out here," he sternly said. "You know what Indian life is?"

Hawke bowed, and mutely cried, "Peccavi." He had been a part of it. "I'm waiting for the action of the Government. This Baronetcy. I must talk with you about it. I might have had the Star of India. You see, it's an empty honor. And I hate to break away for good, after all. Do you know anything from Anstruther? He was up here, you know."

"I have him now!" secretly exulted Hawke, as he said gravely, "You know what duty is, I cannot speak as yet, but you can depend on me as soon as my honor will permit—"

"Yes, yes, I know," said Hugh Johnstone, with a sigh, rising from the table. "You must make yourself at home here. In fact, I am thinking of sending my daughter back to Europe. Douglas Fraser can have them well bestowed; that is, if I have to remain and fight out this Baronetcy affair, then I could put you up here." Alan Hawke bowed his thanks.

They had wandered back to the reception-room. With an affected surprise the Major consulted his watch. "By Jove! I've got a heavy official mail to prepare, and I'm to dine to-day with Harry Hardwicke, of the Engineers. General Willoughby wants a private conference with me, and Hardwicke is the only confidential man he has. He gets his Majority soon, and Willoughby will lose him on promotion. A fine fellow and a rising man."

"See here, Hawke! Come in to-morrow and dine with me at seven. I want to have a long talk with you," said the uneasy host.

"You may absolutely depend on me, Sir Hugh," heartily answered the visitor, with a fine forgetfulness as to the title. When he rode away, Major Hawke caught sight of a womanly figure at a window above him, watching his retreat in due state, and there was the flutter of a handkerchief as his carriage drove around the oval. "I wonder if Ram Lal knows about the jewels. I must buy him out and out, or make Berthe Louison do it unconsciously for me," so mused the victorious renegade. "He is afraid of me! Now to dispatch Ram Lal to Allahabad. I must only see Berthe Louison, at night, in her own bungalow, for my shy old bird would take the alarm were we seen together. What the devil is her game? I know mine, and I swear that I will soon know hers. I have him guessing now. I must hunt up Hardwicke and call on old Willoughby to keep up the dumb show. Johnstone may watch me—very likely he will. He is afraid of some coup de theatre." He drove in a leisurely way back to the Club and sported the oak after giving Ram Lal his last orders.

"I think I hear the jingle of gold 'in the near future,' as the Yankees say; and, Miss Justine, you shall open the way to the veiled Rose of Delhi for me, while Berthe Louison tortures this old vetch. Place aux dames! Place aux dames!" he laughed.



BOOK II. "A DEVIL FOR LUCK."



CHAPTER VI. THE MYSTERIOUS BUNGALOW.



If the fates favored Major Alan Hawke upon this eventful day, for as he was contentedly awaiting the news of Ram Lal's departure for Allahabad, the card of Captain Harry Hardwicke, A. D. C., and of the Engineers, was sent up to him. With a neat bit of Indian art, old Ram Lal had sent the carriage around to report, as a mute signal of his own departure. It was a flood tide of good fortune!

In ten minutes, the Major and his welcome guest were spinning along in the cool of the evening, toward the deserted ruins of the old city of Delhi! As they passed through the Lahore gate, Hardwicke's pith helmet was doffed with a jerk, as a superb carriage passed them, proceeding in a stately swing. Major Alan Hawke bowed low as he caught the cold eye of the would-be Sir Hugh Johnstone.

"Who are the ladies, Hardwicke?" laughed the Major, as he saw the young officer's face suddenly crimson. "For a man who won the V. C. in your dashing style, you seem to be a bit beauty-shy!" They were hardly settled yet for their cozy chat. Hardwicke lit a cheroot to cover his evident confusion.

"I know" he slowly answered, "that one of them is Miss or Madame Delande, old Fraser's house duenna—I will still call him Fraser, you see—the other is the mystery of Delhi. Popularly supposed to be the old boy's daughter, and his sole heiress, Miss Nadine," concluded the young aid-de-camp. "The old curmudgeon keeps her judiciously veiled from mortal ken. No man but General Willoughby has ever exchanged a word with her. The dear old boy—his memory does not go back beyond his last B. and S.—he can't even sketch her beauty in words. And she is as hazy, even to the Madam-General—our secret commanding officer. There is a continuous affront to society in this old monomaniac's treatment of that girl."

"You would like to storm the Castle Perilous, and awaken the Sleeping Beauty?" archly said Hawke, as they rolled along under a huge alley of banyan trees.

"Not at all," gravely said Hardwicke. "She is only a girl, like other girls, I presume; but, this old fool is only fit for the old days, when the kings of Oude flew kites and hunted with the cheetah; or, half drunken, dozed, lolling away their lives in these marble-screened zenanas, with the automatic beauties of the seraglio. Our English cannon have knocked all that nonsense silly. Here is a high-spirited, Christian English girl, shut up like a slave. It's only the unfairness of the thing that strikes me." Hawke eyed the blue-eyed, rosy young fellow of twenty-six with an evident interest. Stalwart and symmetrical in figure, Hardwicke's frank, manly face glowed in indignation.

"You've won your spurs quickly out here," said Hawke. "You have not been long enough in India to case-harden into the cursed egotism of this hard-hearted land, and remember, age, crawling on, has indurated old 'Fraser-Johnstone.' He was never an amiable character. What do the ladies of the city say of this strange social situation? I never knew that the old beast had a daughter till to-day."

Captain Hardwicke wearily replied: "They all hold aloof, of course, after some very rough rebuffs, as I believe the old boy will clear out for good when he gets his baronetcy. It's possible that the girl is half a foreigner after all," mused Hardwicke. "The duenna is surely a continental."

"Yes; but she seems to be a very nice person. I was there to-day at tiffin," finally said Major Hawke,

"She had very little to say, and cleared out at once. I did not see Miss Johnstone." They fell into an easy, rattling chronicle of things past and present, and before the two hours' ride was over, the astute Major felt that he had divined General Willoughby's object in sending his pet aid-de-camp to reconnoitre Hawke's lines and pierce the mystery of his rumored employment.

"I suppose that you will come up and duly report to the Chief," rather uneasily said Captain Hardwicke, as they neared the Club on their return. Hawke cast a glance at the superb domes of the Jumma Musjid towering in the thin air above them, as he slowly answered:

"I am only here on a roving secret commission. I shall call, of course, and pay my personal respects to His Excellency, the General Commanding. I am an official will-o'-the-wisp, just now, but my blushing honors are strictly civil, and, by the way, in expectancy. Where does your promotion carry you?"

"Oh, anywhere—everywhere," laughed Hardwicke. "I may be sent home. I'm entitled to a long leave—there's my wound, you know. I've only stayed on here to oblige Willoughby." It was easy to see that the frank, splendid young fellow was but awkwardly filling his role of polite inquisitor, for they talked shop a couple of hours over a bottle at the Club, and Hardwicke at last took his leave, no whit the wiser.

"If he did not post me as to the heiress, at least, old Willoughby gets no valuable information," laughed the Major, that night. "The boy seems to be ambitious and heart-whole. Old Johnstone will soon clear out to the Highlands, I suppose, with this hidden pearl." But Major Hawke laughed softly when the morning brought to him a personal invitation to dine "informally" with General Willoughby. "Wants to know, you know," laughed the Major. "All I have to do is to keep cool and let him drink himself jolly, and so, answer his own questions."

