BOOK II. “A DEVIL FOR LUCK.”

Produced by Carrie Fellman

A FASCINATING TRAITOR

AN ANGLO-INDIAN STORY

By Col. Richard Henry Savage

CONTENTS.

BOOK I. OUT OF THE DEAD PAST.

I.-A Chance Meeting at Geneva

II.-An Offensive and Defensive Alliance

III.-“And at Delhi What Am I to Do?”

IV.-The Veiled Rosebud of Delhi

V.-A Diplomatic Tiffin

BOOK II. “A DEVIL FOR LUCK.”

VI.-The Mysterious Bungalow

VII.-The Price of Safety

VIII.-Harry Hardwicke Takes the Gate Neatly!

IX.-Alan Hawke Plays His Trump Card

X.-A Captivated Viceroy

BOOK III. PRINCE DJIDDIN’S VISIT TO ENGLAND.

XI.-“Do You See This Dagger?”

XII.-On the Cliffs of Jersey

XIII.-An Asiatic Lion in Hiding.

XIV.-The Council at Granville

XV.-The French Fisher Boat “Hirondelle”

BOOK I. OUT OF THE DEAD PAST.

CHAPTER I. A CHANCE MEETING AT GENEVA.

“By Jove! I may as well make an end of the thing right here to-night!”

was the dejected conclusion of a long council of war over which Major

Alan Hawke had presided, with the one straggling comfort of being its

only member.

All this long September afternoon he had dawdled away in feeding certain

rapacious swans navigating gracefully around Rousseau’s Island. He had

consumed several Trichinopoly cigars in the interval, and had moodily

gazed back upon the strange path which had led him to the placid shores

of Lake Leman! The gay promenaders envied the debonnair-looking young

Briton, whose outer man was essentially “good form.” Children left the

side of their ox-eyed bonnes to challenge the handsome young stranger

with shy, friendly approaches.

Bevies of flashing-eyed American girls “took him in” with parthian

glances, and even a widowed Russian princess, hobbling by, easing her

gouty steps with a jeweled cane, gazed back upon the moody Adonis and

sighed for the vanished days, when she possessed both the physical and

mental capacity to wander from the beaten paths of the proprieties.

But--the world forgetting--the young man lingered long, gazing out upon

the broad expanse of the waters, his eyes resting carelessly upon the

superb panorama of the southern shore. He had wandered far away from the

Grand Hotel National, in the aimlessness of sore mental unrest, and, all

unheeded, the hours passed on, as he threaded the streets of the proud

old Swiss burgher city. He had known its every turn in brighter days,

and, though the year of ninety-one was a brilliant Alpine season, and he

was in the very flower of youth and manly promise, gaunt care walked as

a viewless warder at Alan Hawke’s side.

He had crossed over the Pont de Montblanc to the British Consulate, only

to learn that the very man whom he had come from Monaco to seek, was now

already at Aix la Chapelle, on his way to America, on a long leave.

He had wearily made a tour of the principal hotels and scanned the

registers with no lucky find! Not a single gleam of hope shone out in

all the polyglot inscriptions passing under his eye! And so he had

sadly betaken himself to a safe, retired place, where he could hold the

aforesaid council of war.

The practical part of the operations of this sole committee of ways

and means, was an exhaustive examination of his depleted pockets. A

few sovereigns and a single crisp twenty-pound Bank of England note

constituted the rear guard of Alan Hawke’s vanished “sinews of war.” The

young man briefly noted the slender store, with a sigh.

“Twenty-five pounds--and a little trumpery jewelry--I can’t ever get

back to India on that!” He seemed to hear again the rasping voice of the

vulpine caller at Monte Carlo: “Messieurs! Faites vos jeux! Rien ne va

plus! Le jeu est fait!” And, if a dismal failure in Lender had been his

Leipsic, the black week at Monaco had been his long drawn-out Waterloo!

“I was a rank fool to go there,” he growled, “and a greater fool to come

over here! I might have got on easily to Malta, and then chanced it from

there to Calcutta!”

The sun’s last lances glittered on the waters gleaming clear as crystal,

with their deep blue tint of reflected sky, and liquid sapphire! The

gardens were becoming deserted as the loungers dropped off homeward one

by one, and still the handsome young fellow sat moodily gazing down into

the rushing waters of the arrowy Rhone, as if he fain would cast the

dark burden of his dreary thoughts far away from him down into those

darkling waters. But thirty-two years of age, Alan Hawke had already

outlived all his wild boyish romances. The thrill with which he had

first set foot upon the land of Clive and Warren Hastings had faded away

long years gone! And, Fate had stranded him at Geneva!

As he sat, still irresolute as to his future movements, the dying

sunlight gilded the splendid panorama of the whole Mont Blanc group.

Rose and purple, with fading gold and amethystine gleams played softly

upon the far-away giant peak, with its noble bodyguard, the Aiguilles

du Midi, Grandes Jorasses, the Dent du Geant, the sturdy pyramid of

the Mole, and the long far sweep of the Voirons. But he noted not

these splendors of the dying sun god, as he stood there moodily defying

adverse fate, a modern Manfred. “I might with this get on to London--but

what waits me there? Only scorn, callous neglect!” His eye fell upon the

statue of Jean Jacques, lifted up there by the sturdy men who have for

centuries clung to the golden creeds of civil and religious liberty--the

independence of man--and the freedom of the unshackled human soul.

“Poor Rousseau! seer and parasite, fugitive adventurer, the sport of the

great, the eater of bitter bread--the black bread of dependence! I will

not linger here in a long-drawn agony! Here, I will end it forever, and

to-night!”

There were certain visions of the past which returned to shake even

the iron nerves of Alan Hawke! Face to face now with his half formed

resolution of suicide, the wasted past slowly unrolled itself before

him.

The brief days of his service in India, an abrupt exit from the service,

long years of wandering in Japan and China, as a gentleman adventurer,

and all the singular phases of a nomadic life in Burmah, Nepaul,

Cashmere, Bhootan, and the Pamirs.

He smiled in derision at the recollection of a briefly flattering

fortune which had rebaptized him with a shadowy title of uncertain

origin. Thus far, his visiting card, “Major Alan Hawke, Bombay Club” had

been an easily vised passport, but--alas--good only among his own kind!

He was but a free lance of the polished “Detrimentals,” and, under this

last adverse stroke of fortune, his poor cockboat was being swamped in

the black waters of adversity. He had staked much upon a little campaign

at the Foreign Office in London. The cold rebuff which he had received

to there had carried him in sheer desperation over to Monaro and

incoming onto Geneva, he had “burned his ships” behind him. Ignorant of

the precise manner in which his clouded reputation had stopped the way

to his advancement in the English Secret Service, he remembered, even

at the last, that a few letters were due to those who still watched his

little flickering light on its way over the trackless sea of life.

For hard-hearted as he was,--benumbed by the blows of fate, his heart

calloused with the snapping of cords and ties which once had closely

bound him--there were yet loosely knit bonds of the past which tinged

with the glow of his dying passions--the unforgotten idols of his

adventurous career!

He rose and walked mechanically along the Qua du Mont Blanc with the

alert, springy step of the soldier. “Once a Captain, always a Captain”

was in every line of his resolute, martial figure. His well-set-up,

graceful form, his nobly poised head and easy soldierly bearing

contrasted sharply with the lazy shuffle of the prosperous Swiss

denizens and the listless lolling of the sporadic foreign tourists.

Crisp, curling, tawny hair, a sweeping soldierly moustache, with a

resolute chin and gleaming blue eyes accentuated a handsome face burnt

to a dark olive by the fiery Indian sun. An easy insouciance tempered

the habitual military smartness of the man who had known several

different services in the fifteen years of his wasted young manhood. As

he swung into the glare of the hospitable doorway of the Grand Rational,

the obsequious head porter doffed his gold banded cap.

“Table d’hote serving now, Major!” With the mere social instinct of long

years, Alan Hawke recognized the man’s perfunctory politeness, tipped

him a couple of francs, and then, mechanically sauntered to a seat in

the superb salle a manger. “I’ll get out of here to-night,” he muttered,

and then he bent down his head over the carte du jour and peered at the

wine list, as the chatter of happy voices, the animated faces of lovely

women and the eager hum of social life around, recalled him to that

world from which he contemplated an unceremonious exit. It was in a

deference to old habit, and the “qu en dira’t on,” that he ordered a

half bottle of excellent Chambertin and then proceeded to dine with all

the scrupulous punctilio of the old happy mess days.

Something of defiance seemed to steal back into his veins with the

generous warmth of the wine--a touch of the old gallant spirit with

which he had faced a hard world, since the unfortunate incident which

had abruptly terminated his connection with “The Widow’s” Service. His

eye swept carelessly over the international detachment seated at the

splendid table. Lively and chattering as they were, it was a human

Sahara to him. He easily recognized the “Ten-Pounder” element of

wandering Britons; poor, anxious-eyed beings grudgingly furloughed from

shop and desk, and now sternly determined to descend at Charing Cross

without breaking into the few reserve sovereigns. Serious-looking

women, clad in many colors, and stolid cockneys, hostile to all foreign

innovation, met his eye. He sighed as he cast his social net and drew up

nothing.

There was a vacant chair at his left. Very shortly, without turning his

eyes, he was made aware of the proximity of a woman, young, evidently a

continental, from her softly murmured French.

“Houbigant’s Forest Violets,” he murmured. “She is at least

semi-civilized!” He was dreaming of the far off lotos land which he

had left, as he felt the rebellious protest of his young blood and

the defiant spirit awaked by the mechanical luxury of the well-ordered

dinner. “These human pawns seem to be all prosperous, if not happy! I’ll

have another shy at it! By God! I must get back to India!” The whole

checkered past rushed back over his mind! The fifteen years of his

“wanderjahre”! Scenes which even he dared not recall! Incidents which he

had never dared to own to any European! He but too well knew the origin

of his loosely applied title of Major--a field officer’s rank more

honored at the easygoing clubs of Yokahama, Shanghai, and Hong Kong than

on the Army List--a rank best known at the ring-side of Indian sporting

grounds, and only tacitly accepted in the extra-official circles of

Hindustan. For it figured not in the official Army List, either as

active or retired. The whole panorama of the mystic land of the Hindus

was unrolled once more by the memories of fifteen clouded years, He

saw again his far-away theater of varied action, with its huge grim

mountains towering far over the snow line, its arid wastes, its fertile

plains bathed in intense sunshine, its mystic rivers, and its silent,

solemn shrines of the vanished gods.

Major Alan Hawke silently ran over his slender professional

accomplishments. “I’m not too heavy to ride yet. I’ve a fair hand at

cards--tough nerves, and even a bit of staying power. Luck may turn my

way yet and there’s always the Pamirs! At the worst, the Russians--the

Afghans,--or those fellows up in Sikkim and Hill Tipperah! An

artillerist is always welcome there!” But even in his moral desperation,

he hung his head, for a flush of his boyhood’s bright ambitions returned

to shame him. An old song jingled in his memory, “When I first put this

uniform on.” He lapsed into a bitter reverie!

The soldier of fortune was finally aroused from a brown study by the

impassive steward presenting two great dishes. The clatter of some late

convive seating himself also caused him to turn his head.

“Hello, Anstruther! You are a long way from staff headquarters here!”

quietly said Hawke, as the new arrival gazed at him in a mute surprise.

Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther put up his monocle and duly

answered: “I thought that you were still in Calcutta, Hawke.” There was

a faint noli me tangere air in the young staff officer’s manner, and

yet mere propinquity drew them together in a few minutes. With the

insouciance of men bred in club and at mess, the two soldiers soon

drifted into an easy chat, meeting on safe grounds. They calmly

ignored the surrounding civilians, regardless of the attractions of two

falcon-eyed Chicago beauties, loud of voice and brilliantly overdressed,

who were guiding “Popper” and “Mommer” over the continent. These

resplendent daughters of Columbia already boasted a train consisting

of a French count (of a very old and shadowy regime), a singularly

second-hand looking Italian marquis, a wooden-soldier figured German

baron, and a sad-eyed, distant-looking Russian prince, whose bold Tartar

glances rested hungrily upon both Miss “Phenie” and Miss “Genie” Forbes.

The Anglo-Indians, however, calmly pursued their dinner and gossip

regardless of the fact that Miss “Phenie” had violently nudged Miss

“Genie,” and whispered in a stage aside: “Say, Genie, look at those two

English fellows! They are something like--I bet you that they are

two Lords!” The approval of the gilded Western maidens, whose father

systematically assassinated a thousand porkers per diem, was lost upon

the chance-met acquaintances. “I must get back to India, by hook or

crook,” mused Alan Hawke, and therefore, he very delicately played his

wary fish, the sybaritic young swell of the staff. Captain the Honorable

Anson Anstruther’s reserve soon melted under the skillful bonhomie of

the astute Alan Hawke. An easy-going patrician of the staff, he was in

the magic circle of the viceroy. The heir to an inevitable fortune, and

already vested with substantially stratified deposits at “Coutts”

and Glyn, Carr and Glyn’s, he would have been envied by most luckless

mortals the heavy balances which he always carried at “Grind-lay’s,” a

fortune for any less fortunate man.

He was already interested in the remarkably fetching looking young woman

at Alan Hawke’s left, being a squire of dames par excellence, while

Major Alan Hawke himself wondered how Anstruther had drifted so far away

from the direct line of travel to London.

Thawing visibly under the influence of Hawke’s gracefully modulated

camaraderie, the susceptible Anstruther was attentively examining his

fair neighbor in silence, while he tried vaguely to recall some story

which he had once heard, quite detrimental to the cosmopolitan Major.

He gave it up as a bad job! “Hang it!” he thought. “It may have been

some other chap. Very likely!” It was the strange story of a sharp

encounter with the hostile Kookies, in which a couple of English

mountain guns, long before abandoned by a British expeditionary force,

had been served with due professional skill and most desperate dash by

a reckless man, easily recognized as an English refugee artillerist.

The wounded escaped British soldier, who had died after denouncing the

deserting adventurer, had left his parting advice to the Royal Artillery

to burn the fearless renegade, should he ever be captured. It was the

Story of a nameless traitor!

But, the vague distrust of the curled darling of Fortune soon faded away

under Hawke’s measured social leading. A silver wine cooler stood behind

their chairs, and the old yarn of a British officer playing Olivier Pain

became very misty under the subtle influence of the Pommery Sec. Alan

Hawke guarded the expected story of his own wanderings, waiting craftily

until Bacchus and Venus had sufficiently mollified Anstruther.

He duplicated the champagne, knowing well the warming influence of

“t’other bottle.” The Major of a shadowy rank had early learned the

graceful art of effacing himself, and on this occasion, it stood greatly

to his credit. Anstruther was now quite sure that the graceful head of

the beautiful neighbor swayed in an unconscious recognition of his witty

sallies. A true son of Mars--ardent, headlong, and gallant as regarded

le beau sexe--he talked brilliantly and well, aiming his boomerang

remarks at a woman whom he knew to be young and graceful, and whose

beauty he was gayly taking upon trust; an old, old interlude, played

many a time and oft.

“What is going on here in this beastly slow old town? Nothing much for

to-night, I fancy,” said the aid-de-camp, wondering if a promenade au

clair de la lune or a carriage ride to Ferney would be possible! He

already had noted the purity of the French accent of the fair unknown.

No guttural Swiss patois there, but that crisp elegance of tone which

promised him a flirtation en vraie Parisienne.

“Only Philemon and Baucis, an antique opera, at the Grand Opera House,

and sung by a band of relics of better days, wandering over here!” said

Hawke.

And then it finally dawned upon the blase young staff officer that he

had met Alan Hawke in certain circles where plunging had chased away the

tedium of Indian club life with the delightful sensations of raking in

other people’s money.

“Better come up to my rooms then, and have a weed and a bit of ecarte!”

slowly said Anstruther. “We may manage a ride afterward!” Alan Hawke

nodded, and a thirsty gleam lit up his crafty eyes. He instinctively

felt for the little card case containing that solitary twenty-pound

note; it was a gentleman’s stake after all. And the would-be suicide

silently invoked the fickle goddess Fortuna!

Captain Anstruther, however, furtively murmured a few words to the

solemn head steward and then leaned back contentedly in his chair.

His ostensible orders for cafe noir and cards, as well as the least

murderous of the obtainable cigars, covered the plan of using a

five-pound note in an adroit personal inquiry. For, the Honorable Anson

Anstruther proposed to ride that very evening, and he did not wish to

bore Major Hawke with his company. He nursed a little scheme of his own.

“Do you make a long stay?” carelessly said the wary Major.

“I intend to leave to-morrow night,” gayly answered the other. “I came

over here on a very strange errand. I’ve got to see an eminent Gorgon

of respectability, who has a finishing school here for the young person

bien clevee,” said Anstruther, eyeing the unknown.

“Hardly in your line, Anstruther!” laughed Hawke, casting his eyes

around the depleted table, for Miss Phenie and Miss Genie Forbes had

vanished at last, leaving behind them expanding wave circles of sharply

echoing comment. The noisy Teutons had devoured their seven francs

worth, and the fair bird of passage on their left was left alone,

woman-like, dallying with the last sweets and finishing her demi

bouteille with true French deliberation. “It’s a case of the wolf and

the sheep-fold!”

“Not that; not at all!” gayly answered Anstruther. “I have a long leave,

and I only ran over here to oblige His Excellency.” He spoke with all

the easy disdain of all underlings born of an Indian official life--the

habitual disregard of the Briton for his inferior surroundings. “By

Jove! you may help me out yourself! You’re an old Delhi man!” He gazed

earnestly at Hawke, who started nervously, and then said:

“You know I’ve been away for a good bit of the ten years in the far

Orient, but I used to know them all, before I went out of the line.”

“Then you surely know old Hugh Johnstone, the rich, old, retired deputy

commissioner of Oude?” Alan Hawke slowly sipped his champagne, for his

Delhi memories were both risky and uncertain ground.

“I fail to recall the name, Johnstone--Johnstone,” murmured Hawke.

“Why, everyone knows old Johnstone; he is an old mutiny man. You surely

do! He was Hugh Fraser until he took the name of Johnstone, ten years

or so ago, on a Scotch relative leaving him a handsome Highland estate!”

There was a warning rustle at Hawke’s left, as the fair stranger

prepared for her flitting.