"That Hardwicke is an uncommonly fine young fellow." So decided the Major as he splashed into his morning tub. There was one man, however, in Delhi who now viewed Hawke's presence with a secret alarm, amounting to dismay. It was the stern old miserly Scotsman who had paced his floor half the night in a vain effort to reassure himself. "What does he know? I must have old Ram Lal watch him," mused Hugh Johnstone. "I was a fool not to have cleared out from here months ago, before these spies were set upon me. First, Anstruther; now this fellow, Hawke, and, perhaps, even Hardwicke. If it were not for the old matter I would go to-morrow, and let the Baronetcy go hang—or find me in the Highlands. But, I must make one last attempt to get them out. I must—" and the old man slept the weary sleep of utter exhaustion.

Before the nabob awoke, Captain Henry Hardwicke, swinging away on his morning gallop, had reviewed the strange attitude of Major Hawke. "He is very intimate with Hugh Johnstone, and he is a man of the world, too. I will yet see this charming child, when the ban of her prison seclusion is lifted." He vaguely remembered the one timid and girlish glance of the beautiful dark eyes, when he had been presented, pro-forma, to the Veiled Rose upon that one memorable state visit. He then rode out of his way to gaze at the exterior of the great marble house, and was rewarded by the sight of a graceful woman walking there under her governess's escort in the dewy freshness of the early morn.

He doffed his helmet as Miss Justine paused among the flowers, and then Miss Nadine Johnstone looked up to see the graceful rider disappear behind the fringing trees.

"That was Captain Hardwicke, was it not?" asked the lonely girl. Miss Justine was busied in dreaming of her meeting of the morrow.

"Yes, it was," she absently replied.

"They tell me that he nobly risked his life to save his wounded friend," dreamily continued Nadine. "He gave back to a father the life of an only son at the risk of his own. How brave—how noble." And Justine gazed at her charge in surprise, as the beautiful Nadine bent her head to greet her sister flowers.

The resolute Major Hawke, at his cheerful breakfast, was busied with thoughts of the coming arrival of Hugh Johnstone's secret foe. "I must have money from her at once to swing Ram Lal's Private Inquiry Bureau and to mystify these quid nuncs here. For I must entertain the clubmen a bit. It's as well to begin, also, to pot down a bit of her money for the future. She shall pay her way, as she goes." And, with a view to the further cementing of his rising social pyramid, he planned a very neat little dinner of half a dozen of the most available men whom he had selected as being "in the swim." "The next thing is to discover what the devil she really wants of old Johnstone! She must show her hand now, and then soon call on me for help."

He gazed at his little memorandum of "pressing engagements." "A pretty fair book of events. First, old Johnstone's dinner—more of the boring process—then to welcome my strange employer, and, after that, Mademoiselle Justine! Later, I'll have my own little innings with General Willoughby, and, finally play the gracious host while Ram Lal watches Madame Louison's cat-like play upon her victim. Money I must have, her money first, to pay the piper," he laughed, which proposed liberality was destined to doubly bribe the wily old jewel merchant. At that very moment Ram Lal, securely hidden away in the native compartment of the train, rushing on from Allahabad toward Delhi, was dreaming of the long-deferred triumph of a life!

"If he has them—if they can be traced—they shall be mine if every diamond gleams red with his heart's blood! Perhaps these two strange people have brought them. Who knows? They are rich; it may be the jewels!" And Ram Lal dreamed of a tripartite watch upon the three principal figures of the opening drama. "The jewels were a king's ransom. But I shall know all," he softly smiled, for every attendant of the beautiful recluse now burning to meet her advance spy was a sworn confederate of Ram Lal in a dark brotherhood whose very name no man even dared to lisp! And so the long, blazing day wore away, bringing the hunter and the hunted nearer together. The mysterious bungalow was now alive with the slaves of luxury, while Alan Hawke secretly inspected the last finishing touches, for he, alone, was master of the private entrance once used by a man whose glittering rank had lifted him presumably above all human weaknesses!

Major Hawke departed for the Club in a very good humor, after his hour of inspection of the jewel box bungalow now ready for his fair employer. It was a perfect cachette d' amour, and its superb gardens, so long deserted, were now only a tangled jungle of luxuriant loveliness! The light foot of the beauty for whom this Rosamond's Bower had been prepared had wandered far away, for a substantial block of marble now held down the great man, who had in the old days found the welcome of his hidden Egeria so delicious in this long-deserted bungalow. For the dead Numa Pompilius slept now with his fathers, in far away Merrie England, and—as is the wont—the mortuary inscriptions on his tomb recorded only his virtues. But both his virtues and failings were of no greater weight now to a forgetful generation, which knew not the departed Joseph, than the drifted leaves in the garden alleys where the romance of the old still lingered in ghostly guise! "There were no birds in last year's nest," but the mysterious bungalow had been hastily arranged for the lovely successor to the vanished queen of a cobweb Paradise. The bungalow, itself, was adroitly constructed with a special reference to seclusion as well as comfort. An Indian Love's Labyrinth.

"Just the very place!" murmured Alan Hawke, as he hastened away to dress for the diner de famille, with his timorous secret foe, Hugh Johnstone. "I wonder if my canny friend, in his humble days as Hugh Fraser, ever assisted at lespelits diners de Trianon here?

"Probably not, for friend Hugh was ever apter in squeezing the nimble rupee than in chanting sonnets to his mistress's eyebrow. How the devil did he ever catch a wife, such as Valerie Delavigne must have been? Either a case of purchase or starvation, I'll warrant!"

Ram Lal Singh was growing dubious as to the perfect sweep of his hungry talons over Madame Louison's future expenditures. He had noted, with some secret alarm, a grave-faced, sturdy Frenchman, still in the forties, who was cast in the role of either courier or butler for the beautiful Mem-Sahib, whose loveliness in extenso he so far only divined by guess-work.

In the stranger lady's special car there was also, at her side, a truculent Parisienne-looking woman of thirty, whose bustling air, hawk-like visage, and perfect aplomb bespoke the confidential French maid. "I must tell Hawke Sahib of this at once," mused Ram Lal. "We must, in some way, get rid of these foreign servants." The man had a semi-military air, heightened by the sweeping scar—a slash from a neatly swung saber. This purple facial adornment was Jules Victor's especial pride. In these days of "ninety" he often recurred to the stroke which had made his fortune in the dark reign of the Commune.

As a wild Communard soldier he had risked his life vainly to save the aged Colonel Delavigne from a furious mob, for the red rosette in the old officer's buttonhole had cost him his life in an awkward promenade, and this sent the orphans, Valerie and Alixe Delavigne, adrift upon the mad maelstrom of Paris incendie. While Ram Lal glowered in his dissatisfaction, Madame Berthe Louison complacently regarded her two secret protectors on guard in the special car. For the strange turn of Fortune's wheel, which had left Alixe Delavigne alone in the world, and rich enough to effect her special vengeance upon her one enemy, had given to Jules Victor and his wife Marie a sinecure for life as the personal attendants of the soi-disant Madame Berthe Louison.

Marie was but a wild-eyed child of ten when Jules had picked her up in the flaming streets of Paris, and they had graduated together from the gutters of Montmartre into the later control of Madame Louison's pretty little pied d' terre in Paris, hard by Auteuil, in that dreamy little impasse, the Rue de Berlioz. Neither of these attendants were faint-hearted, for their young hearts had been attuned early to the wolfish precocity of the Parisian waif. And they had followed their resolute mistress in her weary quest of the past years.

Berthe Louison smiled in a comforting sense of security, as she gazed listlessly out upon the landscape flying by.

The two servants, modestly voyaging out to Calcutta, on a telegraphic summons, to embark at Marseilles, had preceded the Empress of India by ten days. So, neither friendless, nor without untiring devotion, was the wary woman who had thus secretly armed herself against any "little mistake" on the part of Major Alan Hawke. Certain private instructions to the manager of Grindlay & Co., at Calcutta, had caused that respectable party to open his eyes in wonder.