“I was very intimate with Hugh Fraser in my griffin days. But I thought

he had retired and gone back home. He is enormously rich, and an old

bachelor! I know him very well; he was a good friend of mine in the old

days, too!”

Anstruther leaned toward Hawke, as he signed to the waiter to refill his

hearer’s glass. “Well, I can surprise even you! He has turned up with a

beautiful daughter--at Delhi--just about the prettiest girl I ever--”

“Je demande mills pardons, Madame!” politely cried Major Hawke, as his

fair neighbor’s wineglass went shivering down in a crystalline wreck.

“Pas de quoi, Monsieur,” suavely replied the woman whom till now he had

hardly noticed. A moment later the slight damage was repaired, and then

Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther had his little innings.

With courtly hospitality he offered the creamy champagne as a

remplacement for the lost vin du pays.

A charming smile rewarded the gallant youth, while Major Hawke turned

with interest to the renewal of the interrupted narrative. He had caught

a glance of burning intensity from the dark brown eyes of the lady a

la Houbigant, which set every nerve in his body tingling. It was

a challenge to a companionship, and, as he led on the triumphant

Anstruther, he deeply regretted the absence of that most necessary

organ,--an eye in the back of the head. He was dimly aware that his

beautiful neighbor was very leisurely drinking the peace offering of the

susceptible son of Mars. “I will bet hundreds to ha’pennies she speaks

English!” quickly reflected the now aroused Major.

“You astound me, Anstruther,” the Major said. “Not a lawful child! Some

Eurasian legacy--a relic of the old days of the Pagoda Tree! Why, the

old commissioner always was a woman hater, and absolutely hostile to all

social influences!” The Captain was now stealing longing glances at the

willowy figure of the beautiful woman whose glistening dark brown eyes

were turned to him with a languid glance, as Alan Hawke leaned forward.

To prolong the sight of that bewitching half profile, with the fair, low

brows, the velvet cheeks, a Provencale flush tinting them, the parted

lips a dainty challenge speaking, and the rich masses of dark brown hair

nobly crowning her regal outlines, Anstruther yielded to the spell and

babbled on. “The whole thing is a strange melange of official business

and dying gossip!” dreamily said Anstruther with his eyes straying over

the ivory throat, the superbly modeled bust and perfect figure of the

young Venus Victrix.

He was duly rewarded by a glance of secret intelligence when he leaned

back, dreamily closing his eyes. “You see, they were going to make old

Hugh Fraser or Hugh Johnstone, as he is now called, a baronet for some

secret services to the Crown of an important nature, rendered about the

time when mad Hodson piled up the whole princely succession to the House

of Oude in a trophy of naked corpsess pistoling them with his own hand.”

He ordered a third bottle of Pommery, with a wave of his hand, and

proceeded: “Of course, you know, Her Majesty’s Government always closely

investigate the social antecedents of the nominee in such cases. The

change of name is all right; it is regularly entered at Herald’s College

and all that sort of thing, but the Chief has heard of the sudden

appearance of this beautiful daughter. Now, old Johnstone surely never

looked the way of woman in India! It’s true that he went back about

twenty years ago to England on a two years’ leave. He has lived the life

of a splendid recluse in his magnificent old bungalow on the Chandnee

Chouk.”

Anstruther paused, fishing for another fugitive smile. He caught it

behind the back of the wary adventurer.

“I know the old house well,” said Hawke with an affected unconcern.

“Men were always entertained royally there, but I never saw a woman of

station in its vast saloons.”

“Now there you are!” cried Anstruther, lightly resuming: “I was sent

up to Delhi to delicately find out about this alleged daughter, for the

Chief does not want to throw Johnstone’s baronetcy over. The fact is

before they packed the toothless old King of Oude away to Rangoon to

die with his favorite wife and their one wolf cub out there, Hugh Fraser

skillfully extorted a surrender of a huge private treasure of jewels

from these people while they were hidden away in Humayoon’s tomb.

There’s one trust deposit yet to be divided between the Government

and this sly old Indo-Scotch-man, and I fancy the empty honor of the

baronetcy is a quid pro quo.” Alan Hawke laughed heartily. “It is really

diamond cut diamond, then.”

“Precisely,” said Anstruther, as he most calmly waved his hand to the

steward, who silently refilled even the glass of the Venus Anonyma.

A slight inclination of the head and parthian glance number three,

encouraged Anstruther to hasten and conclude, for the moon was sailing

grandly over the lake now.

Love thrilled in the young man’s vacant heart, sounding the chords of

the Harp of Life. He had been in a glittering Indian exile long enough

to be very susceptible. “I spent two weeks up there with the expectant

Sir Hugh Johnstone,” lightly rattled on the aid. “I verified the fact

that the young woman is his acknowledged daughter. He has no other

lineal heir to the title, for an old, dry-as-dust, retired Edinburgh

professor, a brother, childless and eccentric, is living near St.

Helier’s, in Jersey, in a beautiful Norman chateau farm mansion, where

old Hugh proposed once to end his days. It seems to be all square

enough. I was as delicate as I could be about it, and the matter is

apparently all right. The papers have all gone on, and, in due time,

Hugh Fraser will be Sir Hugh Johnstone!”

Anstruther quaffed a beaker with guileful ideas of detaining his fair

neighbor, now ruffling her plumage for departure, for only a sporadic

knot of diners here and there lingered at the long table. “The girl

herself?” asked Hawke, with a strange desire to know more.

“Report has duly magnified her hidden charms,” replied Anstruther. “She

is called “The Veiled Rose of Delhi,” and no manner of man may lift that

mystic veil. I was treated en prince, but held at arm’s length.”

Hawke smiled softly, and said in a low voice, “I hardly see how all this

brings you over here. The Rose blooms by the far-away Jumna.”

“Then know, my friend,” laughed Anstruther, “such a rose as the peerless

Nadine Johnstone must have a duenna.” He deftly caught an impassioned

glance from the softly shining brown eyes, and hastily went on. “She was

educated right here in this emporium of watches, musical boxes, correct

principles, and scientific research. Mesdames Justine and Euphrosyne

Delande, No. 122 Rue du Rhone, conduct an institute (justly renowned)

where calisthenics, a view of the lake, a little music, a great deal

of bad French, and the Conversations Lexicon, with some surface womanly

graces, may all be had for some two hundred pounds a year. Miss Justine

Delande, a sedately gray-tinted spinster, has been tempted to remain

on guard for a year out in India, having safely conducted this Pearl

of Jeunes Personnes Bien Elevees out to the old Qui Hai. I have been

charged with some few necessary explanations and negotiations, the

delivery of some presents, and, when I have visited this first-class

institute, enjoying all the attractions of the Jardin Anglais and the

Promenade du Lac, I shall flee these tranquil slopes of the Pennine

Alps. Incidentally, the records of Mademoiselle Euphrosyne will confirm

the very natural story of the would-be Sir Hugh, whose vanished wife no

Anglo-Indian has ever seen. She is supposably dead. A last official note

after I have run on to Paris will close up the whole awkward matter. I

will call there tomorrow and then take the early train, as I am on for

a lot of family visits and sporting events before I can settle down to

have my bit of a fling.”

“It’s a very strange story,” murmured Alan Hawke. “No man ever suspected

Hugh Fraser of family honors.”

“And ‘the Rose of Delhi!’ will probably marry some lucky fellow out

there, as old Johnstone has lacs and lacs of rupees,” said Anstruther,

“for he cannot keep her in his great gardens forever, guarded by the

stony-eyed Swiss spinster, or let her run around as the Turks do their

priceless pet sheep with a silver bell around her neck. There was some

old marital unhappiness, I suppose, for the girl is evidently born in

wedlock, and the story is straight enough.”

“Have you seen her?” eagerly inquired Hawke.

“Just a few stolen glimpses,” hastily replied Anstruther, politely

rising and bowing as the fair unknown suddenly left her seat, in evident

confusion.

The two men strolled out of the salle a manger together, Major Alan

Hawke critically observing the heightened color and evident elan of his

aristocratic friend.

“Oh! I say, Hawke,” cried Anstruther, “they’ll show you up to my rooms

in a few moments. I’ll go and see the maitre d’hotel here! The service

is beastly--beastly!” and the youth fled quickly away.

Major Alan Hawke nodded affably, and slowly mounted the staircase to his

room, wondering if the aid-de-camp was destined by the gods to furnish

forth his purse for the return to India. “He’s pretty well set up now,

and he evidently has his eye upon this brown-eyed nixie. Dare I rush my

luck? The boy’s a bit stupid at cards.” With downcast eyes the anxious

adventurer wandered along the corridor in the dimly-lighted second

story. It was the turning point of his career.

There was the rapid rustle of silk, the patter of gliding feet, a warm,

trembling hand seized his own, and in the darkness of a window recess he

was aware that he was suddenly made the prize of the fair corsair ci

la Houbigant. “Quick, quick, tell me! Do you go with him?” the strange

enchantress said, in excited tones, using the English tongue as if to

the manner born.

“Madame! I hardly understand,” cautiously said the astounded Major.

“I want you to help me! You must help me! I must see him! I must

find out all.” The sound of a servant’s steps arrested her incoherent

remarks. “Wait here!” the excited woman whispered, as she walked back

down the hall. There was a whispered colloquy, and Alan Hawke caught the

gleam of the silver neck chain of the maitre d’hotel. The sound of

an opening door was heard, and, in a few moments the flying Camilla

returned to her hidden prey.

“Tell me truly,” she panted, “what will you do with him? He wishes me to

ride with him; my answer depends on you. You are in trouble; I can see

it in your haggard eyes. Help me now, and--and I will help you!” And

then Alan Hawke spoke truly to the waif of Destiny, whom chance had

thrown in his way.

“I only wish to play with him for a couple of hours; if luck turns my

way, that will be time enough!”

“Ah! you would have money! Let him go away in peace! Help me to-morrow,

here, and I will give you money!”

“What is your own scheme?” the doubting vaurien demanded.

“I must know all of this Hugh Johnstone, all about this girl,” she

whispered, her lips almost touching his cheek.

“Let me play with him to-night; I am yours as soon as he departs!”

sullenly said Hawke.

“Then, finish in two hours,” the woman said, gathering her draperies to

flee away, “for I will ride with him to-night!”

“Just a bit unconventional,” murmured Alan Hawke. “Who the devil can

this French-English woman be anyway.” He realized that some subtle game

depended upon the memories of the past strangely evoked by the artless

Anstruther’s babble. As he strolled back to the smoking-room, he saw

the maitre d’hotel slyly deliver a twisted bit of paper to the all too

unconcerned looking young Adonis, and the gleam of a napoleon shone out

in the grave faced Figaro’s hand. “Now for our cafe noir, a good pousse

cafe--and--a dash at the painted beauties. I can’t play very long,”

was Anstruther’s salutation, as he complacently twisted his mustache en

hussar. Major Hawke bowed in a silent delight.

And so it fell out that both wolf and panther--hungry vulpine prowler

and sleek feminine soft-footed enemy--gathered closely, around the

young British Lion, whose easy self-complacency led him into the snare,

hoodwinked by the fair unknown Delilah.

Alan Hawke strode to the windows of Anstruther’s rooms and standing

there, watched the drifting moonbeams mantling on the spectral blue

lake, while his chance-met friend rang for a waiter. There was the

murmur of confidential orders, and then Anson Anstruther with a bright

smile dropped easily into the role of host. The young staff officer was

so elated by the apparently flattering selection of the fair anonyma

that he never considered the idea of possible foul play. It was evident

that Major Hawke had not noticed the little by-play which was the

delightful undercurrent of the table d’hote dinner. There was no time

lost in the preliminaries of the card duel.

Through curling blue wreaths of aromatic incense, over the brandy-dashed

coffee, the two men sententiously struggled for the smiles of Fortune,

with impassive faces, in a rapid duel of wits as the fleeting moments

sped along.

The tide of luck was set dead against Anstruther, who strangely seemed

to be now possessed of a merry devil. He made perilous excursions into

the land of brandy and soda, gayly faced his bad fortune, and feverishly

chattered over the well-worn Anglo-Indian gossip adroitly introduced by

the now nerve-steadied Hawke. General Renwick’s loss of his faded and

feeble spouse, the far-famed “Poor Thing” of much polite apology for her

socially aristocratic ailments; Vane Tempest’s singular elopement with

the beautiful wife of a green subaltern; Harry Chillingly’s untoward

end while potting tigers; Count Platen’s enormous winnings at Baccarat;

Fitzgerald Law’s falling into a peerage; and Mrs. Claire Atterbury, the

wealthy widow’s purchase of a handsome boy-husband fresh from Sandhurst.

All this with Jack Blunt’s long expected ruin, and a spicy court-martial

or two, furnished a running accompaniment to Anstruther’s expensive

“personally conducted tour” into the intricacies of ecarte, led on by

the coolest safety player who ever fleeced a griffin. Truly these were

golden moments. The Major’s cool steady eyes were sternly fixed on his

cards.

The self-imposed sentence of suicide of the afternoon was indefinitely

postponed when Alan Hawke amiably nodded as Anstruther at last

apologized for glancing at his watch. “I’ve a bit to do to get ready for

to-morrow, and we’ll try one more hand and then I’ll say good-night.”

“Well, I’ll give you your revenge at any time, Anstruther! By the way,

what’s your London address?” Hawke was complacently good humored as

he glanced at a visiting card whereon sundry comfortable figures were

roughly totted up.

“Junior United Service, always,” carelessly said Anstruther. “They keep

run of me, for I’m off for the woods as soon as the shooting season

opens. Where will you be this winter?”

Major Hawke assumed a mysterious air, “That depends upon the Russian and

Chinese game--the Persian and Afghan intrigues! You see, I am awaiting

some ripening affairs in the F. O. I was called back on account of my

familiarity with the Pamirs, and there’s a good bit of Blue Book work

that my knowledge of Penj Deh, and the whole Himalayan line has helped

out.” The captain was a bit agnostic now.

“You were---” began Anson Anstruther, timidly, the old vague gossip

returning to haunt him. His ardor was cooling in view of the very neat

sum of his losses in three figures.

“On Major Montgomerie’s escort as a raw boy when I came out,” promptly

interrupted Hawke. “I went all over Thibet in ‘75 with Nana Singh as

a youngster. He was a wonderful chap and besides executing the secret

survey of Thibet, he ran all over Cashmere, Nepaul, Sikkim, and Bhootan,

secretly charged with securing authentic details of the death of Nana

Sahib.” The cool assurance of the adventurer disarmed the now serious

Anstruther, for both the sagacious English officer and his disguised

assistant, Nana Singh, were both dead these many years. “Morley’s is my

regular address; I keep up no home club memberships now,” coolly said

Hawke, as at last they threw the cards down.

Anstruther picked up his marker card as he glanced at Hawke’s ready

money upon the table. There was a ten-pound note folded under the

Major’s neat pocket case and a plethoric fold of Bank of England

notes bulged the neat Russia leather. He never knew that only thirteen

one-pound notes made up this brave financial show of his adversary. Alan

Hawke was a past master of keeping up a brave exterior and he blessed

the Cook’s Tourists who had that day left these small bills with the

hotel cashier.

“Now, here you are,” hastily said Anstruther. “Do you make the same

total as I do?” The spoiled patrician boy carelessly shoved out sixty

pounds in notes and rummaging over his portmanteau produced a check

book. “There, I think that’s right. Check on Grindlay, 11 and 12

Parliament Street, for four hundred and twenty-eight.” Hawke bowed

gravely with the air of a satisfied duelist, and then carelessly swept

the check and notes into his breast pocket.

“Tell me, what sort of a girl is this Nadine Johnstone,” the wanderer

said, by way of a diversion.

“I can’t tell you! Only old General Willoughby has pierced the veil.

Of course, Johnstone could not refuse a visit from the Commander of

Her Majesty’s forces. In fact, Harry Hardwicke, of the Engineers,

accompanied Willoughby. The old chief treats Hardwicke as a son since

he bore the body of the dear old fellow’s son out of fire in the Khyber

Pass, and won a promotion and the V. C. Harry says the girl is a modern

Noor-Mahal! But, she is as speechless and timid as a startled fawn! Now,

Major, you will excuse me. I have to leave you!” There was a fretful

haste in the passionate boy’s manner. The hour was already near

midnight.

“Shall I not see you to-morrow?” politely resumed Hawke. “You will

not spend your whole morning with the stern damsel in spectacles and

steel-like armor of indurated poplin?”

“Do you know I’m afraid I shall miss you,” earnestly said the aide.

“Hugh Johnstone wishes me to urge Mademoiselle Euphrosyne to allow her

sister to remain in India, in charge of the Rose of Delhi until the old

eccentric returns. Of course, the girl left alone would be an easy prey

to every fortune hunter in India, should anything happen!” There was a

ferocious, wild gleam in Alan Hawke’s eyes as the aide grasped his hat

and stick. “I wish to probe the family records and find out what I can

of the ‘distaff side of the line,’ as Mr. Guy Livingstone would say. I

have some really valuable presents, and I am on honor to the Viceroy in

this, for, of course, a baronetcy must not be given into sullied

hands. Johnstone will probably hermetically seal the girl up till the

Kaisar-I-Hind has spoken officially. Then, if this delicate matter of

the hidden booty of the King of Oude is settled, the old fellow intends

to return to the home place he has bought. I’m told it’s the finest old

feudal remnant in the Channel Islands, and magnificently modernized. The

government does not want to press him. You see they can’t! The things

went out of the hands of the hostile traitor princes, and Hugh Fraser,

as he was, cajoled them from the custody of the go-betweens. We have

never gone back on the plighted word of a previous Governor-General! The

Queen’s word must not be broken. I have a bit of persuading to do, and

some other little matters to settle!”

“Well, then, Anstruther, we may meet again on the line of the Indus,”

said Hawke, with his lofty air. “I have always preferred the secret

service to mere routine campaigning, for, really, the waiting spoils

the fighting! Poor Louis Cavagnari! He confirmed my taste for silent and

outside work! I was sent out from Cabul by him as private messenger just

before that cruel massacre, a faux pas, which I vainly predicted. He

taught me to play ecarte, by the way!”

“Then he was a good teacher, and you--a devilish apt scholar!” laughed

Anstruther, as he politely held the door open for the man who had coldly

fleeced him.