"Of course, Madame, our local agent at Delhi will act in your behalf, with both secrecy and discretion. I have already written him a private cipher letter in regard to your every wish being fulfilled."

Such is the potent influence of a letter of credit, practically approaching the "unlimited."

"If I could only use Jules in the double capacity of gentleman and factotum, I would dress him up a la mode and let him approach Hugh Johnstone," mused the beautiful tourist, but I must be content to use this cold-hearted adventurer Hawke, for he has at least a surface rank of gentleman, and, moreover, he knows my enemy! I must keep Jules and Marie every moment at my side, for some strange things happen in India by day as well as by night. Sir Hugh may dream of some 'unusually distressing accident' as a means of safely ridding himself of a long slumbering specter."

"Of course, this sly jeweler is Alan Hawke's spy! A few guineas extra, however, may buy his 'inner consciousness' for me," she mused. And so it fell out that Ram Lal Singh was destined to drop into the secret service of both Hawke and the fair invader! And, as yet, neither of his intending employers could divine the dark purposes of the oily rascal who had stealthily watched Hugh Fraser for long years to slake the hungry vengeance of a despoiled traitor to the last King of Oude.

Major Hawke found the tete e tete dinner with Hugh Johnstone a mere dull social parade. There was no demure face at the feast slyly regarding him, for while the two watchful secret foes exchanged old reminiscence and newer gossip, Justine Delande was cheering the lonely girl, whose silent mutiny as to her shining prison life now reached almost an open revolt. It was a grateful relief to the Swiss woman, whose agitated heart was softly beating the refrain: "To-morrow! to-morrow! I shall see him again!" She feared a self-betrayal!

While the governess mused upon the extent of her proposed revelations to the handsome Major, that rising social star had adroitly exploited his long tete e tete with Captain Hardwicke to his host, and gracefully magnified the warmth of General Willoughby's personal welcome.

"You see, Johnstone," patiently admitted the man who had dropped into a good thing, "They all want to delve into the secrets of my mission here. You, of all men," he meaningly said, "cannot blame me for throwing the dust into their eyes. I detest this intrusion, and so in sheer self-defense I am going to give a formal dinner to a lot of these bores, and then cut the whole lot when I've once done the decent thing." Circling and circling, and yet never daring to approach the subject, old Hugh Johnstone warily returned to the suspended baronetcy affair, at last revealing his secret burning anxieties. But when Alan Hawke heard the train whistles, announcing the arrival of his beautiful employer, he fled away from the smoking-room in a mock official unrest.

"I am expecting dispatches from England, and also very important detailed secret instructions. I've had a warning wire from Calcutta."

He had broken off the se'ance brusquely with a design of his own, and he rejoiced as Hugh Johnstone brokenly said: "Let me see you very soon again. I must have a plain talk with you." The old nabob was in a close corner now. There had been a few bitter queries from the half-distracted girl which showed, even to her stern old father, that his position was becoming untenable.

"Damn it! I must either talk or send her away," he growled when left alone. "I've half a mind to telegraph Douglas Fraser to come here and convoy this foolish young minx home to Europe. She may grow to be a silent rebel like her mother." His scowl darkened. "And yet, where to send her? I ought to go with them. Can I trust the Delandes to find a safe place to keep her till I come?" He was all unaware that his daughter Nadine was now a woman like her bolder sisters of society, but it was true. The chrysalis was nearing the butterfly stage of life and beating the bars with her wings.

The secret exultation of Justine Delande in her shadowy hold on Major Alan Hawke caused her to furtively lead Nadine Johnstone to the head of the great stairway, when Hawke made his adieux.

"He is a handsome young officer," timidly whispered the girl, shrinking back out of sight. "What can he have in common with my father? I thought he was some old veteran." And the awakened heart of Justine Delande bounded in delight. She would have joyed to tell Nadine of her own romantic budding friendship, but a wholesome fear tied her tongue, and she was only happy when caressing the diamond bracelet that night, which encircled her arm, while with dry and aching eyes she waited for the dawn.

While Hugh Johnstone paced the veranda of his lonely marble palace that night, a prey to vague fears, and unwilling to face the accusing eyes of his daughter, Major Alan Hawke, with a sudden astonishment, stood mute before the splendid woman who received him in the mysterious bungalow. There was scant ceremony of greeting between them, for Berthe Louison impatiently grasped his hands.

"He is here, and the girl, too," she said, with blazing eyes. She stood robed as a queen before her secret agent. "Where were you? You left me here to wait in a torment of anxiety."

"I have just come from his dinner table," quietly said the startled Major. "They are both here, and well. I am already intimate at the house, but I have not seen the girl. I feared being followed or I would have met you at the train." He marveled at her royal beauty. She was conscious now of the power of wealth, and some hidden fire glowed in her veins. "What can I do for you? He watches me. I can only come at night."

"Ah!" the lady sternly said, "we must then play at hide and seek!"

Ringing a silver bell twice, Madame Louison sank into a chair. Alan Hawke started up, inquiringly, as Jules and Marie entered the room from an ante-room, whose door was left ajar.

"Jules! Marie!" calmly said Madame Louison. "This gentleman is my secret business agent. He will call here in the evenings very often. He has pass keys of his own, and you need not announce him. He is the only person who has the right to be in my house—at all times." The husband and wife bowed in silence and, at a gesture from their mistress, departed silently, having mentally photographed the newcomer.

Gazing in open-eyed astonishment, the surprised Major faltered, "Who are these people? Why did you do this strange thing?"

"To assure myself of safety," quietly smiled Berthe Louison. "They are my personal servants, whom I brought on from Calcutta, and I have reason to believe that Jules is both alert and courageous. He is a veteran of the Tonquin war, and that pretty scar was a present from the Black Flags. They were selected by one who knows the wiles of my desperate enemy Johnstone."

"Now, Major Hawke, let us to business" calmly continued Berthe, secretly enjoying Alan Hawke's dismay. "Tell me your whole story. Only the events since your arrival here. The rest counts for nothing. We are all on the ground here and I propose to act quickly. I learned some matters in Calcutta which have greatly enlightened me." The facile tongue of the renegade was slow to do the bidding of his unready brain. "Damme! But she's a cool one!" the ex-officer concluded, as he caught his breath. But, conscious of her watchful eye, he related all his adventures, with a judicious reserve as to Justine Delande. The burning eyes of Berthe Louison were steadily fixed upon the relator's face, and she was coldly noncommittal when Hawke paused for breath and a mental recapitulation. The Major now gazed upon her immovable visage. There was neither joy nor sorrow, neither the flush of anger nor the trembling of rage, awakened by the businesslike presentment of the social facts. "She is a human icicle," he mused. "She has some deadly hold on him!"

"Can you trust this Ram Lal Singh?" the woman demanded in a business-like tone. Alan Hawke nodded decisively.

"He knows Hugh Fraser Johnstone well?" queried Berthe.

"They have been companions in the mixed line or Delhi since the mutiny," earnestly replied Hawke, slowly concluding: "And Ram Lal has been Johnstone's broker in selecting his almost unequaled Indian collection. Ram is a thief, like all Hindus, but he is square to me. I hold him in my hand. You can trust to him, but only through me!" Berthe Louison raised her eyes and then fixed a searching glance upon Alan Hawke, as if she would read his very soul.

"And, can I trust you?" she said, almost solemnly.

"You remember our strange compact, Madame," coldly said Alan Hawke. "Here, face to face with the enemy, I expect to know what is required of me—and also what my future recompense will be."

"Ah, I forgot," mused the strange lady of the bungalow. "You have the right to teach me a lesson, in both manners and business. I forgot how sharply I had drawn the line, myself. Well, Sir, I will trust to you without any assurance on your part." She rang the silver bell at her side, once, and the silent Jules appeared, as attentive as Rastighello in the boudoir of the Duchess of Ferrara. "My traveling bag, Jules," said the lady, in a careless tone. There was a silence punctuated only by Alan Hawke's heavy breathing, until the silent servitor returned, bowing and departing without a word, as he placed the bag at Madame Louison's side. With a businesslike air, the lady handed Alan Hawke a sealed letter, addressed simply:

HUGH FRASER JOHNSTONE, ESQ., DELHI.

Near at hand, in the opened bag, the watchful Major saw the revolver and dagger once more which he had noted, at Lausanne.

"Let Ram Lal deliver that personally to the would-be Baronet, to-morrow morning at eight o'clock. He is to say nothing. There will be no reply," measuredly remarked the strange woman whose life as Alixe Delavigne had brought to her the legacy of an undying hatred for the man whom she was about to face. "This will bring Hugh Johnstone to me at once!"

"That is all?" stammered Alan Hawke, as he received the document, respectfully standing "at attention."

"No, not quite all!" laughed Berthe Louison. "Pray continue a career of judiciously liberal social splendor here, an external 'swelling port' just suited to a man whose feet are planted upon a financial rock. But do not overdo it! It might excite Hugh Johnstone's alarm. Here is five hundred pounds in notes. There will be no accounts between us."

"And, I am to do nothing else?" cried Hawke, in surprise. "I fear to have you meet this man alone! He is rich, powerful, and crafty. The nature of your business, I fear, is that of deadly quarrel. Remember, this man is at bay. He is unscrupulous. I fear for you!"

The renegade spoke only the truth. For dark memories of Hugh Fraser's bitter deeds in days past now thronged upon his brain.

"Fear not for me." cried Berthe Louison, springing up like a tigress in defense of her cubs. "Do you know that his life would be the forfeit of a lifted finger? Do you take me for a blind fool?" she raged. "Do you know the power of gold? Ah, my friend, there are unseen eyes watching my pathway here, and may God have mercy upon any one who practices against me, in secret! Any 'strange happening' to me would be fearfully avenged! As for this flinty-hearted brute, he would never even reach that threshold alive, if he dared to threaten! Go! Leave him to me. Come here to-morrow night. I shall have need of your cool brain and your ready wit! My only task was to find him and the girl together."

"And if I am questioned about you? If anything occurs?" persisted Alan Hawke.

"Simply ignore my existence; if we meet we are strangers!" gasped Berthe, who had thrown herself on a divan. "Obey me without questioning my motive! Each night you will receive orders for the next day, should I need your secret hand! Go now! I am tired! I must be ready to meet this man!"

Alan Hawke had reached the door, but he turned back. "And as to Ram Lal? What shall I do?" The woman's eyes flashed fire.

"Leave him also to me! I will handle him! A few rupees—will serve as his bait. Stay! You say that this Swiss woman, Justine Delande, is sympathetic, and seems to be a worthy person?" She was scanning his impassive face with steely glances now.

"She is younger than her sister Euphrosyne," gravely said Alan Hawke, "and not without some personal attractions. Her older sister adores her. Even this old brute, Johnstone, seems to treat her with great respect and deference."

"There is the only danger to us! Watch that woman! Mingle freely in the Johnstone household," said Berthe, wearily, "but never cast your eyes toward Nadine. Never even hint to this Swiss governess that you have seen her sister. After they return to Europe it is another thing. Silence and discretion now. Good night. Come to-morrow night at ten o'clock; all will be quiet, and you can steal away from the Club in safety."

Major Alan Hawke stole away to the hidden entrance like a thief of the night. He started as he saw the menacing figure of Jules Victor glide swiftly after him to the secret opening in the wall. The servitor spoke not a single word, but watched the business agent disappear. "I must watch this damned Frenchman," he mused, feeling for his packet of notes and loosening his revolver. "He may be set on by this she devil to watch Ram Lal." And then Hawke gayly sought the jewel merchant, lingering an hour in the very room where he was on the morrow to meet the heart-awakened Justine. Old Ram Lal grinned as he accepted the letter. He was happy, for he heard the jingling of golden guineas in the near future. "You have nothing to do with me, Ram Lal," laughed the Major. "The lady will give you your orders, only you are to tell me all for both our sakes. I will see you rewarded," and again Ram Lal grinned in his quiet way.

When Alan Hawke's head was resting on his pillow he suddenly became possessed with a strange new fear. "By God! I believe that she has been here before; she seems to be up to the whole game."

Alan Hawke's steps hardly died away in the hallway before the beautiful Nemesis made a careful inspection of her splendid reception-room. The splendors of its curtained arches, its fretted ceiling, and its frescoed walls were idly passed over, for the woman only made an exhaustive survey of its geometrical arrangement. Marie Victor was in waiting at her side, and the mistress and maid were soon joined by Jules. Throwing open the door of a little adjoining cabinet, Madame Louison whispered a few private directions to the ex-Communard. "Do this at once yourself; none of the blacks are to know. I trust none of them!" imperatively commanded Berthe. "Marie will receive him. You are to be here at nine o'clock, and be sure to let no one of these yellow spies observe you. Now, both of you. Here is the rearrangement of the furniture. This will be your first task in the morning. You can both use the whole household for these changes. They are to obey you in all. Let all be ready when I have breakfasted. Now, Marie, I will try and rest. Jules, inspect and examine the house; then you can take your post for the night at my door. Have you exhausted every possibility of any trickery in the sleeping room?"

"There's but the one door, Madame. Trust to me. I have sounded every inch of the walls, and even examined the floor." Jules Victor's romantic nature thrilled with the possibilities of the little life drama to come.

Berthe Louison departed to rest upon her arms the night before the battle. Much marveled the swarming band of Ram Lal's creatures that no human being was suffered to approach the Lady of the Bungalow but her two white attendants. Berthe Louison had not reached the idle luxury of employing a dozen Hindus in infinitesimal labors near her person. For she fathomed easily Ram Lal's devotion to Major Alan Hawke.

The presence of keen-eyed Marie Victor's brass camp-bed in My Lady's sleeping-room was a source of wonder to the velvet-eyed spy who was Ram Lal's especial "Bureau of Intelligence." "Strange ways has this Mem-Sahib," murmured the Hindu when he craved to know if the Daughter of the Sun and Light of the World desired aught. "I will then have two to watch. The waiting woman has the eye of a tiger."

A personal verification of the fact that Jules Victor was encamped for the night, en zouave, on a divan drawn before the only door joining the boudoir and sleeping-room, caused the sly spy to greatly marvel, for the scarred face of the French social rebel was ominously truculent, and a pair of Lefacheux revolvers and a heavy knife lay within the ready reach of this strange "outside guard."

In the dim watches of the first night in Delhi, the same barefooted Hindu spy learned by a visit of furtive inspection, that a night light steadily burned in the boudoir where Jules was toujours pret. The sneaking rascal crept away, with a violently beating heart, fearing even the rustle of his bare feet upon the mosaic floor.

And all this, and much more, did he deliver with abject humility to Ram Lal Singh, when that worthy appeared the next day to crave his mysterious patron's orders. It seemed a tough nut to crack, this tripartite household arrangement.

The dawn found Madame Berthe Louison as alertly awake as bird and beast stirring in the ruined splendors of old Shahjehanabad. Long before the anxious Justine Delande arose to deck herself furtively for her tryst with Alan Hawke, Berthe Louison knew that all her orders of the night before were executed.

"You are sure that you can see perfectly, Jules?" said the anxious woman.

"I command the whole side of the room where you will be seated," replied the Frenchman, "and the ornaments and carved tracery cover the aperture. Marie has tested it and I have also done the same, reversing our positions. Nothing can be seen."