Alan Hawke’s pulses were now bounding with the thrill of his

unlooked-for harvest! He experienced a certain pride in his marvelous

skill, and, restraining himself, he soberly paced along the corridor.

The excited aid-de-camp stood for a moment with his foot on the stair,

and then slowly descended. “He suspects nothing!” the amatory youth

murmured, as he passed out upon the broad Quai du Leman.

He walked swiftly along, gayly whistling “Donna e Mobile,” with certain

private variations of his own, until he reached the splendid monument

erected to the miserly old Duke of Brunswick, who showered his

scraped-up millions upon an alien city, to spite his own fat-witted

Brunswickers, and so escaped the blood-fleshed talons of the

hungry-Prussian eagle.

Duke Charles I hovered amiably in the air, over a comfortable carriage

wherein the “other little matters” were most temptingly materialized

in the person of a lovely woman waiting there with burning eyes, her

splendid face veiled in a black Spanish lace scarf. It was the old

fate--“Unlucky at cards, lucky in love!” The staff officer’s abrupt

command to “drive everywhere, anywhere,” until “further orders,” was

implicitly obeyed by the stolid cabby, who set off at once for a

long round of the mild “lions” of fair Geneva, nestling there by the

shimmering lake.

The click of the horses’ feet upon the deserted roadway kept time to the

murmurs of a most coy Delilah, who molded as wax in her slender hands

the ardent military Samson, who was all unmindful of his flowing locks!

And the silent moon shimmered down upon the waste of waters!

Alan Hawke was seated for an hour alone in his room, enjoying the cigars

offered up by the “Universal Provider,” who had yielded up so liberally.

The strong brandy and soda had at last restored his shaken nerves, for

he had played with his life staked upon the outcome! He then grimly

counted up his winnings. “Four-hundred and eighty-eight good pounds!

That will take me back to Delhi in very good shape,” he soliloquized.

“I wonder if there is anyway to get at that girl? If I mistake not, she

will have a half a million! The old Commissioner always liked me, too.

By God! If I could only get in between him and this baronetcy I might

creep in on the girl’s friendship! But the old curmudgeon keeps her

locked up! Rather risky in India!” He leaned back, enjoying memories of

the women with pulses of flame and hearts of glowing coal whom he had

met in the days when he was “dead square.” This strange woman! Who is

she? What does she know?

He dozed off until the clattering return of the Misses Phemie and Genie

Forbes, of Chicago, aroused him. His broad grin accentuated the easily

overheard strident remark: “Say, Genie, I wish we had had those two

English Lords at our opera supper. They are just jim-dandies, that’s

what!”

“As long as the world is full of such fools, I can afford to live,” he

pleasantly remarked, as he turned in. A new campaign was opening to

him. Far away, up the shores of the moon-transfigured lake, a hot-headed

young fool was showering kisses on the hand of a woman, who sweetly

said: “Remember my conditions! Prove yourself my friend, and I will meet

you in Paris! Now, take me home.” Samson was shorn of his locks, and the

delighted Alan Hawke found a little note slipped under his door in the

morning.

CHAPTER II. AN OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE ALLIANCE.

When the now buoyant Major Alan Hawke was awakened by the golden lances

of morning which shivered gayly upon the Pennine Alps he proceeded to a

most leisurely toilet, having first satisfied himself that his winnings

of the night before were not the baseless fabric of a dream. He smiled

as he fingered the crisp, clean notes, and gazed lovingly upon the

dingy-looking but potent check drawn on the old army bankers.

“No nonsense about that signature,” he cheerfully said. “Anstruther is

no welsher,” and, as he rang for his hot water and a morning refresher,

he picked up the little note with an eager curiosity.

“By Gad! she is a cool one! This is no vulgar darned occasion! I need

all my wits to-day!” He was studying over the brief words when the ready

waiter took his order for a cosy breakfast. He had deliberately moved

out all his lines to an easy comfort, throwing out a line of pickets

against any appearance of social shabbiness. “She said that she had

money,” he murmured, as he read the note again. “What the devil does she

want, then, if she has all the money she needs! Perhaps some discarded

mistress! Bah! The old man’s heart is as hollow as a sentrybox, and,

besides, he has not been in Europe for nearly twenty years. Ah, I see!

Perhaps a bit of blackmail--some early indiscretion! She did speak about

the girl! Then I must be the silent partner of her future harvest! She

probably needs a man’s arm to reach the wary old Baronet in future. My

lady writes in no uncertain tone.”

He carefully folded the note and bestowed it safely with the spoil of

the young patrician. “Of course I must show up,” he said as he betook

himself to his tub whence he emerged shapely as an Adonis with the

corded torso of an athlete. The appetizing breakfast put the Major in

excellent humor, and he drew forth his “sailing orders” as he lit his

first cheroot. Seated in a window recess, he watched the hotel frontage,

while he read the imperative lines again. They were explicit enough and

had been dictated en reine. “Meet me at the Musee Rath, in the vestibule

at two o’clock. He leaves here at one-thirty. Keep away from the hotel

and avoid us both. Go up to Ferney and come back on the one o’clock

boat.”

There was a neat carte de visite in the inclosure.

“Now, I will wager that is not her name,” he smiled as he read the

Italian script.

“I can certainly now afford to throw a day or so away on her. At any

rate, I will let her make the game. I must wait a day or so to send on

the Grindlay check,” the wanderer mused, smiling genially upon the head

porter. Major Alan Hawke casually inquired, upon his leisurely descent,

“My friend?”

“Ah, sir! Paid his bill and left. Luggage already sent to the station

labeled ‘Paris.’” Alan Hawke most liberally tipped the functionary. “I

think I will take a run of a few days up to Lausanne or Chillon myself;

the weather is delightful.” He strolled over to the local Cook’s Agency

and sent his treasure-trove check on to London for collection.

“I think that I will fight shy of this sleepy burgh,” he ruminated, as

the little paddle-wheel steamer sped along toward Ferney, leaving behind

a huge triangular wake carved in the pellucid waters. “It might be

devilish awkward if Anstruther should find me here, hovering around his

fair enslaver. I may need this golden youth again, in the days to come!

He will be out of India for a couple of years, but I will not trust Fate

blindly. What the old Harry can she be up to?” He suddenly burst into a

merry peal of laughter, to the astonishment of the crowd of passengers.

“Fool that I am! I see it all now! Anstruther cleared out early! The

proprieties of the home of Calvin must be respected! After he has

adroitly pumped the intellectual fountain of the past dry, then a quiet

little breakfast tete et tete will give Madame Louison the time to fool

him to the top of his bent! The sly minx! Evidently she is cast for the

‘ingenue’ part in this little social drama! And her trump card is to

hide from me what she extracts from our Lovelace by the coy use of those

deuced fetching brown eyes and--other charms too numerous to mention!

But you shall tell me all yet, Miss Sly Boots!” And the Major dreamed

pleasant day dreams.

Life now seemed so different to the hopeful vaurien, with the physical

and moral backing of the four hundred and odd pounds! “I was a fool--a

damned fool, yesterday,” he cheerfully ruminated. “If I only handle

this woman rightly, then I may get the hold I want on this old recluse

Johnstone, congested with the fat pickings of forty-five years. A

close-mouthed old rat is he, and yet it seems that he is vulnerable

after all. If he is playing fast and loose with the government he

will never get his honors before he gives up the sleeping trust of the

forgotten years.”

Major Hawke vainly tried to follow the exuberant Anstruther in his

incursion into the placid temple of Minerva, where that watchful

spinster, Miss Euphrosyne Delande, eyed somewhat icily the handsome.

young “Greek bearing gifts.” Professional prudence and the memory of

certain judiciously smothered escapades caused Miss Euphrosyne at first

to retire within her moral breast works and draw up the sally-port

bridge. For even in chilly Geneva, young hearts throb in nature’s

flooding lava passions, jealously bodiced in school-girl buckram and

glacial swiss muslin. So it was very cool for a time in the august

cavern of conference where Anson Anstruther, a bright Ithuriel,

struggled with the cautious and covetous Swiss preceptress, and the

swift steamer Chilian was far up the lake before Captain the victorious

Honorable Anson Anstruther, sped away to the morning meeting with the

woman who had seemed to lean down from the moon-lit skies upon her young

Endymion in that starry night by the throbbing lake.

Major Alan Hawke, proceeding on his voyage, found a certain bitterness

in the distant mental contemplation of Captain Anstruther’s employment

of his leisure till train time, not knowing that the young soldier’s

sense of duty led him first to dispatch several careful official

dispatches, one to London, and the two others to Calcutta and Delhi,

respectively. When Captain Anstruther finally deposited his mail with

the head porter of the Grand Hotel National he deftly questioned that

functionary. “My friend--Major Hawke?”

“Gone up the lake for two or three days, sir. Going to Lausanne and

Chillon. Keeps all his luggage here, though. Shall I give him any

message for you?” With a view to artfully veiling his coming meeting

with the beautiful Egeria a la Houbigant, the captain deposited a card

marked “P. P. C.”

“A devilish pleasant fellow and a right stunning hand at ecarte.”

Anstruther prudently walked for a couple of squares, and then hailed

a passing voiture, directing him to the very cosiest restaurant in the

snug city of Bonnivard.

Major Hawke, far away now, entertained a slight resentment toward the

man who had so coolly aspired to les bonnes fortunes, and ignored his

own possible interference with the Lady of the Lake. It was with a grim

satisfaction, however, that he saw on the boat the Misses Phenie and

Genie Forbes, of Chicago, the bright particular stars of the traveling

upper tendom. “Popper” and “Mommer” were deep in certain red-bound

Baedeker’s and busied in delving for “historic facts,” while the artful

Alan Hawke glided into a fast and familiar flirtation with the two

bright-eyed, sharp-voiced damsels. Both the heiresses were dressed as if

for a reception, with judiciously selected jewelry samples, evidencing

the wondrous success of machine conducted pig demolition. They glittered

in the sun as Fortune’s bediamonded favorites.

And, so, while Madame Berthe Louison and Captain Anstruther lingered au

cabinet particulier, over their Chablis and Ostend oysters, the recouped

gambler extended his store of mental acquirement, by tender converse

with the two sprightly belles of the Windy City. In fact, the whistle

of the steamer was heard long before Alan Hawke could extricate himself

from the clinging tentacles of the audacious beauties. He was somewhat

repaid for his social exertions, however, as he sped back to keep his

tryst at Geneva, by the acquisition of a large steel-engraved business

card inscribed, “Forbes, Haygood & Co., Chicago,” loftily tendered him

by “Popper.” He smiled at the whispered assurances of the Misses Phenie

and Genie that they “should soon meet again.”

“Bring your friend--that other Lord,” cried the departing Miss Genie,

waving a thousand-franc lace fan, as she sagely observed, “Two’s

company--three’s none. We’ll have a jolly lark--us four. Don’t forget,

now!” The polite Major laid his hand upon his heart and played the

amiable tiger, although burning inwardly now, in a fierce personal

jealousy of Anstruther as he wandered alone around the cold gray halls

of the museum, and gazed upon the pinched features of the permanently

eclipsed shining lights of the “Bulwark of Civil and Religious Liberty.”

There was no charm for him in the bigoted ferocity of Calvin’s lean,

dark face, smacking his thin lips over the roasted Servetus. He abhorred

the departed heroes of the golden evolution from Eidegenossen into

Higuerios and later Huguenots. They interested him not, neither did he

love Professor Calame’s scratchy pictures, nor the jumbled bric-a-brac

of art and history. None of these charmed him. He waited only for the

gliding step, the clasp of a burning hand, and the flash of the lustrous

dark-brown eyes. It was his own innings now.

He had referred to his watch for the fiftieth time, when, from a closed

carriage, the object of his mental vituperations gracefully alighted

at last. It was with the very coldest of bows that the irritated man

received the graceful, self-possessed woman, whose lovely face was but

partially hidden by her coquettishly dotted veil.

“She dresses like a Parisienne, walks like an Andalu-sian, and has

all the seductiveness of a Polish countess!” the quick-witted rascal

thought, as they strolled into the museum, which the departed General

Rath knew not would be the scene of many a hidden love intrigue, when

he endowed it with a benevolent vanity. The two wary strangers strolled

along until they found a retired corner. Madame Louison seated herself,

waving her lace parasol with the impatient gesture of one accustomed to

command.

Alan Hawke was in no gentle humor, and his cheeks reddened as he

felt the calm scrutiny of the woman’s searching glances. He was now

determined to take the whip hand, and to keep it. His accents were

staccato as he said, “Tell me now who you are, and what you wish of

me!” A clock, hung high over them on the dreary, drab walls, ticked away

brusquely, as the angered woman gazed steadily into his face.

“And so your little windfall of last night has already made you

impudent? If you cannot find another tone at once, I will find another

agent! The man whom you plucked has told me the story of your wonderful

skill at cards!” The sneer cut the renegade like a whip lash, and Alan

Hawke sprang up in anger. Madame Berthe Louison coolly settled herself

down into the red cushions.

“The way to India is before you, but five hundred pounds is not a

fortune for Major Alan Hawke! Listen! I watched you carefully yesterday,

in your vigil upon Rousseau’s Island. Your telltale face betrayed

you. You were left stranded here in Geneva. An accident has brought us

together. You cannot divine my motives. I can fathom yours easily. Tell

me now, of yourself, of your past in India--of your present standing

there. If you are frank, I may contribute to your fortune; if not--our

ways part here!”

“And, if I warn Anson Anstruther that you are a mere adventuress, if I

notify my old friend Hugh Fraser (soon to be Sir Hugh Johnstone), then

your little game will be spoiled, Madame Louison!” defiantly said Hawke.

The woman leaned back and laughed merrily in his face.

“You are like all professional lady killers, a mere fool in the hands

of the first woman of wit. I dare you to cross my path! I will then join

Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther, in Paris, at the Hotel Binda!

I will also see that you are excluded from every club in India! Your

occupation will be gone, my Knight of Ecarte. Anstruther waits for

me.” She tossed him a card. “See for yourself. He was kind enough at

breakfast, and, he will help me, if I ask him.”

“And why do you not fly to his arms?” sneered Alan Hawke, who had

quickly resigned the bullying tone of his abordage.

“Because he is a nice boy and a gentleman,” the woman said, with a

cutting emphasis. “Now, let me read you, Monsieur le Major, a lesson

in manners. Never be rough with a woman! That is the road which always

leads on to failure. I wish you a good appetite for your breakfast,

which I have delayed, and for which I beg your pardon!” She rose and

swept along with her Juno strides, and had reached the second Hall of

Antiquities before Alan Hawke overtook her. It had flashed across his

mind that he had for once in his life met a woman who was not afraid of

the future, whatever had been her past. A single malicious letter from

Anstruther would ruin him in India, for there was an ominous cloud, no

bigger than a man’s hand, lingering in that hiatus between his old

rank of Lieutenant of Bengal Artillery, and the shadowy tenure of his

self-dubbed Majority. This Aspasia hid none of her methods. She had

boldly captivated the passing Pericles, and, evidently, she was the

desired one.

“Let me explain,” he began, as the woman looked calmly into his face.

“We are only losing time, Major,” Madame Louison remarked, as she sought

a corner. “I see that you have already repented. Do you know any one in

Geneva?”

“Not one of the seventy-five thousand here,” frankly answered Hawke.

“The only man I came here to see, the English Consul, is away on leave.”

“Then I can use you safely,” answered the stranger. “Now, I owe you a

breakfast. Will you put me in my carriage? I know the town thoroughly.

Remember that it is only business that brings us together, and yet we

may become better friends.” In a half an hour they were seated in an

arbor by the lake, where a homely German restaurant offered good cheer.

The Lady of the Lake did the honors ceremoniously, and Major Alan

Hawke was permitted a cigar after the lake trout, filet, pears, cheese,

Chambertin, and black coffee had been discussed. He was both conquered

and repentant, and had adroitly atoned for his mauvais debut by a

respectful demeanor, which was not feigned. He answered the running fire

of questions which had led him from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, and

from Chittagong to the Khyber Pass.

“You are sure that no one in Geneva knows your face?” Berthe Louison

asked at last.

“I have been here only two days, and it is twenty years since I first

roved over Switzerland on schoolboy leave,” was the truthful answer.

“Then I can use you if you will decide to aid me, after you have heard

me. I know, already, all that young Anstruther knows of the whole

Johnstone matter. I do not intend to meet him at Paris,” she demurely

said. “I am absolutely untrammeled in this world. I am free to act as

a woman’s moods sway her. I have plenty of money, a fact which lifts me

above the degradation of man’s chase, and I indulge in no illusions.

I am a soldier’s daughter, and my dead father was the son of one of

Napoleon’s heroes of La Grande Armee. My whole life has been most

unconventional; and I am free to dispose of myself, body and soul, and

will, but for one thing.” She was pleased with Alan Hawke’s mute glance

of inquiry. “Only the business which brought me to Geneva! We are all

the slaves of circumstance! The veriest fools of fortune! I do not blame

you for your surmises! I had vainly sought, for two years, the very

information which I gained last night by chance at a Geneva table

d’hote. It was from Anstruther that I discovered the changed name under

which Hugh Fraser’s daughter has been hidden from me for years. For

I owe this all to chance, to Anstruther’s susceptibility, and to my

playing the risque part which you saw fit me so well.” The woman’s eyes

were now flashing ominously.

“But you led me on--you deceived me!” stammered Alan Hawke.

“I had nothing to risk!” the resolute beauty replied. “My name is not

Berthe Louison, as you may well imagine! As for the little amourette

de voyage, I will leave the laurels to your handsome young friend and

yourself. I do not play with boys, and, as for you, I should always

guard myself against you!

“Now, I will be practical! I know Europe; I do not know India! I need

a man brave, cool, and unscrupulous; I need a resolute man to aid me in

the one purpose of my life! I wish to go out to India to face this

Hugh Fraser, to lift up the curtain of the dead past, and I need a

protector--a paid champion--a man who values the only thing which is

concrete power in life; a man who knows the power of money! For, gold is

irresistible!” Her bright face hardened.

“My duties are, then, not to be of a tender nature,” lightly hazarded

Hawke.