"Good! Remember! Nine o'clock sees you at your post! You are prepared?" The woman's voice trembled.

"Thoroughly!" cried the alert servitor, "Only give me your signal! I must make no mistake! There's no time to think in such cases!" He bent his head, while his mistress, in a low voice gave her last orders. Jules saluted, as if he were the leader of a forlorn hope.

"And now for the first skirmish!" mused Berthe Louison, as she personally examined some matters, of more material interest to her, in the reception-room.

The rearrangement of the furniture seemed to be satisfactory, and Madame Berthe Louison composedly busied herself with the arrangement of a writing case, and a few womanly articles upon the table which she had chosen as her own peculiar fortification. A few moments were wasted upon trifling with a well-worn envelope, now carefully hidden in her bosom. This maneuver passed the time needed for a stately carriage to sweep up from the opened grand gate of the bungalow to the raised veranda steps. "There he is!" she grimly said. "Now, for the first blood!"

A man who was shaking with mingled rage and fear hastily strode across the broad portico, as Berthe Louison glided away from the curtained window and confidently resumed her own chosen chair. Her bosom was heaving, her eye was fixed and stern, and she steadily awaited her foe, for one last warning whisper had reached her hidden servitor.

When Marie Victor threw open the double doors of the reception room, on its threshold stood the towering form of the man whom Alixe Delavigne had known in other years as Hugh Fraser, the man whose pallid face told her that he knew at last that he was under the sword of Damocles! Clad in white linen, his sun helmet in his hand, steadying himself with a jeweled bamboo crutch-handled stick, the old Anglo-Indian waited until Berthe Louison's voice rang out, as clear as a silver bell: "Marie! I am not to be interrupted." she calmly said. "You may wait beyond, in the ante-room!"

The woman who had emerged from the dark penumbra of a dead Past, to torture the embryo Baronet, gazed silently at the stern old man glowering there.

Striding up to her, the insolent habit of years was, strong upon him, as he hoarsely said: "What juggling fiend of hell brings you here?"

Without a tremor in her voice, the lady of Jitomir replied:

"I came here to undo the work of years! To teach an orphaned girl to know that a love which hallows and which blesses, can reach her from the grave in which your cold brutality buried the only being I ever loved! She shall know her mother, from my lips, and not wither in the gray hell of your egoism. I have searched the world over, and found you, at last, together!"

"By God! You shall never even see her face, you she-devil!" cried the infuriated old man, nearing the defiant woman. "You were the go-between for your worthless sister and that Russian cur, Troubetskoi!"

"You lie! Hugh Fraser, you lie!" cried Berthe, in a ringing voice. "You crushed the flower that Fate had drifted within your reach! You turned her into the streets of London to starve! You robbed her of her child, all this to feed your own flinty-hearted tyrant vanity! She was divorced from you by a Royal Russian Decree, before she married the man whose heart broke when she was laid in the tomb. She rests with the princes of his line, and her tomb bears the name of wife!"

The old nabob crept nearer, growling:

"You shall never see the child's face!"

Then, Alixe Delavigne sprang up and faced him: "There she is! on my heart! Just what her mother was, before you sent her to an early grave. Valerie died hungering for one sight of that child's face!" Throwing the picture of Nadine Johnstone on the table, the lady of Jitomir said: "Pierre Troubetskoi left to me the wealth which makes me your equal. I fear you not! I shall see Nadine to-morrow!"

"Never!" roared Hugh Johnstone, now beyond all control. "I defy you! Beware how you approach my threshold!" His eyes were murderous in their steely blue gleam, and, yet, he met a glance as steady as his own.

"Listen," said Berthe Louison, sinking back into her chair, "I will tell you a little story." Hugh Johnstone was now gazing at the photograph, which trembled in his hand. "Once upon a time a man secreted a vast deposit of jewels, really the spoil of a deposed king, and, rightly, the property of the victorious British Government!" The photograph fell to the floor as the old man sprang up from the chair, into which he had dropped. "This paper, the receipt for the deposit, once delivered to the Viceroy of India—and the Baronetcy which is to be your life crown is lost for ever." The old man's hands knotted themselves in anger. "The lying story that the deposit was stolen by an underling will bring you, Hugh Johnstone, to the felon's cell! You shall live to wear the convict's chain! The Government is partly aware of the facts. It rests for me to give the Viceroy the receipt for your private deposit. The private bank vault in Calcutta has hidden your shame for twenty years. You know the condition of your settlement with the Government. Now, shall I see my sister's child? I hold your very existence here—in the hollow of my hand!" The dauntless woman drew forth a yellowed envelope from her breast. There was a smothered shriek, a crash and a groan, as Jules Victor, springing from his concealment, hurled the infuriated man to the floor!

With a knee on the panting nabob's breast, he hissed:

"Move, and you are a dead man!"

"Take the paper, Madame," calmly said the victorious Jules. Then Alixe Delavigne laughed scornfully.

"Let the fool arise. The contents are only blank paper. The document is where I can find it for use. Remain here, Jules," concluded the triumphant woman, as she replaced the photograph in her bosom. "Take the envelope—you know it, Hugh Fraser. I stole it the night you drove the sister I loved from our miserly lodgings in London." The furious onslaught had failed, and the old nabob was only a cowering, cringing prisoner at will. He dared not even cry out.

Hugh Johnstone groaned as his eyes turned from the woman, now laughing him to scorn, to the stern-faced Frenchman, who was covering the baffled assailant with the grim Lefacheux revolver.

"Send this man away. Let us talk, Alixe," muttered the astounded Johnstone. Then a mocking laugh rang out in the room.

"I am in no hurry now. I can wait. I like Delhi, and I shall find my way to Nadine's side, and she shall know the story of a mother's love. One signal from me, by telegraph, and the document goes to the Viceroy. So, I fear you not, my would-be strangler! It is for me to make conditions! Listen! I will send my carriage and my man to your house to-morrow morning at ten. You will have made up your mind then. I have friends all around me, here, at Allahabad, and in Calcutta. If you practice any treachery on me you die the death of a dog, even here, in your robber nest!"

"I will come! I will come!" faltered Johnstone.

"Ah!" smiled the lady. "Jules, show Sir Hugh Johnstone to his carriage." And then turning her back in disdain, she vanished without a word.



CHAPTER VII. THE PRICE OF SAFETY.



When nabob Hugh Johnstone's carriage dashed swiftly down the crowded Chandnee Chouk, on its return to the marble house, the driver and footman, as well as the slim syce runners, were alarmed at the old man's appearance when he was half led, half carried out of his luxurious vehicle. The staggering sufferer reached his rooms and was surrounded by a bevy of frightened menials, while the equippage dashed away in search of old Doctor McMorris, the surgeon par excellence of Delhi. A second butler had hastily darted away to the Delhi Club with an imperative summons for Major Alan Hawke, who had, unfortunately, left for the day.

With a shudder of affright Mademoiselle Justine Delande had slipped into a booth on the great thoroughfare, only to feel safe when she glided into Ram Lal Singh's jewel shop, to be swiftly hurried into the rear reception room by the argus-eyed merchant, who had noted the swiftly passing carriage. Her womanly conscience was as tender as her heart.

"Lock the door, Ram Lal!" cried Alan Hawke, "We will be in the pagoda in the garden. Let no one pass this door, on your life!" When they were alone, Major Alan Hawke led the trembling woman away to to the hidden bower, where Ram Lal had hospitably spread a feast of India's choicest cakes and dainties.

Only there, in that haven of safety, dared the excited Justine to falter. "If you knew what I have suffered! He drove almost over me as I crossed the Chandnee Chouk, and I had a struggle to leave Nadine. There is the curse of an old family sorrow there. The father and daughter are arrayed against each other."