“I can soon judge of your value by your adroitness, and you can make

your own record!” smiled the strange woman waif. “Let me see how

you would do this! I do not care to personally approach Mademoiselle

Euphrosyne Delande, I would have a picture of the woman whom I seek--the

lonely child whom I have hungered for long years to see! I do not care

to expose myself here--”

“The Preceptress might telegraph out to India and the girl be spirited

away!” broke in Alan Hawke.

“Very good! Precisely so!” said Berthe Louison, gravely. “I will tell

you now that I have played perfectly fair with Anstruther! I have

enabled him to assure himself of Nadine Johnstone’s regular standing

as the legal and only heiress of the would-be Baronet! I do not fear

Anstruther! He is a gallant boy, worthy to wear a sword, and, he does

not work for hire! He tells me that Euphrosyne Delande showed him the

last pictures of the girl which were sent on before Hugh Fraser suddenly

telegraphed to have his child ‘personally conducted’ on carte blanche

terms out to join him.”

Major Hawke buried his head in his hands and slowly said: “I can do it

easily! We must not be seen together here! Go up to the Hotel Faucon, at

Lausanne, and wait for me there for three days. I have to remain here at

any rate to collect Anstruther’s check in London. I have in my favor all

the facts of Anstruther’s story. I happen also to have Anstruther’s

P. P. C. card. I will bring you the picture you want, or a half dozen

copies. Will you trust to me? I make no professions!”

“That is right!” sternly said Berthe Louison. “Let our casual

association be one of a mere money interest. We can find each other

out easily. You have no motive to injure me, your own interest now and

always lies the other way. I only wish to have some one at hand when I

am ready to face the embryo Sir Hugh Johnstone!”

“You are bold!” slowly said Alan Hawke. “If I should denounce you to

Johnstone, himself! If he should be warned--”

“I hold him and his long cherished dream, the Baronetcy, in my hand,”

the brown-eyed beauty frankly cried. “I should not burn my ships in

Europe! Even if I were to be betrayed, the purpose of my life will be

carried out. I should leave here behind me the safest of anchors in

other well-paid agents. Your rash meddling would only ruin your own

money interests and not hurt my plans.”

“Then we are to make an offensive and defensive alliance without trust

or faith in each other?” agnostically remarked Hawke.

“Just so!” answered Madame Louison. “I can make it to your interest

to serve me well, better than the man whom I wish to face. You know

India--you happen to know Delhi. Your possible adversary is an old

civilian, rich, retired, and unable to rake up trouble for you in

military circles. I will do my work alone, but I shall want your aid,

and I will pay you liberally. I will go up to Lausanne. You will find me

at the Hotel Faucon. Bring up some route maps of India. We will go out

as soon as possible. Do you wish any present money?”

Alan Hawke reddened as he shook his head.

“Then, Major Hawke, if you will take the first passing carriage, we will

meet as soon as you have succeeded. Send me a telegram of your coming.”

The adventurer’s low bow of silent assent terminated the strange

breakfast scene, and at the gate of the vine-clad garden he turned and

saw her seated there alone, with her head bowed in a reverie.

“Damme if she is made of flesh and blood!” mused the Major, as he drove

back to the Hotel National. That very evening he revenged himself upon

the callous-hearted stranger, by a reckless flirtation with the Misses

Phenie and Genie Forbes, still of Chicago. It was not a matter of

concern to any one but Paterfamilias Forbes that the Major indulged in

a stolen moonlight excursion upon the lake in charge of two extremely

prononcee Daisy Millers. The Major’s slumbers, however, were of the

lightest, for the face of the chance-met directress of his immediate

future haunted his uneasy dreams. He was a model of respectable gravity,

however, when he presented himself before Mademoiselle Euphrosyne

Delande, at her Institute, when the bells clanged ten in the morning.

Major Hawke at once impressed the sleek door-opener, Francois, by the

ultra refinement of his demeanor, and the suave elegance of his French.

“Evidently the one necessary Adam in this Garden of undeveloped young

Peris,” thought Hawke, as he gazed around the cheerless room, with its

globes, busts of departed sages, topographical maps, and framed samples

of the “Execution” of the jeunes personnes, with brush and pencil.

“Looks breachy, that fellow--they all have to sneak out to drink, and

for les fetifs plaisirs! He may be made useful. I’ll have a shy at him,”

mused the Major, now on his mettle. Francois stood there expectant of a

tip, when he announced the regrets of Mademoiselle Delande, that class

duties would detain her for a few moments.

“Would Monsieur kindly pardon, etc.?”

“Am I right in inferring that the ladies, are the daughters of the

famous Professor Delande?” the Major hazarded, with a wild guess. Before

the votary of Minerva finally descended, Francois had artfully “yielded

up” much valuable information to the gravely interested visitor. The

attendant was the richer by a five-franc piece when he retired to

vigorously fall upon the Major’s hat and brush it in an anticipatory

manner.

It was but a half an hour later when Alan Hawke had concluded his deftly

worded compliments upon the justly famed Institute, and had subjugated

the still susceptible spinster by his adroitly veiled flatteries. The

easy aplomb with which he introduced the forgotten commission of Captain

Anstruther was aided by the presentation of that gentleman’s visiting

card, and the charms of an interesting word sketch of Delhi and its

surroundings.

The sound of distant girlish voices punctuated the refined murmur of the

ensuing conference, which was an exposition of Mademoiselle Delande’s

grand manner! Hawke adroitly soothed the natural uneasiness of the

cunning Swiss spinster as to her sister’s comfort, safety, and the

surety of Hugh Johnstone’s fabulously liberal money inducement to retain

Miss Justine in his service for a year. The flattered woman fell

easily into Alan Hawke’s net, and she freely dilated upon the singular

eccentricities of the Indian magnate as to his daughter’s education.

There was a breaking light now illumining the strange childhood of a

girl, nurtured by proxy, and kept in ignorance of her brilliant future

and vast monetary inheritance.

“In fact, I have never seen the honored Mr. Hugh Fraser,” concluded Miss

Euphrosyne. “Nadine was brought to us a child of three by the wife of

Professor Fraser, since deceased! And, by special arrangement, she was

taken by us, and her whole girlhood has been passed in our charge. We

have never seen her uncle, Professor Fraser, whose duties at Edinburgh

University chained him down. It was her own father’s written and

positive direction that no one, whomsoever, should be admitted to

converse with his child. And so Justine and myself have formed her

entirely!”

Hawke’s keen eyes glowed for a moment, in a secret satisfaction. “I have

you, my lady! They wished to keep you away from this young Peri,

formed upon such heroically antique models.” Major Hawke gazed upon

the leather-faced visage of the slaty-eyed woman, whose age none might

venture to guess. An artless admiration of the absent Miss Justine’s

photographed charms, caused a faint glow to flicker upon the ancient

maiden’s cheek. When Alan Hawke drew forth a hideous carbuncle and

Indian filigree bracelet (an old relic of bazaar haunting), the thin

lips of the preceptress parted in a wintry smile.

With modest urging, he soon overcame the Roman firmness of Mademoiselle

Euphrosyne, and, wonder of wonders, was honored by an invitation to dine

with the austere Genevan maiden. The happy Major was soon triumphant

at all points, and Francois was hastily dispatched to the Photographic

Atelier to order a half dozen copies of the card portrait which

displayed to Alan Hawke the rosebud face of the Veiled Beauty of Delhi.

The adventurer made haste to excuse himself for interrupting the flow of

the Parnassian stream, and walked backward from the presence of the poor

old woman whom he had duped, as if she were a queen.

It was an easy matter for the Englishman to waylay and intercept the

returning man-at-arms of this castle of cosmopolitan beauty. Francois

had duly availed himself of his lengthened absence, and his thick tongue

and swimming eye spoke of potations of the Kirsch-wasser dear to the

Swiss heart. Major Hawke impressed the servitor with the necessity of

bringing the pictures down to his rooms upon the morrow, and then the

Major judiciously duplicated his five-franc piece. The happy butler

winked with an acute divination of the Major’s purpose and went

unsteadily back to the whirlpool of learning. The Major cheerfully went

on his own way to meet Miss Genie Forbes, with whom he had established

a private understanding as to a runaway visit to the Cathedral, to

be followed by an impromptu breakfast. “I can stand the old Gorgon’s

dinner,” mused the happy adventurer, “after a tete-a-tete with Miss

Genie, and as for Francois, I will also waste a bottle of good Cognac

on him. I think that I will start into this strange partnership with a

better stock of family history than even this remarkably self-possessed

young woman, who seems to be the heiress of some old family vendetta.”

The Major laughed as he heard the mills of the gods grinding out a

golden grist of the future. But lifted up beyond the impulses of his

itching palm the sight of the delicate, girlish face of the Rosebud

of Delhi had caused him to dream the strangest dreams. “Why not?” he

murmured as he wandered back to the hotel and privately indulged in a

petit verre before his rendezvous with Miss Genie, the belle of the

West Side. Major Alan Hawke was in “great form” as he piloted the

bright-eyed, willful Chicago girl through the dim religious light of the

Cathedral. His mocking history of the gay life and racy adventures of

Bonnivard, when posing as the rollicking Prior of St. Victor in the wild

days of his youth, greatly amused the nervous American heiress.

“I should say that he was a holy terror,” laughed Miss Genie, “and I

don’t blame the Bishop of Geneva and the Duke of Savoy for making him

do his six years in that dark old hole at Chillon! He was a gay boy, you

bet, and with his three wives and his lively ways, I reckon the Genevans

were blamed sorry they ever let him out. He seems to have been a free

thinker, a free liver, and a free lover!”

“And yet,” mused Alan Hawke, “his writings to-day are the pride of

Genevan scholars; his library was the nucleus of the Geneva University;

his defiant spirit broke the chains of Calvin’s narrowness, and his

resistant, spiritual example caught up has made Geneva the home of the

oppressed, the central, radiant point of mental light and liberty

for the world! Geneva since 1536 has harbored the brightest wandering

Spanish, French, English, and Irish youth! Even grim Russia cannot

reclaim from the free city its wayward exiles. France, in her

distress, has found an asylum here for its helpless nobles and expelled

philosophers. I willingly take my hat off to brave little Switzerland,

where Royal Duke, proscribed patriot, mad enthusiast, bold agnostic,

and tired worldling can all find an inviolate asylum under the majestic

shadows of its mountains--by the shores of its dreaming lakes!” Alan

Hawke dropped suddenly from the clouds as the practical Miss Genie led

the way to the breakfast rendezvous, cheerfully demonstrating her own

bold ideas of social freedom by remarking:

“Say! what’s the matter with a little day’s run up to Chillon? Phenie

is game for anything! You just get that other English Lord and we will

dodge Popper and Mommer.”

“I am sorry to say that my friend has left suddenly, bound for London,”

laughed the Major, gazing admiringly at this pretty feminine Bonnivard.

“That’s awful bad luck!” gloomily remarked Miss Genie. “He was a regular

dandy, and I liked him--but,” she said, with a thirsty peck at a glass

of champagne, as they waited for the breakfast, “Phenie will then have

to give that long-legged Italian fellow the tip. The Marquis of Santa

Marina! He’s not much, but better than nothing at all. We’ll have a

jolly day!”

Major Hawke was mystified at the daring personal independence of the

sprightly young heiress. She was a social revelation to him, and the

sunny afternoon was not altogether thrown away, for they carelessly

rambled over the proud old town together, doing all the sights. They

visited the stately National Monument, the Jardin Anglais, the Hotel

de Ville, the Arsenal, the Muse’e Foy, the Botanic Gardens, and the

Athende. He gazed upon the fresh face of the rebellious young American

social mutineer with an increasing wonder as they wandered alone on the

Promenade des Bastions, and was simply astounded when he vainly tried

to take advantage of a shady corner in the Musee Ariana to steal a kiss

from the wayward girl’s rosy lips. Miss Genie “formed herself into a

hollow square” and calmly, but energetically, repulsed him.

“See here! Major Hawke!” she coolly said, “get off the perch! I don’t

care for any soft sawder! I’m a pretty good fellow in my way, but I know

how to take care of myself!”

In fact, Major Alan Hawke at last recognized the existence of a species

of womanhood which he had never before met. Miss Genie was frankly

unconventional, and yet she was both hard-headed and hardhearted. When

he carefully dressed himself for the intellectual feast of Mademoiselle

Delande’s “refined collation,” he dimly became aware that the role

of unpaid bear leader to the Chicago girl simply amounted to being an

unsalaried valet de place! “As for compromising that devil of a girl,”

he growled, “she could have given the snake in the Garden of Eden long

odds and beaten him hollow, in subtlety.” This view of the impeccability

of the Chicago epidermis was confirmed later when Hawke returned

from the “Institute” at the decorous hour of ten that evening. He was

thoroughly happy, for the sly Francois was ready to meet him at the

door, whispering:

“I will be at your rooms at ten, and bring you the photographs. I have a

couple of hours of freedom then.”

Mademoiselle Euphrosyne’s pale, anemic nature had bloomed out under the

graceful attentions of the gallant officer, and gradually she expanded,

little by little unfolding the desiccated leaves of her tranquil past,

and, yielding, as of old, to the charm of youth and good looks, the

faded spinster told him all.

“I will sell my precious knowledge, bit by bit, to Madame Berthe,” he

ruminated. “Evidently the Louison dares not face this stony-faced

Swiss Medusa. The felices histoires of Francois will fill up my mental

notebook.” Major Hawke then sat down at ease in the cafe of the Hotel

National to indite a dispatch of spartan brevity to “Madame Louison” at

the Hotel Faucon, Lausanne. “The Cook’s Agency tell me that the London

draft will be paid to-morrow. Francois will deliver me the photographs,

and relate his selected historical excerpts, and then I will be ready

to have a duel of wits with Madame Berthe.” So he simply telegraphed to

Lausanne:

“Successful--arrive to-morrow night.” He then dispatched the head porter

with the telegram, and while enjoying his parting brandy and soda,

was suddenly made aware of the near proximity of Mr. Phineas Forbes of

Chicago, who was anxiously drinking cocktail after cocktail in a

moody unrest. The lank Chicago capitalist waved his tufted chin beard

dejectedly as he answered the Briton’s casual salutation. “I’m worried

about the girls,” he simply said. “They’re off on the lake, with the

Marquis de Santa Marina and that French chap, the Count de Roquefort. I

don’t more than half like it.” The hour was late, and the heavy father

glued his eyes upon the darkened window pane. “Is Madame Forbes with

them?” murmured the Englishman.

“Oh, Lord, no!” simply said the Illinois capitalist. “The girls are used

to going out alone with their gentlemen friends, but I’m afraid that

these two damned useless foreigners will upset the boat and drown my two

girls. I wouldn’t care a rap if they were alone. But these Dago noblemen

are no good--at least that’s my experience. I indorsed a draft for one

of them that Mommer and the girls dragged up to the house last year.

Came back marked ‘N. G.’--I wish to God the girls wouldn’t pick up these

fellows.”

Alan Hawke hazarded the inquiry “Why do you permit it?”

The Chicago pork jammer thrust his hand in his pockets and whistled

reflectively. “How the deuce can I help it?” he reflectively answered,

“Mother and the girls go in for high society. What’ll you have? You can

talk French to this fellow. Now, order up the best in the house,” Alan

Hawke laughed and charitably divided the hour of long waiting with

the simple-hearted old father. At half-past twelve, with a rush and

a flutter, the two young falcons sailed into the main hallway and

effusively bade adieu to their limp cavaliers, who slunk away, in

different directions, when they observed the disgruntled parent and the

heartily amused Briton.

“So they brought you home safely?” calmly remarked Hawke, as he watched

the happy father gathering his chickens unto his wing.

“We brought them home safe,” cutely remarked Miss Phenie. “Those fellows

are heavenly dancers, but they are not worth shucks in a boat. I wish

we had had you out with us. I like Englishmen!” with which frank

declaration Miss Phenie and Miss Genie whisked themselves away to bed,

Miss Genie leaning over the banister to jovially cry out:

“Don’t you go away till we fix up that Chillon trip.” Major Hawke and

Phineas Forbes, Esq., drank a last libation to the friendly god Neptune,

the old man huskily remarking:

“Say, Major, those are two fine girls, and they will have a million

apiece. I want ‘em to be sensible and marry Chicago men, but, they both

go in for coronets and all that humbug.” The laughing Major extricated

himself from the social tentacles of the honest old boy, mentally

deciding to play off Miss Genie against Mad-ame Berthe Louison.

“I will give these strange girls ‘a day out.’ It may reduce the nez

retroussee my mysterious employer.” And so he dreamed that night that

he was an assistant presiding genius of the great pig Golgotha, where

Phineas Forbes was the monarch of the meat ax. “Right smart girls, and

you bet they can take care of themselves,” was the last encomium of

their self-denying parent which rang in Alan Hawke’s ears as he wandered

away into the Land of Nod.

“They are a queer lot,” laughed the happy schemer, as he woke next

day to his closing labors at Geneva. “Now, for my check cashing, then,

Monsieur Francois, a farewell visit to Miss Euphrosyne, and a secret

council with the fair Genie,” He merrily breakfasted, and was more than

rewarded for his Mephistophelian entertainment of Francois. The sly

Figaro “parted freely,” and when he slunk back to the “Institute” he was

the richer by fifty francs. Major Hawke was the happy possessor of

the coveted photographs, and a private address of Francois, artfully

informing that person that he was going to London, and on his return,

in a few months, desired a cicerone in the hypocritically placid town.

Francois’s eyes gleamed in a happy anticipation of more Cognac and many

easily earned francs. “Now, Madame Berthe, I think I have the key of

the enigma! I see a year’s assured comfort before me, for I can play the

part of the Saxon troops at Leipzig,” the schemer joyously ruminated.

His farewell to Miss Delande impressed that thrifty dame with the golden

fortunes which had descended upon her sister. “Should you return to

India, Major,” she sibillated, “I will give you a confidential letter to

Justine, for I know there is no one more fitted to remain in charge of

sweet Nadine than my dear sister!” The Major blushingly accepted the

honor, and directed the letter to be sent at once to Morley’s Hotel,

for, as he mysteriously whispered,

“The Foreign office may send me back to India--in fact, I may be

telegraphed for at any moment, and your sister will surely find a fast

friend in me.”

“Easily gulled!” laughed Alan Hawke. “I will sweeten’ upon Miss Justine;

those thin lips indicate the auri sacra fames. These miserly Swiss

sisters may aid me to approach the veiled Rose Bird.” His delight at

fingering the crisp proceeds of Anstruther’s check sent him to the Ouchy

steamer in the very happiest of moods, and, his cup was running over

when the birdlike Miss Genie Forbes descended upon him to announce a

meeting on the morrow at Montreux.

“We can do the castle, and essay the airy railroad at Territet Glion,

have a jolly dinner on the hill, and come home on the last boat! You be

sure to meet Phenie and me.” The astounded Major murmured his delight

and surprise. “Oh! Popper will let us go up there. He likes you--he says

that you are a thoroughbred. So, we’ll cut the other fellows and come

alone. Say, can’t you scare up another fellow like yourself for Phenie?”

Whereat Alan Hawke laughed, and promised to secure an eligible “fellow”

among the migratory Englishmen hovering around Lausanne-Ouchy, and

he pledged a future friendship with the patient Phineas Forbes, who

lingered in the cafe, engulfing cocktails, while “Mother and Phenie were

out shopping.” The vivacious Genie had confided to her callous swain

that she had watched him as he lingered on Rousseau’s Island.

“I rather thought that you were sick and distressed, you looked so

peaked like, and I was mighty near speaking to you. I was just bound to

meet you.” And upon this frank declaration, Alan Hawke kissed her firm

white hand, agreeing to her plans, and the glow of prosperity shone out

upon his impassive face, as he glided away to meet the strange woman

whom he distrusted. “I hold the trump cards now, my lady!” he cried, as

he watched Miss Genie’s handkerchief fluttering on the quay. Major Alan

Hawke wasted no time in his three hours’ voyage to Lausanne-Ouchy in

carefully preparing for his interview with Madame Berthe Louison. He

abandoned the idea of trying the “whip hand,” remembering how

suddenly he had descended from the “high horse.” “Bah! She is about as

sentimental as a rat-tail file. However, she is good for my passage

to India, at any rate, and, the nearer I am to old Johnstone and this

pretty heiress to be, the better my all-round chances are.” So, he

contented himself with watching the pictured shores of Lake Leman glide

by, and wondering if he might not turn aside safely to the chase of

the bright-eyed, sharp-featured, Miss Genie Forbes. He had profited by

Phineas Forbes’s frank disclosures, and yet the Madame Sans Gene manners

of the heiresses rather frightened him. He was aware from the amatory

failure in the dim old cathedral that Miss Genie was armed cap-a-pie.

“Those American girls, apparently so approachable, are all ready to

stand to arms at a moment’s notice.” And so, he drifted back in his day

dreams toward the Land of the Pagoda Tree, with Ouchy and Chillon. He

studied the beautiful face of the lonely child from the school-girl

photograph, and decided, in spite of hideous frocks and a lack of

conventional war paint, that she was a rare beauty.

“Yes! She will do--with the money. All she needs is the art to show

off her points, and that is easily gained. The recruits in Vanity

Fair easily pick up the tricks of society, and old Hugh’s money and

prospective elevation will surely draw suitors around like flies

swarming near the honey.” The boat gracefully glided in to the port of

Ouchy before Major Hawke’s day dream faded away.

A flattering dream which led him on to a future gilded by Sir Hugh

Johnstone’s money. He longed to ruffle it bravely with the best. To

hold up his head once more in official circles, and to smother the ugly

floating memories ef a renegade who had served those English guns under

the fierce Sikkim hill tribes against his one-time fellow soldiers. “I

must have that money, with or without the girl! There must be a way

to it! I will cut through the barriers to get it!” There was a steely

glitter in his blue eyes as he murmured: “Now for the fox’s hide! She

shall have her way--for a time! My play comes on later, when the deal is

with me!”

He sprang lightly ashore, and was chatting with the gold-banded porter

of the Hotel Faucon, when a lovely face, thrilling in its awakened

emotion, met his glance at the window of a carriage. He dispatched

his luggage to the Faucon, and sprang lightly in the carriage when

the omnibuses had departed for the Lausanne plateau. Alan Hawke was

carefully deferential in his greeting and he meekly answered all the

rapid queries of his mysterious employer.

“You have closed up your own private affairs?” she briskly queried.

“All is ready for the road in one day more. I have a private social

engagement for to-morrow,” he replied. “But I brought you all the

sailing dates and the detailed information you requested.”

“You obtained the pictures safely, then, and with a prudent caution,”

anxiously demanded Madame Louison.

“You shall know all soon. I hope that I have satisfied you!” he said,

handing her a packet, failing to tell her that he had kept two pictures

of the far-away girl for his own private use. They were now near the

plateau where the Hotel Faucon shows its semi-circular front to the

splendid panorama unrolled before its windows.

An afternoon concert was in progress at the Casino, near the local

museum. “We will stop here for a few moments,” said the excited woman.

“You can go on alone, and walk over to the hotel and secure your own

rooms. Then send your card up to me in the usual manner. To-night we

will go out separately and meet for a conference. We can arrange all

our business.” The Major bowed submissively, and assisted the lady to

alight.

Madame Louison dismissed her carriage, and the confederates-to-be

entered the afternoon concert room. A superb orchestra was playing the

finishing bars of the last number on the program, and the audience had

dwindled away to a few knots of demure residents. Following his passive

policy, the adventurer sat silently, stealing oblique glances at

his companion as she nervously unfolded the wrappings of the coveted

pictures. There was a gasp, a low moan, as the woman’s head fell back.

Alan Hawke’s strong arms were clasped round her, as she leaned back

helplessly in her fauteuil. But a smile of secret triumph was on his

face as he quickly bore the helpless form to an anteroom at once opened

by the frightened ushers. Berthe Louison’s face was corpse-like in its

pallor, as she lay there upon a divan, her fingers still clutching the

photograph.

“There is a physician near by,” hazarded a sympathetic woman who had

crowded into the room. The music had stopped with a crash.

“Summon him at once!” energetically ordered Hawke. “Some brandy--quick!”

he cried, listening to her agonized words, “Valerie! My God! It is

Valerie herself! My poor sister!” In a few moments an elderly man parted

the assembling loiterers. His bustling air of command soon dispelled the

loiterers. A woman attendant was bending over the still senseless woman

as the spectacled medico seized Alan Hawke’s arm. “Has your wife ever

had a previous heart attack?” he gravely asked, as he opened his lancet

case. Major Hawke shook his head, and gazed pityingly upon the beautiful

pallid face before him.

“Can I be of any use to Monsieur?” demanded the chef d’orchestre in

evening grand tenue, his baton still in his hand.

There was a glance of wondering astonishment as the Englishman faced the

speaker. “Wieniawski--Casimir, you here?” The other dropped his voice as

the physician ripped up the sleeve of the patient’s gown.

“Major Hawke, I thought you were still in Delhi? Your wife--” faltered

the artist, as he listened to a low moan when the lancet blade entered

the ivory arm of the sufferer. Then, with a backward step, he pressed

his hands to his brows. “My God! It is Alixe Delavigne!” he brokenly

said. But Hawke sprang to his side and quickly drew him from the room.

“Not a word! Not a single word to any one! Where are you stopping? I

will come to you tonight!” the excited man sternly said, his firm hand

still clutching the musician’s arm.

“Here, at the Casino! Come in after ten! I will await you! But where did

you meet her?” the Polish violinist cried, speaking as if in a dream.

“You shall know all later! I must get her to the hotel!” He returned to

the physician’s side, who authoritatively cried, “Now an easy carriage

and to the Faucon, you said?” In half an hour, Berthe Louison was

sleeping, a nurse at her side, while Alan Hawke counted the moments

crawling on till ten o’clock.

CHAPTER III. AND AT DELHI WHAT AM I TO DO?

Major Alan Hawke was the “observed of all observers,” in the cosy

salon of the Grand Hotel Faucon, when the sympathetic hotel manager

interrupted a colloquy between the handsome Briton and the Doctor.

“A mere syncope, my dear sir. Perhaps--even only the result of tight

lacing, or inaction. Perhaps some sudden nerve crisis. These are the

results of the easy luxury of an enervating high-life. All these

social habits are weakening elements. Now, fortunately, your wife has a

singularly strong vital nature. You may safely dismiss all your fears.

Madame will be entirely herself in the morning.”

“Can I be of any service?” demanded the genial host, secretly urged on

by a coterie of curious, womanly sympathizers in silk and muslin.

“I am the trustee of Madame Louison, in some important business matters,

and not her husband,” gravely remarked the Major. “I only came up here

to confer with her upon some matters of moment.” Both the listeners

bowed in silence.

“Then, my dear sir, you can be perfectly reassured,” the physician

briskly concluded, tendering his card. “My professional conscience

will not allow me to make even a single future visit, as doctor, to the

charming Madame Louison. Should Madame awake in other than her normal

health and spirits, I should be professionally at fault.”

Major Hawke then led the doctor aside and pressed a five-pound note

upon him. “Madame is of a wonderfully strong constitution. An heiress of

nature’s choicest favors,” the happy Galen floridly said, as he took his

leave.

“So she is,” grimly assented Hawke.

The gossipy boniface was already spreading such meager details of the

sudden seizure as he had been able to pick up, and, the words “Polish

noblewoman,” “Italian marchesa,” “French countess,” were tossed

about freely in the light froth of the conversation in the ladies’

drawing-room.

Meanwhile, Alan Hawke was smoking a meditative cigar alone, while pacing

the old Cantonal high road before the Faucon. “I think I will remain on

picket here,” he mused. “This fiddler fellow, Wieniawski, must not meet

her. She must be led on to leave here at once. Constitution, nerve,

aplomb; she has them all. She should have been born a man. What a

soldier! One of nature’s mistakes--man’s mental organization, woman’s

soft, flooding emotions, and beauty’s fiery passions.”

“I must pump Casimir. He will be safely nailed to the platform by his

duties, from eight to ten. I will not leave her a moment, however, till

he has the baton in his hand. I will then watch him until ten--meet him

down there, and, if he meets her after we separate for the night, he is

a smarter Pole than I take him for. And now I must go and frighten her

away from here.”

Major Hawke was quick to note all the outer indications of man’s varying

fortunes. He had so long buffeted the waves of adversity himself that he

was a past master of the art of measuring the depth of a hidden purse.

He recalled the brilliant Casimir Wieniawski of eight years past--the

curled darling of the hot-hearted ladies of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and

Singapore. In a glance of cursory inspection Alan Hawke had noted the

doubtful gloss of the dress suit; it was the polish of long wear, not

the velvety glow of newness. There was a growing bald spot, scarcely

hidden by the Hyperion Polish curls; there were crows’-feet around the

bold, insolent eyes, and the man’s smile was lean and wolfish when the

glittering white teeth flashed through the professional smirk of the

traveling artist. The old, easy assurance was still there, but cognac

had dulled the fires of genius; the tones of the violin trembled, even

under the weakening but still magic fingers, and the splendid sapphire

and diamond cluster ring of old was replaced by a too evident Palais

Royal work of inferior art.

“Poor devil! It is the downward fluttering of the wearied eagle!” mused

Alan Hawke. “Women, roulette, champagne, and high life--all these

past riches fade away into the gloomy pleasures of restaurant cognac,

dead-shot absinthe, and the vicarious smiles of a broken soubrette or

so! And all the more you can be now dangerous to me, Monsieur Casimir

Wieniawski, for the old maneater forgets none of his tricks, even when

toothless.”

Casimir, the handsome Pole, glib of tongue, the heir to a thousand minor

graces, reckless in outpouring the wine of Life, had truly gone the

downward way with all the abandon of his showy, insincere race. Hawke

well knew the final level of misery awaiting the wandering, broken-down

artist here in a land where really fine music was a mere drug; where

the orchestra was only a cheap lure to enhance the cafe addition.

The “Professor” was but a minor staff officer of the grim Teutonic

Oberkellner of the Brasserie Concert.

“But how shall I muzzle this Robert Macaire of the bow?” cogitated

Hawke, as he anxiously eyed the two windows of Madame Louison’s rooms,

and then sternly gazed at the open front doors of the Hotel Faucon.

A light broke in upon his brain. “There is the golden lure of the Misses

Phenie and Genie Forbes, of Chicago, U. S. A. Those madcap girls will be

easily gulled. They arrive to-morrow at nine. A few stage asides, as to

the stock romance of every Polish upstart, will do the trick!”

“Russian brutality, fugitive Prince, Siberian wanderings, romantic

escape, killed the Russian general who burned his chateau; all that sort

of thing will enchant these. This may occupy Casimir and leave me free.

When the devil is idle he catches flies, and under the cover of this

rosy glow of romance I will get away to India, but only after Madame

Alixe Delavigne goes. I can afford to put in ten pounds on Casimir to

loosen his lying tongue. In vino veritas may apply even to a gallant

and distinguished Pole. If I can get the true story of Alixe Delavigne’s

life, then I have the key of the Johnstone mystery. Ah! There is now a

duty signal for me!” The Major smartly approached the main entrance of

that cosiest of Swiss family hotels, the Faucon, as the anxious face

of a woman nurse appeared. “Madame veut bien voir Monsieur!” simply

announced the servant. Major Hawke brushed by her with a nod and quickly

mounted the stair. To his utter surprise, on entering Madame Berthe

Louison’s apartment, the signs of an approaching departure were but too

evident. A stout Swiss maiden was busied stolidly packing several trunks

in an indiscriminate haste, while the fair invalid herself sat at the

center table poring over an opened Baedeker and the outspread maps

brought on by her “business agent.” Hawke’s murmured astonishment was

at once cut short by the decisive notes of Berthe Louison’s flutelike

voice.

“We have no time to waste, Major!” she said, with an affected

cheerfulness. “I am all right now. There is an eleven-thirty train for

Constance. I will take that, reach Munich, and get right over to Venice

by the Brenner Pass, and thence go down to Aricona, and Brindisi.

You can return to Geneva, and, by Mont Cenis and Turin you will reach

Brindisi before me. So, I leave to-night; you can go up to Geneva

to-morrow night. No one will possibly suspect our business connection in

this way. I will have time to see you depart for Bombay, before I take

the steamer for Calcutta. I have marked off the sailings. This little

occurrence here to-night has brought us both too much under the eyes of

other people.”

“Bah!” said the astounded Major. “No one knows anything of us here. We

are of no importance.”

“You think so?” mused the woman, as if careless of his presence. “And

yet I have seen a face here, rising out of a past that is long dead and

buried. Now, are you ready to meet me at Brindisi?”

Alan Hawke blushed even through the sun-browned complexion of the Nepaul

days, as the clear-eyed woman, faintly smiling, discerned his “hedging”

policy.

“You will not be put to the slightest inconvenience.” She opened a

handsome traveling bag. The falcon-eyed Major Hawke observed the gleam

of a pearl handled and silver chased revolver of serviceable make, and

there was also a very wicked-looking Venetian dagger lying on the table,

even then within the lady’s reach! “Here is the sum of five hundred

pounds in English notes,” said Berthe. “That will neatly take you to

Delhi, and there is fifty more to liquidate my bill, and pay the

medical expenses. I am not desirous that the landlord should know of my

departure. You may bring all my trunks on. I will be waiting for you

at the ‘Vittorio Emmanuele’ at Brindisi. Please do telegraph to me from

Turin of your arrival.”

Cool globe-trotter as he was, Alan Hawke was speechless. “Shall I not

see you safely on board the Constance train?” he muttered.

“The nurse will attend to all that; money will do a great deal,” the

lady said. “I will send her back from Constance. Please do ring the

bell.” The Major was obedient, and he listened in dumb astonishment, as

Madame Louison ordered a very dainty supper for two, with a bottle

of Burgundy and a well-iced flask of Veuve Cliquot. When the door had

closed upon the gaping servant, the lady merrily laughed:

“Pray take up your sinews of war, Major. I shall consider you as

retained in my service, if I am obeyed.”

Alan Hawke turned and faced the puzzling “employer” with a half defiant

question: “And when shall I know the real nature of my duties?” as he

carefully folded up the welcome bundle of notes, without even looking at

them.

“Major, you are not an homme d’affaires. Do me the favor to count your

money,” laughed the mocking convalescent. “Thank you,” continued

the lady as he obeyed her. “Now I will only detain you here till ten

o’clock. Then you must disappear and not know me again until we meet at

the Hotel Vittorio Emmanuele at Brindisi. Should any accident occur, you

are to take the Sepoy for Bombay direct and go on to Delhi. Leave me a

letter at Suez and also one at Aden, care P. and O. Company. I will ask

at each of these places. I will go direct to Calcutta, and will then

meet you at Delhi. Arriving at Delhi, you may telegraph to me care

Grindlay & Co., Calcutta.”

“I wonder if she bled Anstruther,” inwardly growled Hawke, as he

recognized the name of that social butterfly’s bankers. But the lady

only sweetly continued: “I have some business in Calcutta. You can

write to me at the general postoffice at Allahabad, and leave your Delhi

address there. I shall probably telegraph for you to come down and meet

me there.”

Major Hawke, neatly entering the lady’s directions in a silver-clasped

betting book, murmured lazily without lifting his eyes: “You seem to

know a great deal about Hindostan.”

“I have made a careful study of it for years--long years,” said the

woman with a telltale flush of color, as the servants entered with the

impromptu feast.

They were left alone, at an imperious signal, and Madame Louison bade

Hawke regale himself en garcon. The Major paused with suspended pencil,

as he quietly approached the decisive question: “And at Delhi, what am I

to do?”

“You are to take up your old friendship with Hugh Fraser--this budding

baronet,” replied Berthe calmly. She was pouring out a glass of the wine

beloved of women, but her hand trembled as she hastily drank off the

inspiring fluid. “All this is bravo--mere bravo! She’s a very smart

woman, and a cool customer!” decided the schemer, who had filled himself

up a long drink. He took up at once the object-lesson. They were simply

to be comrades--and nothing more.

“I will obey you to the very letter,” he said simply, for he was well

aware the woman was keenly watching him.

“Then that is all. There is nothing more,” soberly concluded his

companion. “The letters at Suez and Aden are, of course, to be mere

billets de voyage. The correspondence at Allahabad may cover all of

moment. Can you not give me a safe letter and telegraph address at

Delhi?”