"Forget it all, my dear Justine," murmured Alan Hawke. "Here you are hidden now and perfectly safe with me. Never mind those people now. Let us only think of each other. You were simply matchless in your behavior at the house."

"Oh, I fear him so! I fear that hard old man!" whispered the timid woman, as she dropped her eyes before Alan Hawke's ardent glances. He had noted the growing touch of coquetry in her dress; he measured the tell-tale quiver of her voice, and he smiled tenderly when she shyly showed him the diamond bracelet, securely hidden upon her left arm.

"I put this on to show you that I do trust you," she murmured. "And I wear it every night. It seems to give me courage." The happy Major pressed her hand warmly.

"Let it be a secret sign between us, an omen of brighter days for all of us. Stand by me and I will stand by you to the last. We will all meet happily yet by the beautiful shores of Lake Leman!"

In half an hour, Justine Delande was completely at her ease, for well the artful renegade knew how to circle around the dangerous subject nearest his heart—the secret history of Nadine Johnstone's mother. He had dropped easily into the wooing and confidential intimacy which lulled Justine Delande into a fool's paradise of happy content.

She was sinking away and now losing her will and identity in his own, without one warning qualm of conscience. For Alan Hawke's dearly bought knowledge of womankind now stood him in great stead.

"One single familiarity, one questionable liberty, and this cold-pulsed Heloise would fly forever. She must be left to her day dreams and to the work of a sweet self-deception," he artfully mused. They were interrupted but a moment, when Ram Lal Singh glided to the door of the pagoda.

"I must now go to the bungalow to see Madame Louison and have her approve her horses and carriage. She has sent word that she will drive this afternoon. And," he whispered breathlessly, "Old Johnstone is very sick. He has sent all over the city to find you, and now his own private man bids me go there at once. He must have me, if he can't find you."

Major Hawke mused a moment. "Give me the keys! Put your best man on guard to watch for any intruders! Go first to the Mem-Sahib! Keep your mouth shut! Remember about me and—" He pointed to the governess, now timidly cowering in a shadowy corner. "Let the old devil wait till you are done with her! Pump the old wretch! Find out what he wants! Say that I went off for a day's jaunt!" Alan Hawke smiled grimly as he seated himself tenderly at Justine Delande's side. "Old Hugh did not last long! They must have had their first skirmish. If he is a coward at heart, she will rule him with a rod of iron. What is her hold over him? I warrant that the jade will never tell me. She will fight him to the death in silence, and try to hoodwink me. We will see, my lady! We will see!"

"Now, Justine," softly said the renegade, "tell me all of the story of this strange father and daughter! Ram Lal has reconnoitered! We are safe! Both Hugh and his daughter are at home!"

The reassured governess frankly opened her heart to her wary listener. It was an hour before the recital was finished, and Miss Justine was gayly chatting over the impromptu breakfast, when the details of these last stormy days at Delhi were described. "I cannot make it all out. She is certainly his legitimate daughter. He is crafty, covetous, miserly, and yet he lives in a scornful splendor here. Both my sister and myself look forward to learning the whole story through my visit here. Of course, on our arrival, Nadine and myself wondered not at the gloomy solitude of the marble house. But the affronts to society, the practical imprisonment of this girl, this chilling silence as to her mother, have roused her brave young heart. Not a picture, not a single memento, not even a jewel, not a tress of hair, not even a passing mention of where that shadowy mother lies buried!" the Swiss woman sighed. "He is a brute and tyrant—a man of a stony heart and an iron hand!"

"You have never been made his confidante?" earnestly asked the Major.

"Never!" promptly replied Justine. "Beyond a grave courtesy and the curt answers to our reports, with liberal payment, we know no more now than when the prattling child of four was brought to us.

"She has no childish memories of her own. I have overheard all the unhappy scenes of the last month. There are the tearful prayers of Nadine, then the old man's harsh threats, and then only his cold avoidance follows. Strange to say—gentle and warm-hearted, formed for love, and yearning to know of the dear mother whom she has fondly pictured in her dreams, Nadine Johnstone has all the courage of a soldier's daughter, and her fearless bravery of soul is as inflexible as steel. She returns frankly to the contest, and his only refuge is the wall of cold silence that he has built up between them!"

"Has he tried to punish her in any way—to intimidate her?" eagerly cried the Major.

"Not yet," answered Justine. "She tells me all, and he knows it. I can see that his eyes are fixed on me now with a growing hatred. He fears that I uphold her in this duel of words, of answerless questions.

"He has threatened her roughly with sending her away to some place, to 'come to her senses,' alone, and—" the frightened woman said, "That is what I fear—some sudden, rough brutality. He despairs of making her love him. If she were suddenly removed—and I cast adrift on the world, alone, here, he would, I suppose, send me back to Switzerland. He can do no less, but I would lose her forever from my sight. I know that he hates me, and we have always hoped that he would make us a handsome present, on her marriage. Euphrosyne and I have been as mothers to her." There were tears in the woman's anxious eyes now. She was startled as Hawke bounded to his feet.

"By God!" he cried, forgetting himself. "That's just his little game! It must never be! See here, Justine! I have reason to think that you are right. He may try to spirit her away and separate her forever from you and Euphrosyne. He would cut off the only two friends who could connect her with this strange past. Yes, that's his little game! And—" he slowly concluded, controlling himself, "I have reason to think he may go about it at once. He is afraid of me, also, about some old official business. Now, I will watch over your interests. The least this old miser can do is to give you a neat little home in Geneva, as a final recompense."

Justine Delande's eyes sparkled in gratitude. The acute Major had easily learned from the garrulous Francois that the "Institut Pour les Jeunes Dames" was an intellectual property only; the fine old mansion belonging to a rich Genevese banker. Major Alan Hawke was now busied in writing upon a few leaves torn from his betting book.

"Listen to me!" he gravely said. "Promise me that you will never let these papers leave you a moment."

"I will carry them in my passport case, around my neck," murmured Justine. "My money in notes, and a few articles."

"Good!" energetically cried Hawke. "I will write the same to Euphrosyne, and send it by 'registered post' to-day."

"Here!" he suddenly cried, "Just pencil a few words to her to say that you are with me, and that we understand each other; that our interests are to be one; and that she must keep the faith and help us both, for both our sakes. I will mail it so that old Johnstone will be powerless to injure any of us three." He gave her another leaflet from his book, and detached a golden pencil from his watch chain.

There was a crimson flush upon her cheek, as she vainly essayed to write. Her hand trembled, and then with a sob, her head fell upon her breast; with an infinite art, the triumphant renegade soothed the excited woman, and, it was only through her happy tears that she saw him, before her there, duplicating the secret addresses.

"Now, Justine; my Justine!" softly said Alan Hawke. "Here is a secret address in Allahabad, and a secret address in London. If this man decides to send Nadine away, he will do it secretly in some way. There are several seaports open to leave India. You will be, of course, sent out of Hindostan with her. It would be just his little game, however, to separate you at the first foreign port, to pay you off royally, and then—neither you nor Euphrosyne would ever see Nadine again. There is something hanging over him that he would hide from her. He fears me, also, for my official power. Remember, now! No matter whatever happens you can always find a way to telegraph to me. If I am in India, here to Allahabad; if in Europe, to London. Now, Euphrosyne will know always where I am. Telegraph me the whereabouts of Nadine Johnstone, or, where you are forced to leave her, telegraph the vessel you are on, and her destination, and, I swear to you, by the God who made me, I will track her down, and we three shall find a way to reach her later. He would like to lock her up in a living tomb, if he found it to be to his interest. A cheap private asylum in Germany, or some low haunt in France, perhaps hide her away in Italy as a pretended invalid. The man is mad—simply mad—about this baronetcy, and in some strange way the girl stands between him and it. Do you promise?"

"I promise you all!" faltered the excited woman. "Let me go now. Let me go home, Alan," she murmured, and there were no heart secrets between them any more, as the blushing woman, still trembling with the audacity of her own burning emotions, was led safely to the door of the jewel mart.

"Be brave, be brave, dear Justine," he whispered. "Old Johnstone has sent for me. You shall have your home yet; I guarantee it. I shall be frequently at the house in the next few days. Remember to control yourself, and to watch the sly game of this old brute. I will stay here and send off at once our first letter to Euphrosyne. This girl will have a million pounds. You and your sister must not be robbed of the recompense of nearly twenty years of tenderness. Cleave to her, heart to heart, and tell me all. I will make you both rich!"

"Trust me to the death! I understand all now," whispered Justine, her breast heaving in a new and strange emotion, flooding her chilly veins as with a subtle fiery elixir.

"Then go, but, dear one, be here two days from now at the same time. Should any accident happen, Ram Lal will then come and bear to you my message. You can trust him. I will stay here and send this registered letter from here at once. Then, Hugh Johnstone has three loving guardians to outwit before he can hide away your beautiful nursling!"

"For you." he softly whispered, as he slipped a little packet into her hand, when she stole out of the shop, after Alan Hawke had judiciously reconnoitered.

"Dear, simple soul!" contentedly reflected Major Hawke, as he busied himself with the important letter to the staid Euphrosyne. "She has given me her heart, in her loving eagerness to defend that child, and the key to the whole situation. It would be just like this old brute to spirit the girl away to baffle Madame Berthe Louison. That is, if he dare not kill or intimidate her. And that I must look to. I think that I see my way to that girl's side now. God, what a pot of money she will have!"

When Alan Hawke had finished his boldly warm letter to Euphrosyne, he sealed it and sent it to the post by Ram Lal's footman. The world looked very bright to him as, enjoying a capital cheroot, he studied for a half hour a wall map of India. "There's a half dozen ways to spirit her out of the Land of the Pagoda Tree. I must watch and trust to Justine. To-night I may or may not know what this devil of a Berthe Louison is up to. Will she try to take the girl away? That would be fatal."

"Hardly—hardly," he decided, as he mixed a brandy pawnee. He gazed around at Ram Lal's sanctum, in which the old usurer received the Europeans whom he fleeced in his nipoy-lending operations. "A pretty snug joint. Many a hundred pounds have I dropped here." It was neatly furnished forth with service magazines, London papers, army lists, and all the accessories of a London money-lender's den. When the receipt for his registered letter was laid away in his pocket-book, Alan Hawke calmly ordered his carriage. "I'll take a brush around town and show them that I am out of all these intrigues," he decided. It was six hours later when he drew up at the Club, having passed Madame Berthe Louison's splendid turnout swinging down the Chandnee Chouk. On the box the alert Jules, in a yager's uniform, sat beside the dusky driver, and, even in the dusk, he could see the neat French maid seated, facing her mistress. "By God! She has the nerve of a Field Marshal! She will never hide her light under a bushel!" he had gasped when Madame Louison, at ten feet distant, gazed at him impassively through her longue vue, and then calmly cut him. He was soon besieged by a crowd of gay gossips at the Club upon dismounting from his trap.

"Tell us, Hawke, who is the wonderful beauty who has taken the Silver Bungalow," was the excited chorus.

"How the devil should I know, when you fellows do not," good-humoredly cried Alan Hawke, as the Club steward edged his way through the throng.

"There's a message for you, Major," said the functionary. "Mr. Hugh Johnstone is quite ill at his house, and has been sending all over for you."

"Ah! This is grave news" ostentatiously cried Hawke. "I'll drive over at once." And then he fled away, leaving the gay loiterers still discussing the lovely anonyma whose advent was now the one sensation of the hour. "Who the devil can her friends be?"

"She plays a bold game," mused the startled Major.

On her return to the marble house, Justine Delande had been welcomed by the anxious-eyed apparition of Nadine Johnstone, who burst into her room in a storm of tears. "I have been so frightened," she cried as she clasped her returning governess in her trembling grasp.

"My father has just had a terrible seizure—an attack while riding out on business. He will see no one but Doctor McMorris, and besides, he has the old jewel merchant searching all over Delhi for Major Hawke. You must not leave me a moment, Justine."

"Is he better?" demanded Justine, with guilty qualms.

"He is resting now, but he will not be quieted till he sees this strange man," answered the disconsolate girl.

"How beautiful she is," mused the Swiss woman, as Nadine Johnstone sat with parted lips relating the excitements of the morning. The wooing Indian climate was fast ripening the exquisite loveliness of eighteen. Her dark eyes gleamed with earnestness, and the rich brown locks crowned her stately head as with a coronal of golden bronze. The roses on her cheeks were not yet faded by the insidious climate of burning India, and a thrilling earnestness accented the music of her voice.

"What can we do, Nadine?" murmured Justine Delande.

"Nothing," sighed the motherless girl. "But when this Major Hawke comes, you must, for my sake, find out all you can. Ah! To leave India forever!" she sighed. Her marble prison was only a place of sorrow and lamentation.

Major Hawke's flying steeds reached the marble house, after a circuit to Ram Lal's jewel mart. Without leaving his carriage, he called out the obsequious old Hindu. The dusk of evening favored Ram Lal in his adroit lying.

He gave a brief account of Hugh Johnstone's strange morning seizure, forgetting to divulge to Hawke that the old nabob had already bribed him heavily to watch the inmate of the Silver Bungalow, and report to him her every movement. Nor, did the Hindu divulge his secret report to Madame Berthe Louison, after her ostentatious public carriage promenade. He further hid the fact that Madame Louison had deftly pressed a hundred pounds upon him, in return for a daily report of the secret life of the marble house. But he smiled blandly, when Major Hawke hastily said "Will he die?"

"No; he is all right! He was over there with the Mem-Sahib this morning, and something must have happened."

"What happened?" imperiously demanded Hawke.

"I don't know," slowly answered Ram Lal.

"Don't lie to me, Ram Lal," fiercely said the Major. "I have a fifty-pound note if you will find out."

"He is going there to-morrow," slowly said Ram.

"All right, watch them both. I'll be back here. Wait for me." And then at a nod the horses sprang away.

"Fools! Fools all!" glowered Ram Lal, as he straightened up from his low salaam. "I'll have those stolen jewels yet. Now is the time to gain his confidence. He is an old man, and weak, and, cowardly."

When Major Hawke entered the great doors of the marble house, he was gravely received by Mademoiselle Justine Delande. "He has been asking every ten minutes for you," she said. "I am to show you at once to his rooms."

"Now, what's this? what's all this?" cheerfully cried the Major as he entered the vast sleeping-room of the Anglo-Indian. Old Johnstone feebly pointed to the door, and motioned to his attendants to leave the room. He was worn and gaunt, and his ashen cheeks and sunken eyes told of some great inward convulsion. He had aged ten years since the pompous tiffin. "I'm not well, Hawke! Come here! Near to me!" he huskily cried. And then, the hunter and the hunted gazed mutely into each other's eyes.

"What's gone wrong?" frankly demanded the Major. The old man scowled in silence for a moment.

"I have no one I dare trust but you," he unwillingly said. "You know something of my position, my future. I want to know if you have ever met this woman who has taken the Silver Bungalow—a kind of a French woman. There's her card." Old Johnstone's haggard eyes followed Hawke, as he silently studied the bit of pasteboard.

"Madams Berthe Louison," he gravely read. And, then, with a magnificent audacity, he lied successfully. "Never even heard the name," he murmured.