“Give me your notebook,” said Alan Hawke, as he carefully wrote down the

needed information: “Ram Lal Singh, Jewel Merchant, 16 Chandnee Chouk,

Delhi.”

“There’s the address of my native banker; and as trusty a Hindu as ever

sold a two-shilling strass imitation for a hundred-pound star sapphire.

But, in his way he is honest--as we all are.” And then Alan Hawke boldly

said: “How shall I address you at Allahabad?”

The flashing brown eyes gleamed a moment with a brighter luster than

pleasure’s glow. “You have my visiting card, Major,” the woman coldly

said. “I travel with a French passport, always en regie.”

“By God! she has the nerve!” mused Alan Hawke, as he hastily said: “And

now, as we have settled all our little preliminaries, when am I to know

whether you trust me or not?”

He was pressing his advantage, for her precipitate departure would rob

him of the expected effect of Casimir Wieniawski’s disclosures. “If

I find you en ami de famille, at Delhi, so that you can confidentially

approach Sir Hugh Johnstone, the ci-devant Hugh Fraser, your task

will be soon set for you, and your reward easily earned; but under no

circumstances are you to make the slightest attempt to a confidential

acquaintance with this wonderful Nadine. That is my affair.” The tone

was almost trifling in its lightness, but Alan Hawke recognized the hand

of iron in the velvet glove.

“And now, Sir,” coquettishly said Madame Berthe Louison, “you have been

a squire of dames in your day. Tell me of social India, for, while

I shall get a good maid out at Calcutta, I must depend upon Munich,

Venice, and Brindisi for my personal outfit. I know the whole United

Kingdom thoroughly. The Englishman and his cold-pulsed blonde mate at

home are well-learned lessons. The Continent, yes, even Russia, I know,

too,” she gayly chattered; “but the Orient is as yet a sealed book to

me, and I would be helpless in Father India, without the womanly gear

appropriate to the social habits of your countrywomen.”

“You have lived in England?” briefly demanded Alan Hawke, in some

surprise at her frank admissions.

“Yes, too long!” sternly answered Madame Louison, who was enjoying a

cigarette, as she signed to the maid to leave them alone. “I detest the

foggy climate,” she added, a little late to temper the bitterness of the

remark.

“I will lull this watchful feminine tiger,” the Major secretly decided,

as he began a brilliant sketch of the social life of the strange land of

Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. “I presume, of course, that you do not care to

appear with a fifty-pound Marshall & Snell grove outfit, as if you were

the wife of an Ensign in a marching regiment. I will give you the real

life our women lead out there. You could have secured a splendid London

outfit by a little time spent in making the detour.”

“I wish to appear en Francaise, my true character,” smiled Berthe. “I

never could sacrifice my Gaelic taste to the hideous color mixtures

and utilitarian ugliness of the English machine-made toilette. An

Englishwoman can only be trusted with a blue serge, a plain gray

traveling dress, or in the easy safety of black or white. They are not

the ‘glass of fashion and the mold of form.’ Now, Sir, let me see how

you have profited by your wandering in Beauty’s gardens on the Indus and

Ganges?”

Alan Hawke knew very well at heart what the quickwitted woman would

know. He sketched with grace, the natural features, the climatic

conditions, the bizarre scenery of the million and a half square miles

where the venerable Kaisar-i-Hind rules nearly two hundred millions of

subjugated people. He portrayed all the light splendors of Mohammedan

elegance, the wonders of Delhi and Agra, he sketched the gloomy temple

mysteries of Hinduism, and holy Benares rose up before her eyes beneath

the inspiration of his brilliant fancy.

The ardent woman listened with glowing eyes, as Hawke proudly referred

to the wonderful sweep of the sword of Clive, which conquered an

unrifled treasure vault of ages, annexed a giant Empire, and set with

Golconda’s diamonds the scepter of distant England. The year 1756 was

hailed by the renegade as the epoch when England’s rule of the

sea became her one vitalizing policy--her first and last national

necessity--for the Empire of the waves followed the pitiful beginning in

Madras.

Temples, groves, and mosques peopled with the alien and warring races

were conjured up, the splendid viceregal circle, the pompous headquarter

military, the fast set, staid luxury-loving civilians, and all the

fierce eddies and undercurrents of the graded social life, in which

the cold English heart learns to burn as madly under “dew of the lawn”

muslin as ever Lesbian coryphe’e or Tzigane pleasure lover.

The burning noons, the sweltering Zones of Death, the cool hills, the

Vanity Fair of Simla, the shaded luxury of bungalow life, and the mad

undercurrent of intrigue, the tragedy element of the Race for Wealth,

the Struggle for Place, and the Chase for Fame. Major Alan Hawke was

gracefully reminiscent, and in describing the social functions, the

habits of those in the swim, the inner core of Indian life under its

canting social and official husk, he brought an amused smile to the

mobile face of his beautiful listener. He did not note the passage of

time. He could now hear the music floating up from the Casino below.

He had answered all her many questions. He described pithily the voyage

out, the social pitfalls, the essence of “good Anglo-Indian form,” and

he was astonished at the keenness of the questions with which he was

plied by his employer.

“You have surely traveled in India,” he murmured, when his relation

flagged.

“So I have, by proxy, and, in imagination,” laughed Madame Berthe

Louison, as she demurely held up her jeweled watch. “Ten minutes more,

and then, Sir, I shall give you your ordre de route. For, I must go

quietly. I trust to your experience and good judgment. There is nothing

to say here. There will be no letters. My bankers have their orders. You

must simply pay our bill, and depart quietly via Geneva. May I ask if

you wish any more money? Some personal needs?”

Major Hawke shook his head. “You may rely on me to meet you, and

to faithfully obey you,” he gravely said. There were unspoken words

trembling on his lips, which he fain would have uttered. “By Heavens!

She is a witch!” he murmured, in a repressed excitement, as he walked

quietly down the hallway to keep his tryst with Casimir Wieniawski. For

Berthe Louison had at once divined the cause of his unrest.

“You think that I should tell you more? Why should I tell you anything?

We are strangers yet, not even friends. You may divine that I trust no

man. I have had my own sad lessons of life-lessons learned in bitterness

and tears. I go out to your burning jungle land, with neither hope to

allure, nor fear to repel. The whole world is the same to me. That I

have a purpose, I admit; and even you may know me better by and bye!

Till then, no professions, no promises, no pledges. I use you for my

own selfish purposes, that is all; and you can frankly study your own

self-interest. We are two clay jars swept along down the Ganges of life.

For a few threads of the dark river’s current, we travel on, side by

side! You have frankly taken me at my word! I have taken you at yours!

There is a written order to settle my affairs and remove my luggage.

Of course, should you meet with any accident, telegraph to the Vittorio

Emmanuele, at Brindisi. Money,” she said, almost bitterly, “would be

telegraphed; and so, I say”--he listened breathlessly--“au revoir--at

Brindisi!” she concluded, giving him her hand, with a frank smile.

As Alan Hawke descended the stair, he growled. “A woman without a heart,

and--not without a head!” As he calmly answered the manager’s polite

inquiry for Madame’s health, the “heartless woman” whom he had left was

lying sobbing in the dark room above--crying, in her anguish, “Valerie!

My poor, dead Valerie! I go to your child!”

But, none suspected her departure, when the trimly-clad woman glided out

of the entrance of the Hotel Faucon, at eleven o’clock. The maid was in

waiting on the circular place in front with a carriage, and the key

of the apartment lay in a sealed envelope on Alan Hawke’s table, which

proves that a few francs are just as potent in Switzerland as the same

number of shillings in London, or dollars in New York. It was a clear

case of “stole away.”

When Major Alan Hawke leaned over the supper table at the Casino,

pledging Madame Frangipanni’s bright eyes in very fair cafe champagne,

he nervously started as he heard the wailing whistle and clanging bells

of the through train for Constance. He forgot the faded complexion,

the worn face, the chemically tinted hair and haggard eyes of the

broken-down Austrian blonde concert singer, in the exhilaration of

Berthe Louison’s departure.

For he had not lost Professor Casimir Wieniawski from sight a moment

since the hour of ten, and that “distinguished noble refugee” was now

in a maudlin way, murmuring perfunctory endearments in the ear of the

ex-prima donna, who tenderly gazed upon him in a proprietary manner.

Alan Hawke had judged it well to ply the champagne, and, at the witching

hour of midnight, he critically inspected Casimir’s condition. “He

is probably about tipsy enough now to tell all he knows, and, with an

acquired truthfulness. I will, therefore, bring this festive occasion

to a close.” Whereat the watchful Lucullus of the feast artfully drew

Madame Frangipanni aside.

“I have to go on to London, Chere Comtesse,” he flatteringly said, “you

must give me Casimir for a couple of hours to-night, to talk over the

old times.”

He lingered a moment, hat in hand, as he chivalrously sent Madame

Frangipanni home in a carriage. The poor old singer’s bosom was thrilled

with a sunset glow of departing greatness, as she lingered tearfully

that night over the memories of the halcyon days when the officers of

Francis Joseph’s bodyguard had fought for the honors of the carriage

courtesies of the Diva. Eheu fugaces!

Closeted together, the minor guests having been artfully dispersed,

Major Alan Hawke and his friend recalled the olden glories of

Wieniawski’s Indian tour. It was with a jealous hand that Hawke doled

out the cognac, until Casimir abruptly said: “And now, mon ami, tell me

what has linked you to Alixe Delavigne?” Alan Hawke had keenly studied

his man, and found that the limit of the artist’s drinking capacity

seemed to be infinity, and so he leaned back and coldly scrutinized the

musician’s shabby exterior. “I think that I can risk it now,” he mused,

and then, in a crisp, hard voice, he suddenly said: “I don’t mind

parting with a twenty-pound note, Casimir, if you will tell me all you

know about that beauty. You need it now--more than I. I am to be the

judge of the value of your story, however. Mark me, I know the main

features, but I also know that you have met her in the old days.” The

broken-down artist flushed under the changed relation of guest and paid

tool.

He uneasily stammered, as he filled a brandy glass, “As a loan--as a

loan!” But Hawke was sternly business-like in his reply.

“Don’t make any pretenses with me. You are hard down on your luck, and

you know it. This is a mere matter of business.” He unfolded a bundle

of notes and carelessly tossed two ten-pound notes over to Casimir, who

seized them with trembling fingers. The pitiful sum represented to the

artist two months of his meager salary. Here was absinthe unlimited,

a little roulette, a new frock for Madame Frangipanni, perhaps even a

dress coat for himself.

“How old do you think Alixe is?” unsteadily began the artist.

“I should say about twenty-five,” gallantly replied the Major.

“We will premise that she is thirty-three,” confidently began the

musician, “or even thirty-five. When I was a young fool at Warsaw,

eighteen years old,” he babbled. “I was the local prodigy. My first

essays in public were, of course, concerts, and I was soon the vogue.

And, later, asked as an artistic guest to the chateaux of the nobility

in Poland, Kowno, Vitebsk, Wilna, Minsk, Grodno and Volhynia. I was

a poet in thought, a lover of all womankind in my dreams, and a

conspirator in the inmost chambers of my defiant Polish nature.”

“They made me the cat’s-paw of adroit adventurers who were filling their

pockets from wealthy Polish sympathizers in France and America, and

some of them were Russian paid spies. I braved all the risks. I was

the secret means of communication of the highest circles of our cult of

Rebellion. Fool that I was, wandering from province to province, I lived

the life of a mad enthusiast. The proud memories of Poland were mine,

the spirit of her music, arts, and poetry had cast its witchery over

me. Her history, the tragedy of a crownless queen of sorrows, had

transported me into a dreamy idealism. I was soon the confidant of

our seductive mobile Polish beauties. Sinuous, insincere, changeful,

passionate, and burning with the flames of Love and Life, I was, at

once, their idol and their plaything, their hero, and their willing

slave.

“For then, the spirit of old Poland rang out in my numbers, and I waked

the quivering echoes of woman’s heart at will. It was in seventy-three

that I was sent on a special mission to Prince Pierre Troubetskoi’s

splendid chateau at Jitomir in Volhynia. The crafty Russians were

watching us even there, and were busied in assembling troops secretly,

at Kiev and Wilna. To another was given the proud place of secret spy

over the higher circles of Wilna, while my duty was to watch Jitomir and

Kiev. Troubetskoi was a bold gallant fellow, an ardent Muscovite, and

had secretly returned from a long sojourn in Paris. He was in close

touch with the Governors of Volhynia, Kiev, and Podolia, and we feared

his sword within, his Parisian connections without. An evil star

brought me into his household as his guest. For nearly a year I was kept

vibrating between the points of danger to us, my personal headquarters

being at the Chateau of Jitomir. And there I lived out my brief

heart-life, for there I met Valerie Troubetskoi. No one seemed to know

where Pierre had found her, but later I learned her story from her own

lips.

“That is, all of the story of a woman’s heart-life which is ever

unveiled to any man! She was beautiful beyond--compare, her wistful

tenderness shining out as the moon, softer than the fierce noonday

glare of the passion-transfigured faces of our Polish beauties. For

they loved, for Love’s own sake, and Valerie Troubetskoi offered up

the chalice of her own heart in silent sadness. I never saw so lovely a

being.”

“Did she look like that?” suddenly demanded Hawke, thrusting a

photograph before the haggard eyes of the broken artist. He gasped, and

tears gathered in his lashes. “Valerie, herself, and, as I knew her only

before her fatal illness had marked her down. Did Alixe give you this?”

He clutched at it with his trembling hands.

“Go on,” harshly said Alan Hawke, “the hour is late!”

The Pole buried his face in his thinned hands, and then brokenly

resumed: “The old story--the only one you know. She was about my own

age; Troubetskoi was nearly always away; perhaps he thought to trap all

my traitorous circle through me, or else he was in the secret service

of the hungry Russian eagle. Valerie roamed silently through the great

halls of Jitomir, saddened and lonely, for their union was childless.

My heart spoke to her own in my music; she knew the prayer of my soul,

though my lips were silent. For I madly adored her. Then, then, I was

a man! My life belonged to Poland, my soul to art, but my heart was a

sealed temple of love, a temple where Valerie, the beloved, the secretly

worshiped, sat alone on her throne.

“One day a woman, radiant in youth, and reflecting Valerie’s own beauty,

was brought to the chateau by Troubetskoi, who had journeyed on to

Vienna. It was Alixe Delavigne, the woman whom I saw last with you. A

month later Valerie called me to her side: ‘My poor Casimir,’ she said,

as I knelt at her feet, ‘I am dying! The struggle will not be a long

one. I know the secret of your boyish heart. Your eyes have spoken and

your music has reached my heart. Your love is written in your songs

without words. When you have forgotten me, there is Alixe; she is alone

upon earth. Let me seal your heart to hers, and even in death I shall

feel that I love you both.’ Then,” the artist sobbed, “I lost my head.

I told her all in mad, burning words. She raised her eyes to mine, and

softly said: ‘I shall see you no more unless Alixe is with us, for I

love Pierre and he loves me. When I am gone, Alixe will be the only one

who knows the secret of my life.’

“It was two months later--for I would not leave her side, even Pierre

Troubetskoi could not see her passing away, for it was a mysterious

malady--when a sudden alarm brought me to my senses. My secret society

work was done, and yet I lingered there, at the very steps of the

scaffold. Alixe Delavigne burst into my room at midnight.

“‘Hasten!’ she cried. ‘Even now the Cossacks are surrounding the house!’

She let me out through the secret passage of the old Chateau. A cloak

was thrown over me by the Intendant. He was a Pole--and one true to

the old blood. Alixe pressed a purse upon me. An address in Paris was

whispered. ‘I will write! Go! For Valerie’s sake, go!’

“Forty-eight hours later I crossed the Galician frontier at Lemberg

disguised as a Polish peasant. My guardian, the Intendant, turned me

over to our friends in the valley of the Styr. After six months of

wandering, I finally reached Paris in safety. There were sorrowful

letters awaiting me. Valerie was hidden forever in the yawning tombs

of the gloomy old chapel of Jitomir, and Alixe herself wrote of Pierre

Troubetlskoi’s generous blinding of the pursuit. I was, however,

prosecuted and hunted. I fled to America, for all our plans of revolt

were miserably wrecked--and by Polish traitors!

“Two years later, I learned from a fellow refugee that Pierre

Troubetskoi had been killed by accident in a great forest battle. And to

Alixe Delavigne, all the wealth which would have been Valerie’s was

left by the lion-hearted man who awoke too late to the early doom of his

beloved.

“I knew naught of the family history save that the sisters were the

daughters of Colonel Delavigne, a gallant French officer, who was

murdered by the Communists in seventy-one.” Alan Hawke was now sternly

eyeing the musician, who abruptly concluded: “I have never met Alixe

Delavigne since. I dare not return to Poland. My own course has been

steadily downward, and, beyond knowing that she still possesses the

splendid domains of Jitomir, we are strangers to each other. Polish

refugees have told me that she has always administered the vast estate

with liberal kindness to all. And now you will tell me of her?” The

tremulous hand of Wieniawski raised a brimming glass of brandy to his

lips. He stared about vacantly when Hawke said:

“Madame Delavigne left Lausanne this evening on a special mission. Her

life is a sealed book to all, and a mere business interest has drawn

us together.” The Englishman went callously on: “There are a couple of

mountainously rich American girls coming down here to-morrow at nine

o’clock to spend the day at Chillon with me. I need a running mate. Will

you then meet me at the Montreux Landing? You can have a day off, and

these young fools are fat pigeons, ardent, and enthusiastic.” Hawke saw

the hesitation on the man’s face.

“You can say to Madame Frangipanni that you are with me and that I will

explain later at the dinner.” With a glance at his watch, Alan Hawke

rang for the Oberkellner. He was extending his hand in goodnight, when

the refugee cried imploringly, “I must see her once more! Tell me of her

journey!” and Major Hawke deliberately lied to the poor vaurien artist,

the wreck of his better self. “The through train to Paris is her only

address. I presume that Madame Delavigne will spend some time in a

sanitarium after this heart attack, and she has my banker’s address. It

is only through them that we meet to arrange some affairs of business.

Whether maid, wife, or widow, I know not, for you know what women

are--sealed books to their enemies, and to their husbands and

lovers--only enigmas!