"Fellows at the Club speaking of some such woman today. Pretty woman, I supppose a declasste." Hawke, lifted his eyebrows.

"No, a she-devil!" almost shouted old Hugh. "Now, I want you to watch her and find out who her backers are. She is trying to annoy me. Be prudent, and I'll make it a year's pay to you." Hawke's greedy eyes lightened as he bowed. "But never mention my name. Come here as often as you will. Go now and look up what you can. I'll see you to-morrow, in the afternoon. Don't scrape acquaintance with her. Just watch her. I'm going there to-morrow morning myself."

"You?" said Hawke.

"Yes," half groaned the old man, turning his face to the wall. "Come to-morrow afternoon. Spare no money. I'll make it right. Don't linger a minute now."

Major Alan Hawke was gayly buoyant as the horses trotted back to Ram Lal Singh's, where he proposed to await the hour of ten o'clock. "I fancy, my lady, that you, too, will pay toll, as well as Hugh Johnstone," he murmured. "You shall pay for all you get, and pay as you go." He cheerfully dined alone in Ram Lal's little business sanctum, and listened to the measured disclosures of the Hindu in return for the fifty-pound note.

"It's to-morrow's interview that I want to know about," quietly directed the major, whereat Ram Lal modestly said:

"I'll find a way to let you know all."

"That's more than she will, the sly devil," said Hawke, in his heart, as he leaned back in the consciousness of "duty well done."

In the Silver Bungalow, Alixe Delavigne sat in her splendid dining-room, under the ministrations of her Gallic body-guard. Her eyes were very dreamy as she recalled all the fearful incidents of the annee terrible. The flight from Paris after their father's death, the escape to England, the refuge at a Brighton hotel—the sudden projecture of Hugh Fraser athwart their humble lives. When the returned Indian functionary abandoned all other pursuits and plainly showed his mad craving to follow Valerie Delavigne everywhere, then the younger sister had learned of his rank, of his long leave and wealth and future prospects. The man was most personable then. He was of a solid rank and a brilliant civil position, and the penniless daughters of the dead Colonel Delavigne were now reduced to a few hundred francs. The hand of Misery was upon them, poor and friendless. Alixe, with a shudder, recalled the two years of silence, since the ardent Pierre Troubetskoi had whispered to beautiful Valerie Delavigne in Paris: "I go to Russia, but I will soon return and you must wait for me!"

Day by day, when the skies grew darker, Valerie Delavigne had gazed with a haunting sorrow in her eyes, at her helpless sister. Some strange possessing desire had urged Hugh Fraser on to woo and win the helpless French beauty, whom an adverse fate had stranded in England. The mute sacrifice of the wedding was followed by the two years of Valerie's loveless marriage. It was an existence for the two sisters, bought by the sacrifice of one and Troubetskoi never had written!

Sitting alone, waiting for the morrow, to face Hugh Fraser once more, Alixe Delavigne recalled, with a vow of vengeance, that sad past, the slow breaking of the butterfly, the revelation of all Hugh Fraser's cold-hearted tyranny, the sway of his demoniac jealousy—jealous, even, of a sister's innocent love. And that last miserable scene, on the eve of their projected voyage to India, when the maddened tyrant discovered Pierre Troubetskoi's long-belated letter, returned once more to madden her. Fraser had simply raged in a demoniac passion.

For the mistake of a life was at last revealed when that one letter came! The letter addressed to the wife as Valerie Delavigne, which had followed them slowly upon their travels, and, by a devil's decree, had fallen, by a spy-servant's trick, into Hugh Fraser's hands. It mattered not that the coming lover was even yet ignorant of the miserable marriage. The envelope, with its address, was missing, when the long pages of burning tenderness were read by the infuriated husband. "I have been buried a year in the snows of Siberia," wrote Pierre, "upon the secret service of the Czar. I was ill of a fever for long months upon my return, and now I am coming to take you to my heart, never to be parted any more." The address of his banker in Paris, all the plans for their voyage to Russia, even the tender messages to the sister of his love—all these were the last goad to a maddened man, whose raging invective and brutal violence drove a weeping woman out into the cheerless night. He deemed her the Russian's cherished mistress. With a shudder Alixe Delavigne recalled the white face of the discarded mother, whose babe slumbered in peace, while the half-demented woman fled away to the shelter of the house of an old French nurse.

The morrow, when Hugh Fraser bade her also leave his house forever, was pictured again in her mind, and the insolent gift of the hundred-pound note, with the words, "Go and find your sister! Never darken my door again!" She had taken that money and used it to save her sister's life.

The darkened sick-chamber, the flight across the channel, and the rugged path which led Valerie, at last, to die in peace in Pierre Troubetskoi's arms—all this returned to the resolute avenger of a sister who had died, dreaming of the little childish face hidden from her forever, "He shall pay the price of his safety to the uttermost farthing, to the last little humiliation," she cried, starting up as Alan Hawke stood before her, for the hour of ten had stolen upon her. "Nadine shall love her mother, and that love shall bridge the silent gulf of Death!"

"You have been agitated?" he gently said, for there were tell-tale tears upon her lashes. "Tell me, is it victory or defeat?"

"I shall see my sister's child, to-morrow," the Lady of Jitomir bravely said. "And he—the man of the iron heart—shall conduct me to his house in honor." There was that shining on her transfigured face which made Alan Hawke murmur:

"There is a great love here—greater than the hate which demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

He waited, abashed and silent, for his strange employer's orders of the day.

"Is there anything I can do for you to-morrow?" said Alan Hawke. "Do you find your arrangements convenient for you here in every way?" The respectful tone of his manner touched Berthe Louison's heart. He was beginning to win his way to her regard by judiciously effacing himself.

"I am entirely at home, thanks to your thoughtful provision," she smiled. "There is nothing to-night. Have you seen Johnstone?" Her dark eyes were steadfastly fixed upon him now.

"Yes; he sent for me. He is very much agitated and, I should say, he is almost at your mercy. But beware of an apparent surrender on his part. He is—capable of anything!"

"I know it. I am on my guard," slowly replied Berthe Louison. She saw that Alan Hawke had spoken the truth to her—even with some mental reservations. "To-morrow morning will determine my public relations with Hugh Johnstone. Come to me to-morrow night, and do not be surprised if we meet as guests at Hugh Johnstone's table. You must only meet me as a stranger. I may leave here for a few days, and then I will place you in charge of my interests in my absence."

The Major gravely replied:

"You may depend upon me wherever you may wish to call upon me."

"Strange mutability of womanhood," he mused a half hour later as he left the lady's side. "There is a woman whom I should not care to face tomorrow morning if I were in Hugh Johnstone's shoes." It was the renegade's last verdict as he slept the sleep of the prosperous. The Willoughby dinner and his own feast now occupied his attention, for his mysterious employer had bade him to eat, drink, and be merry.

At ten o'clock the next day the "gilded youth" of the Delhi Club all knew that Hugh Johnstone had betaken himself to the Silver Bungalow, in the carriage of the woman whose beauty was now an accepted fact. Hugely delighted, these ungodly youth winked in merry surmises as to the relationship between the budding Baronet and the hidden Venus. Even bets as to discreetly "distant relationship," or a forthcoming crop of late orange blossoms were the order of the day. But silent among the merry throng, the handsome Major, making his due call of ceremony upon General Willoughby, denied all knowledge of the designs of either of the high contracting parties.

In due state, escorted by the alert Jules Victor, Hugh Johnstone entered the Silver Bungalow, to find his Cassandra silently awaiting him. There was no memory of the happenings of the day before in her unconstrained greeting. The door of the strategic cabinet was ajar, but the tottering visitor had no fears of an ambush. For Madame Alixe Delavigne calmly said: "Jules, you may remain within call, in the hall."