“But fail not to meet me. I’ll give you a pleasant day. You will find

the two Americans both gushing and susceptible.” Then as Major Alan

Hawke stepped lightly away to the sedately closed Hotel Faucon, Casimir

Wieniawski staggered back into the cafe.

His fit of passionate sorrow was brief, for in a half hour he was the

king of a mad revel, where his meaner sycophants divided Alan Hawke’s

bounty. The cool Major strode along happy hearted to his rest, quietly

revolving the plan of campaign.

“There was then a sealed chapter in Valerie Troubetskoi’s life. And the

key of that is in Berthe Louison’s keeping. Now, my fair employer, it is

diamond cut diamond. I think that I have done a fair day’s work.” And

he thanked his lucky stars for the precipitate flight of his mysterious

employer. “She evidently feared the noble Casimir following upon the

trail. Strange--strange pathways! Strange footprints on the sands of

Time! It is a devilish funny world, but, after all, the best that we

have any authentic account of.” And so he slept the sleep of the just,

for he was making the woes of others the cornerstones of his newer

fortunes.

Major Hawke arose with the lark, by a previous arrangement with the

Hotel Bureau. His face was eminently businesslike in its gravity, as he

summoned the porter and dispatched all his luggage to the care of the

Chef du Gare, Geneva. “Business of extreme importance awaiting upon

Madame’s complete recovery had caused her to depart to consult an

eminent specialist. Thank you, there will be no letters,” said the

Major, as he pocketed both receipted bills. He amused himself while

watching for the morning boat, as the mountain mists, lifting, revealed

the glittering lake, in sending a very carefully sketched letter to

Mademoiselle Euphrosyne Delande, No. 123 Rue du Rhone, Geneva. This

letter was of such moment that it went on to London, to be posted back

duly stamped with good Queen Victoria’s likeness. A very careful Major!

The lofty semi-official tone, in which the writer spoke of a possible

return to India “under the auspices of the Foreign Office,” was well

calculated to fill the spinster’s bosom with the flattering unction that

a mighty protector had been raised up for the adventurous Justine, now

supposed to be environed with all the glittering snares of society, as

well as enveloped in the mystic jungle.

A week later, when Euphrosyne Delande laid down the pen and abandoned

her unfinished “Lecture Upon the Influence of the Allobroges, Romans,

Provencal Franks, Burgundians, and Germans Upon the Intellectual

Development of Geneva,” she read Alan Hawke’s letter with a thrill of

secret pride.

The smooth adventurer had written: “If I have the future pleasure of

meeting Mademoiselle Justine Delande I only hope to find a resemblance

to her charming and distinguished sister. As my movements are

necessarily secret, pray write only in the utmost confidence to

Mademoiselle Justine. I hope to soon return and enjoy once more the

hospitalities of your intellectual circle.” The address given for India

was “Bombay Club.” Miss Euphrosyne gazed up at the stony lineaments of

Professor Delande, her marble-browed and flinty-hearted sire, locked in

the cold chill of a steel engraving. He was as neutral as the busts

of Buffon, Cuvier, Laplace, Humboldt, and Pestalozzi, which coldly

furnished forth her sanctum. She thought of the eloquent eyed young

Major and sadly sighed. She proceeded to enshrine him in her withered

heart, and then wrote a crossed letter of many tender underlinings to

her distant sister. And thus the pathway was made very smooth for the

artful wanderer, who had already stepped upon the decks of the Sepoy.

Major Hawke had dispatched an excellent breakfast before he stepped into

the carriage to be whirled away to Montreux. His bridges were burned

behind him. There was not a vestige of Madame Berthe Louison left to

give the needy Pole a clue. “They are separated, and Anstruther and the

Swiss schoolmistress are harmless. I have only my play to make upon the

lovely Justine, and to retake up my old friendship with Hugh Fraser.

Then I am ready to bit by bit unravel the story of Valerie Delavigne’s

child--the Veiled Rose of Delhi.”

“Between a father with a secret to keep, and this strange woman with a

purpose, there is a pretty girl and a vast fortune at issue, besides

the prospective pickings of Madame Berthe Louison.” These musings of

the Major led him up to the question of his employer’s false name, as he

swept down to the nearby Montreux station. “She evidently had traced the

child to Switzerland, and was upon a still hunt to find out the home of

the growing heiress, and,--for what purpose? Ah! One day after another,”

he pleasantly exclaimed, as he saw the artist awaiting him. “Peu apeu

I’oiseau fait son nid.” He had already evolved a scheme to permanently

separate Casimir Wieniawski from his own beautiful employer, who was now

dashing along well on her way toward Munich. Alan Hawke was startled

at the distinguished appearance of the musician. An aristocratic pallor

refined his face, he was neatly booted and gloved, the elegant lines of

the Pole’s supple figure were displayed in a morning frock coat, and his

chapeau de soie was virginal in its gloss.

“Some of my own twenty pounds,” mused Alan Hawke, as he gayly sprang

out and saluted his dupe. “Ah! There you are. You look to-day the old

Casimir. Let us have a few last words before the boat arrives.”

Hardened as he was, Alan Hawke was surprised at the childlike lightness

of the Pole’s manner when they encountered the fresh young beauties who

were already the cynosure of all eyes upon the morning boat. The

storm of emotion had spent itself, and while Alan Hawke squired, the

aggressive Miss Genie, Casimir Wieniawski was bending over the slightly

dreamy and more romantic Miss Phenie! They distributed themselves in

open order, as they strolled along toward the drawbridge of that most

hospitable of old horrors, Chillon Castle.

It was a day of days, and the artful Hawke laughed as he smoked his

cigar upon a rustic bench in the castle Garden. Miss Genie was at his

side, pouting, petulant, provokingly pretty and duly agnostic as to the

Polish prince.

A week later, Alan Hawke stood on the deck of the Sepoy, as that

reliable vessel steamed out of Brindisi harbor for Bombay. He was

watching a lace handkerchief, waved by a graceful woman, standing alone

upon the pier. The adventurer drew a silver rupee from his pocket, and

then gayly tossed it into the waves, crying, “Here’s for luck!” as he

watched the slender, distant, womanly figure move up the pier. There lay

the Empress of India with steam now curling from her stacks, ready to

follow on to Calcutta. “I have not broken her lines yet,” murmured Major

Hawke as he paced the deck, “but I have her pretty well surrounded,

cunning as she is!” and so he complacently ordered his first bottle of

pale ale.

CHAPTER IV. THE VEILED ROSEBUD OF DELHI

The October winds were whirling the pine needles down the mountain

defiles in the bracing Alpine autumn, as Alan Hawke sped on past Suez,

gliding on through the stifling furnace heat of the Red Sea, past Mocha,

and dashing along through the Bridge of Tears, to Aden. He left at Suez,

and also at the Eastern Gibraltar of haughty Albion, the brief letters

for his mysterious employer, and he mentally arranged the social gambit

of his reappearance at Delhi in the nine days before the Sepoy steamed

into the island-dotted bay of Bombay.

Sternly shunning, on his arrival, the local sirens, whose songs of old

fell so sweetly upon his ear, the determined Major sped away at once

for Allahabad. He was on shaking social quagmires at Bombay. There were

sundry little threads of the past still left hanging out in the shape of

stray urban indebtedness, and he now scorned to throw away a single one

of the crisp Bank of England notes showered upon him by Fortune. He was

growing sadly wise. He had lately mused over the old motto, “Lucky at

cards--unlucky in love!” The cool provision of the funds at Lausanne by

Berthe Louison, her separate route to Delhi, her business-like coldness

in their strangely frank relations, all these things proved to him

that he was to be only an intelligent tool; not a trusted friend in the

little drama about to open at the old capital of Oude.

Alan Hawke had already abandoned the idea of any sentimental advances

upon Alixe Delavigne. “Strange, strange,” he murmured; “a woman can

sometimes easily be flattered into a second conjugation of the verb ‘To

Love,’ but an internal previous evidence of man’s unreliability can

do that which no personal sorrow can effect. The key to this woman’s

behavior is in the story of her sister’s shadowed life.

“The hiatus from Hugh Fraser to Pierre Troubetskoi covers the tragedy

of Valerie Delavigae’s life, the death blow was then struck, and the

central figure is the child. So, with the strangely acquired fortune at

her beck and call, Alixe Delavigne has consecrated herself to that most

illogical of human careers--a woman’s silent vengeance! That achieved,

will the furnace fires of her stormy heart be lit by the hand of

passion?”

He ruminated sagely over these matters as he sped on over the Great

Indian Peninsula Railway. The western Ghauts were now far behind him

and their dark basalt crags. Bombay, Hyderabad, Berar, the Central

Provinces, Central India, and the southern prong of Oude was reached. He

was, however, no whit the wiser when he reached the Ganges and hastily

sought the telegraph station at Allahabad. But he felt like a prince in

the direct line of succession with his net eight hundred pounds still to

the good. His first care was to telegraph to Madame Berthe Louison,

to the care of Grindley, at Calcutta: “Waiting at Allahabad for your

letters, and news of your safe arrival.” While rushing past the Vindhia

Mountains he had encountered several of his old Indian acquaintances.

The mere hint of a secret governmental employ of gravity satisfied the

languid curiosity of the qui hais. For a week he lingered in the “City

of God,” and daily haunted the post and telegraph offices.

He had sent on to the Delhi Club a note for the maw of the local

gossips, and also had dispatched a skillfully constructed letter to

the unsuspecting Hugh Johnstone. With a veiled flattery of the old

civilian’s wisdom and experience, he referred to his desire to consult

him as to a secret journey in the direction of the Pamirs. The opportune

windfall of Anstruther’s ecarte and Berthe Louison’s liberal advance

enabled Major Alan Hawke to maintain a dignified and easy port as he

wandered through Allahabad. Strolling by the waters of the Ganges and

Jumna, he invoked anew the blessings of the goddess Fortuna, as he gazed

out upon the majestic heaven descended stream. The daily tide of travel

toward Delhi brought on each day some familiar faces, and yet Alan Hawke

lingered gently, declining their traveling company. “Waiting orders,” he

said, with the sad, sweet smile of one enjoying a sinecure. His swelling

outward port thoroughly proved that the days were gone when he was to

be scanned before the morning salutation. Les eaux sout basses, the

impecunious Frenchman mourns, but there was a swelling tide bearing Alan

Hawke onward now.

A hearty welcoming letter from the ci-devant Hugh Fraser was a good

omen, for rumor of a thousand tongues had already invested the returning

Major with an important secret mission. His epistolary seed planted

in Delhi had brought forth fruit as rapidly as the magic of the Indian

conjuror’s mango-tree trick. It was already rumored even in Allahabad

that “Hawke had dropped upon a decidedly good thing.” The Major was

busied, however, in analyzing the motives of Alixe Delavigne, in her

change of name, her separate journey, her choice of the Calcutta route,

and the inner nature of her projected enterprise.

“A woman in her position, easy as to fortune, will stoop to none of the

arts of the blackmailer; she could choose a life of soft luxury, for she

is yet in the bloom of vigorous early womanhood. To her the personality

of Hugh Fraser is surely nothing. There are but two objects of

attack--his proposed social elevation, the nattering title, and the

peace of mind and future of the daughter, this lovely veiled Rose! Love,

a natural love, even for the stranger child, would ward away the blow;

but only an unslaked vengeance would point the shaft! The reproduction

of her sister’s face seemed to touch her to her very bosom’s core.

There is some fixed purpose in this cold-hearted woman’s coming! Not

a lingering annoyance, but some coup de main, a bolt to be launched at

Hugh Johnstone alone!”

“I do not know how I can break her lines, unless she shows me some weak

point,” he mused. “But either her fortune or Johnstone’s shall yield me

a heavy passing toll. And, there is always the girl! There, I would have

to meet Berthe Louison as a determined enemy!” In recognizing the fact

that his employer must make the game at last, that she must lead out

and so uncover herself, he saw his own masterly position between the two

prospective foes.

“I can play them off the one against each other, at the right time, and,

if they fight each other, with the help of Justine Delande, I may even

make a strong running for the girl. I think I now see a way!” He felt

that his wandering days were over. The dark days of carking cares,

of harassing duns, of frequent changes of base, driven onward by the

rolling ball of gossip and innuendo.

He felt strangely lifted up in the familiar scenes of his years of

wanderings. For he was at home again. Alixe Delavigne, however carefully

watched for her eastern adventure, was socially helpless in a land of

strange alien races, of discordant Babel tongues, of shifting scenes, a

land as unreal as the visions of a summer night.

But to Alan Hawke all this Indian life was now a second nature. The

scenes of Bombay recalled his once ambitious youth, the days when he

first delightedly gazed upon the wonders of Elephanta, and the gloomy

grottoes of Salcette. From his very landing he had set himself

one cardinal rule of conduct, to absolutely ignore all the lighter

attractions of native and Eurasian beauty, and to let no single word

fall from his lips respecting the sudden occultation of Miss Nadine

Johnstone--this new planet softly swimming in the evening skies of

Delhi. He felt that he was beginning a new career, one in which neither

greed nor passion must betray him. It was the “third call” of Fortune,

and he had wisely decided upon a golden silence. “If I had only met the

favored Justine, instead of that withered Aspasia, Euphrosyne, then,

the girl’s heart might have been easily made mine,” was the unavailing

regret of the handsome Major. “If I could have come out with them,” he

sighed. He well knew the softening effect upon romantic womanhood of a

long sea voyage where the willing winds sway the softer emotions of the

breast, and the trembling woman is defenseless against the perfidious

darts of Cupid.

“My time will come,” he murmured as the train rushed along through the

incense breathing plantations. A richer nature than foggy England was

spread out before him in treacherous Hindostan with its warring tribes,

its dying creeds, its dead languages, its history sweeping far back into

the mists of the unknown. For every problem of the human mind, every

throe of the restless heart of man is worn old and threadbare in

Hindostan, with its very dust compounded of the wind-blown ashes of

dead millions upon millions. Gross vulgar Gold reigns now as King on the

broad savannas where spice plantations and indigo farms vary the cotton,

rice, and sugar fields. Wasted treasures of dead dynasties gleam out

in the ornamentation of the temples abandoned to the prowling beast

of prey. And riches and ruin meet the eye in a strange medley. Dead

greatness and the prosaic present.

Modern bungalows, where the faltering conqueror watches the tax-ridden

ryots dot the landscape, and an overweighted official system brings its

haughty military, its self-sufficient civilians, its proud womanhood,

to drain the exhausted heart of India. And the ryot groans under many

taskmasters.

Lingering with a restless heart, in Allahabad, Alan Hawke roused himself

as at a bugle call, when he received a telegram announcing the safe

arrival of the Empress of India at Calcutta.

“La danse va commencer,” he muttered, as he read the brief words of his

employer: “Go on to Delhi, await me there. Telegrams to you there at

private address. Leave letters.” The signature “Lausanne” was a new

spur to his well-considered prudence. And, so, the next day, Major Hawke

sedately descended at Delhi.

There was nothing to distinguish Hawke from any other well-to-do

European, as he stood gazing around the station, in his cool linens, his

pith helmet and floating puggaree. The prudent air of judicious mystery

lately adopted sat easily upon him as his eye roved over the familiar

scenes of old with a silent gleam of recognition, he followed a

confidential attendant who salaamed, murmuring “My master awaits the

sahib whom he delights to love and honor.”

“There is one card I must play at once,” murmured Hawke, as the carriage

sped along. “Mademoiselle Justine Delande must be my secret friend! I

wonder if Euphrosyne really swallowed the bait! If she has fallen into

the trap and written to her sister, then--all is well!”

His eyes roved over the familiar scene of the broad Chandnee Chouk,

sweeping magnificently away from the Lahore gate to the superb palace.

The sun beat down with its old ferocious glare on shop and bazaar. Grave

merchants lolled over their priceless treasures of gold and silver work,

heaped up jewels and bullion-threaded shawls for princely wear. Under

the awnings lingered the familiar polyglot groups, while beggary and

opulence jostled each other on every hand.

“It’s the same old road in life!” murmured Alan Hawke, “whether called

Inderput, Shahjehanabad, or Delhi--the same old game goes on here

forever, here by the sacred Jumna!”

He was dreaming of the artful part which he had to play in the fierce

modern race for wealth. “They used to fight for it like men in the old

days,” he bitterly murmured. “Now, the only gold that I see before me

is to be had by gentlemanly blackmail! Right here--between old Hugh

Johnstone and this flinty-hearted woman avenger--lies my fortune. And I

swear that nothing shall stop me! I will be the prompter of the little

play now ready for a first rehearsal!” His eyes lighted up viciously

as he was swept along past the great marble house, gleaming out in the

shady compound, where the Rosebud of Delhi was hidden.

“Cursed old curmudgeon! To lock the girl up!” muttered the handsome

young rascal. “Old Ram Lal must do a bit of spying for me!” Hawke could

see on the raised plateau of marble steps all the evidences of the

sumptuous luxury of the haughty Briton, “who toils not, neither does

he spin.” But, the dozen pointed arches on each face of the vast palace

house of the budding baronet showed no sign of life. The clustered

marble columns stretched out in a splendid lonely perspective, and

the square inner castellated keep rose up in the glaring sun, but with

closed and shaded windows. Dusky shapes flitted about, busied in the

infinitesimal occupations of Indian servitors, but no graceful woman

form could be seen in the witching gardens where a Rajah might have

fitly held a durbar.

“I’ll warrant the old hunks has Bramah locks and Chubb’s burglar proofs

to fence this beauty off!” growled the Major, as he sank back in the

carriage. “I fancy, though, that a liberal dose of Madame Louison’s

gold, judiciously administered by me, in her interest, to Justine

Delande, may open the way to the girl’s presence! The mother’s story

may serve to win the girl’s heart. If I can only busy old Hugh and the

Madame in watching each other, then I can handle Justine.”

“Yes,” the satisfied schemer concluded, “the old man’s game is the

bauble title. Berthe Louison’s must be some studied revenge. She is

above all blackmail. I know already half the story of this clouded past.

Madame Alixe Delavigne must yield up the other half, bit by bit. By the

time she arrives, my spies will have posted me. I will have opened my

parallels on the Swiss dragon who guards the lovely Nadine. Now to make

my first play upon the old nabob.”

Major Alan Hawke had studied skillfully out his gambit for an attack

upon Hugh Johnstone’s vanity. When he descended at the hospitable doors

of his secret ally, Ram Lal Singh, he plunged into the seclusion of a

luxurious easy toilet making. A dozen letters glanced over, a comforting

hookah, and Alan Hawke had easily “sized up” the situation. For Ram

Lal’s first skeleton report had clearly proved to him that the coast

was clear. “Thank Heavens there are as yet no rivals,” Hawke murmured.

“Neither confidential friend of the old boy, no dashing Ruy Gomez as

yet in the way.” Hawke viewed himself complacently in the mirror. He

was severely just to himself, and he well knew all his own good points.

“Pshaw!” he murmured, “any man not one-eyed can easily play the Prince

Charming to a hooded lady all forlorn, a mere child, a tyro in life’s

soft battles of the heart. I must impress this pompous old fool that I

know all the intrigues of his proposed elevation. He will unbosom, and

both trust and fear me. These pampered civilians are as haughty in their

way as the military and be damned to them,” mused Hawke, cheerfully

humming his battle song, those words of a vitriolic wit:

“General Sir Arthur Victorious Jones, Great is vermillion splashed with

gold.”

“This old crab has quietly stolen himself rich, and now forsooth would

tack on a Sir Hugh before his name. Ah! The jewels! I must delicately

hint to him that I am in the inner circle of the cognoscenti.”

And then Alan Hawke cheerfully joined his obese and crafty friend and

host, Ram Lal Singh. For an hour the soft, oily voice of the old jewel

merchant flowed on in a purring monologue. The ease and mastery of the

Conqueror’s language showed that the usurer had well studied the

masters of Delhi. Sixty years had given Ram Lal added cunning. A crafty

conspirator of the old days when the mystic “chupatties” were sent out

on their dark errand, the sly jewel merchant had survived the bloody

wreck of the throne of Oude, and from the place of attendant to one of

the slaughtered princes, dropped down softly into the trade of money

lender, secret agent, and broker of the unlawful in many varied ways.

It was Ram Lal’s easy task to purvey luxuries to the imperious Briton,

to hold the extravagant underlings in his usurious clutches, to be at

peace with Hindu, Moslem, Sikh, Pathan, Ghoorka, Persian, and Armenian,

and to blur his easy-going Mohammedanism in a generous participation in

all sins of omission and commission. A many-sided man!

Alan Hawke heaved a sigh of easy contentment when he had brought the

chronique scandahuse of Delhi down to the day and hour.

“You say that she is beautiful, this girl?”

“As the stars on the sea!” nodded Ram Lal.

“And the Swiss woman?”

“Never leaves her for a minute. They see no one, for all men say the old

Commissioner will take her home, to Court when he is gazetted!”

“None of the great people go there?” keenly queried Hawke.

“Not even the fine ladies,” laughed Ram Lal. “The old fellow may have

his own memories of the past. He trusts no one. The girl is only a

bulbul in a golden cage and with no one to sing to.” Hawke cut short Ram

Lal’s flowery figures.

“Does the Swiss woman trade with you?” he demanded.

“Yes, she buys a few simple things--my peddlers take the Veiled Rose

many rich things. The old Sahib is very generous to the child. And the

dragon loves trinkets, too!” Then Alan Hawke’s eyes gleamed.

“She knows your shop here?”

“Perfectly,” replied Ram Lal, “and comes alone--on the master’s

business. You know I had many dealings with Sahib Hugh Fraser in the old

days,” mused the jeweler. “He always admits my men. I have valued gems

for him for twenty years.”

“Good!” cried the happy Major. “I want to send a man now to her with a

note. I am going to put up at the United Service Club, but I must see

this woman first. I don’t like to send a letter, though. If I had any

one to trust--”

The merchant promptly said: “I will go myself! They are always in the

garden in the afternoon. I can easily see her alone.”

“First rate! Then I will give you a message,” answered Hawke. “I must

see her to-morrow early, for old Hugh will surely ask me to tiffin. And,

Ram, you must at once set your best man on to watch all that goes on

there. I have a good fat plum for you now--to set up a neat little house

here for a friend of mine who is coming, and you shall do the whole

thing!” The merchant’s dark eyes glistened. “A new officer of rank?” he

queried.

“It’s a lady--a friend of mine--rich, too, and she wants to live on the

quiet! She will stay here for some time!” The oily listener had learned

a vast prudence in the days when he trod the halls of the last King

of Delhi, so he held his peace and wondered at the suddenly enhanced

fortunes of that star of graceful wanderers, Allan Hawke!

“I’ll go over to the club now and get a room! Send all my things over!”

said the Major. “I wish to let Hugh know that I am here. I will give

you the directions about the house to-morrow. Make no mistake with this

message now!” Whereat Alan Hawke repeated a few words which would

awake the slumbering curiosity in the woman-heart of the lonely Justine

Delande!

“Now, I will return and await your success,” concluded Hawke as he read

over a dozen times Madame Berthe Louison’s long dispatch, ordering him

to prepare her pied de terre in Delhi. “Gad! Milady means to do the

thing in style,” he murmured. “She is a deep one, and she must have a

pot of money!” He lit a cheroot and sauntered away to show up officially

at the club. Major Hawke soon became aware that nothing succeeds like

success. Not only did all the flaneurs of the Chandnee Chouk seize

upon him, but, from passing carriages, bright, roguish eyes merrily

challenged him as the hot-hearted English Mem-Sahibs whirled by.

Rumor had magnified the importance of Major Alan Hawke’s secret service

appointment, and the wanderer was astounded when the highest official of

the Delhi College gravely saluted him.

“By Gad! I believe that I am really becoming respectable!” laughed the

delighted major. His uncertain past seemed to be fast fading away in the

glow of the skillfully hinted official promotion. “I wonder now if old

Ram Lal has a hold on my canny friend, Hugh Fraser Johnstone--Sir Hugh

to be! Perhaps they are like all the rest of us--rascals of the same

grade, but only in different ways. The old jewel matters! I must look to

this and watch Ram Lal!” The returned Anglo-Indian carelessly nodded

to the group of men gathered in the club’s lounging-room as he entered.

Designedly, he loudly demanded to know if his traps had arrived. “Left

all my odds and ends in store,” he murmured to a friend, as he called

for a brandy pawnee. “Beastly bore! Must wait orders here for some

time!”

Skilled at tossing the ball of conversation to and fro, Major Alan

Hawke, while at luncheon, artfully planted seeds here and there, to be

neatly dished up later for that incipient baronet, Hugh Johnstone. And

yet a graceful shade of dignified reserve lent color to his rumored

advancement, and the schemer leaned over the writing table with quite a

foreign-office air as he indited his diplomatic note of arrival to his

destined prey.

With a grave air he selected his rooms and accommodations to suit his

swelling port, and even the club stewards nodded in recognition of the

tidal wave of Alan Hawke’s mended fortunes.

With due official gravity the man “who had dropped into a good thing,”

disappeared, to allow the gilded youth of Delhi to carry the gossip to

mess and bungalow. It was a welcome morsel to these merry crows!

It was late when the handsome Major returned to find a small pyramid of

notes on his table and many letters in his box. He was in the highest

good humor, for the wary Ram Lal had most diplomatically acquitted his

task of opening a secret communication.

“Just as I thought,” laughed the Major, as he sipped his pale ale in Ram

Lal’s spacious room of pleasaunce. “They all protest, woman-like, but

they all come!”

The watchful Swiss exile’s heart fluttered tenderly in the far-off Lotos

land at the arrival of a secret friend of her sage sister. She longed

for the morning to meet her new friend. Alan Hawke’s irresistible

attractions had pointed the praises which flowed smoothly over the

double crossed letter which had preceded him! The oily Ram Lal, a

veteran observer of many an intrigue, scented a budding rose of romance

in the Major’s adroit coup, and the arrival of the only lady whom Alan

Hawke had ever socially fathered in Delhi.

“In three days I will be all ready! So you can telegraph to-night,”

reported the merchant, when the Major carefully went over all the

details of the proposed temporary establishment of the disguised Alixe

Delaviarne.

“Very good!” approvingly answered the dignified confidant and patron.

“See here, Ram Lal! You have only to serve me well in these little

private matters, and you shall handle all the coming Mem-Sahib’s money

business here! She wants to be quiet. I am to direct all her private

matters! Not a word, however, to old Hugh!” The two men separated, Hawke

with the knowledge that one of Ram’s men had already glided into the

swarming household entourage of Hugh Johnstone’s stately home, and the

spy was on every movement of the strange interior, which defied the

Delhi beaux.

“Not a bad day’s work,” mused Hawke, as he dined in solitary state. The

hospitable bidding of the wealthiest civilian of Delhi to tiffin on the

morrow brought him in touch with Alixe Delavigne’s proposed victim once

more. The delighted rascal mused: “I will surely have letters from her

to-morrow, possibly even a telegram of her arrival. When the silly Swiss

woman is the partner of an innocent secret, she is mine to control! Then

the chase for a few lacs of rupees begins!”

Major Hawke was somewhat startled at the little avalanche of welcoming

cards and notes. “Bravo! this will throw old Hugh off the track a bit

also. The simple duty of piquing local curiosity shall open all hearts,

hearths, and homes to me!” And then, Alan Hawke joyously realized how

easily the light-headed world can be fooled to the top of its bent by

the hollow trick of a bit of mystery play.

“This falls out rightly,” he mused. “I will take up all the threads of

my old society life and Madame Berthe Louison may deign to confide a bit

in me the first half of the story forced from her, then I will guess out

all the missing links of the chain. Once domiciled here, she is

helpless in my hands, for I can either gain her inner secrets, or boldly

checkmate her. And the veiled Rose of Delhi?”

Alan Hawke dreamed not of the sorrows of the restless heart beating

in that virginal bosom. He paced the veranda of the Club gravely

preoccupied till the midnight hour. Long before that, Justine Delande

had sought her rooms in a feeble flutter of excitement over the harmless

assignation of the morrow. There was a stern old man pacing his splendid

hall alone, with an unhappy heart, that night, for Hugh Johnstone

saw again in the sweet uplifted eyes of his beautiful child the old

unanswered question!

He stood long gazing out upon the unpitying stars, while above him,

lonely and lovely, Nadine recked not the queenly splendor of her

magnificent apartment. Glittering wealth, splendid train of servants,

the golden future stretching out before her, all this she noted not,

for, even in the gray, colorless life of the pension school at Geneva,

soft-eyed Hope whispered to her of a gentle and gracious mother!

Loved--gone before, but not lost--and, here in the land of gaudy Asiatic

splendors, a strange land of wonderment and fairy riches, she sobbed

alone in her heart anguish:

“He will not speak! He tells me nothing! A marble palace this, but

never a home!” The timid girl had seen no beloved woman’s face upon

the fretwork of the walls of this Aladdin’s castle. And, in her own

frightened heart, she remembered the ashen pallor of her father’s

face when she had faltered out the burning question of her yearning

heart--the question of long years! The past was still a blank to her,

while on this same night, crafty Alan Hawke in Delhi, and, in far

Calcutta, a woman, pacing her boudoir in sad unrest, were both busied

with the story of the vanished mother whom the Rose of Delhi had never

seen!

Alixe Delavigne, lonely and resolute, was thinking of her departure

on the morrow, to face the man who had locked his dead past in his own

marble heart, in his grand marble palace. Her busy days at Calcutta had

astounded the senior manager of Grindlay & Co. The old banker marveled

at the strange commissions and imperative orders of his beautiful

business client, but many years had taught him much of the

incomprehensibility of womanhood! Whereupon he marveled in silence, and

bowing with his hand upon his heart, assured the lady of his absolute

discretion, and the unbroken honor of the house. “Some very queer little

life histories go on out here in India!” mused the old banker, as he

handed the lady her special letter to the Delhi agents of the great

house which house which he directed. “As beautiful as a statue, as firm

as a flint! Where have I seen a face like hers?” mused the old man, as

he sought his rest.

The “beautiful statue” was steadfastly gazing at the picture of the

young Rose of Delhi, in her lonely boudoir. “She shall learn to love

her! To love her--through me! And this man of iron shall yield! He shall

hear my prayer! For, if he does not, then, he shall be struck to the

heart--blow for blow! And Fate shall pass her over! I swear it by that

lonely grave in far away Jitomir!” There were kisses rained upon the

pictured face smiling up at her, the face which had called back to her

the dead past, and then the “beautiful statue” tore aside her gown. She

gazed upon a folded paper which had long lain upon her throbbing heart.

“This shall speak for me--at the last! His pride shall bend! He shall

not break the child’s heart! For the mother’s sake, I swear it! She

shall love and be loved!” and as she spoke, in far away Delhi sweet

Nadine stirred in her sleep, and smiled, with opening arms, for the

phantom mother she fondly sought seemed to clasp her now to a loving

breast!

In the Delhi Club there was high wassail below him, while Major Alan

Hawke restlessly paced his spacious rooms above, watching the lonely

white moon sail through the clearest skies on earth. The quid mines had

all observed the patiently haughty air of the returned Major, and even

the chattering club stewards marveled at the sudden efflorescence of

Hawke Sahib’s fortunes.

“Devilish neat-handed fellow, Hawke,” growled old Major Bingo Morris,

over his whist cards. “Close-mouthed fellow! Always wonder why he left

the service! Neat rider! Good hand with gun and spear! He ought to be in

our Staff Corps! He knows every inch of the northern frontier!” The old

Major glared around, inviting further comment.

“Fellow in Bombay tells me he went a cropper about some woman or other,

ten years ago,” lisped a rosy young lieutenant who was spreading the

golden revenues of a home brewery over the pitfall-dotted path of a rich

Indian sub.

“Right you are!” sententiously remarked Verner of the Horse Artillery.

“He went a stunning pace for a while, and at last had to get out. Big

flirtation--wife of commanding officer! Hawke acted very nicely. Said

nothing--sacrificed himself. That’s why the women all like him. Very

safe man. But, he’s a shy bird now.” They dissected his past, guessed at

his present, but could not read his future!

And then and there, the man who knew it all, told of the mysterious

governmental quest confided to Major Alan Hawke. “You see, he has a sort

of roving commission in mufti, to counteract the ceaseless undermining

of the Russian agents in Persia, Afghanistan and in the Pamirs. We

always bear the service brand too openly. It gives away our own military

agents. Now, Hawke’s a fellow like Alikhanoff, that smart Russian

duffer! He can do the Persian, Afghan, or Thibetan to perfection! He has

been on to London. Some morning he will clear out. You’ll hear of him

next at Kashgar, or in Bhootan, or perhaps he will work down into China

and report to the Minister there. He is a Secret Intelligence Department

of One, that’s all!”

“That’s all very irregular for Her Majesty’s Service,” growled an

envious agnostic.

“Bah! Secret Service has no rules, you know,” said the man who knew it

all, thrusting his lips deeply into a brandy pawnee.

And so it was noted that Alan Hawke was a devilish pleasant fellow, a

rising man, and one who had certainly dropped into an extremely good

thing. The tide of Fortune was setting directly in favor of the man

who, pacing the floor upstairs, unavailingly tormented himself with the

subject of the missing jewels.

“If I could only get a hold on Hugh Johnstone!” mused the adventurer.

“Berthe Louison knows nothing of these old matters. She only seeks to

approach the child. And she will be here to watch me in a day or so.

Ram Lal, the old scoundrel! Does he know? If he did, he would bleed the

would-be Baronet on his own account. But he may not know of the golden

opportunity, and the old wretch always has many irons himself in the

fire. Hugh Fraser was a canny Scot in his youth. Sir Hugh Johnstone is a

horse of another color. If old Johnstone has the jewels, why does he not

yield them up? Perhaps he wants the Baronetcy first, and then his memory

may be strangely refreshed.”

As the wanderer strode up and down the room like a restless wolf, he

returned in his memories to the strange intimacy of Hugh Fraser and Ram

Lal. “I have it!” he cried. “I will kill two birds with one stone. My

pretty ‘employer’ shall furnish the golden means to loosen old Ram Lal’s

tongue. This Swiss woman is fond of gewgaws, he tells me. I will let Ram

Lal ‘squeeze’ the Madame’s household accounts to his heart’s content. If

the Swiss woman is susceptible, she can be delicately bribed with

jewels paid for by my haughty employer’s money, and my feeding this

‘bucksheesh’ out to Ram Lal liberally may bring him to talk of the old

days. I must give Hugh Johnstone the idea that I am inside the official

secrets as to the affair of the Baronetcy. Fear will make him bend, if

he is guilty, and I will alarm Ram Lal at the right time. If they have

any old bond of union, the ex-Commissioner may turn to me for help,

and all this will bring me nearer to the still heart-whole woman who is

hidden in that marble prison. I will make my strongest running on the

Swiss woman. Once the bond of friendly secrecy established between us,

she can be fed, bit by bit, for then she dare not break away.”

Ram Lal Singh was the last watcher in Delhi who coveted a glimpse that

night into the dim future. The old schemer sat alone in his favorite

den in rear of the shop. His round, black eyes surveyed complacently his

faithful domestics, sleeping on the floor at the threshold of the doors

of the four rooms opening into the central hall of his shop. A single

clap of his hands, and these faithful retainers were ready to rise,

tulwar in hand, and cut down any intruder.

The old jewel merchant’s eye roved over the medley of priceless

bric-a-brac in the main hall. The spoils of temple and olden palace cast

grotesque, soft, dark shadows on the floor, under the glimmer of the

swinging cresset lamp filled with perfumed nut oil. Seated cross-legged,

and nursing the mouth-piece of his narghileh, Ram Lal pondered long over

the sudden appearance of the rehabilitated Major Hawke, and the coming

of the rich Mem-Sahib who was to be a hidden bird in the luxurious nest

already awaiting its inmate.

Ram Lal was vaguely uneasy, as he glanced at the pretty pavilion in his

own compound, where languid loveliness awaited his approach. He resigned

himself with a sigh to his lonely schemes. He rose and with his own

hand, poured out a draught of the forbidden strong waters of the

Feringhee.

Dropping down upon the cushions, he reviewed the whole day’s doings. “It

is not for him, for Hawke Sahib, this bungalow of delight is made ready!

And the old Sahib is to know nothing. Can it be a trap for him? I am to

watch the old man for Hawke Sahib. This woman who comes. They say here

he will go soon away, over the sea to the court of the Kaisar-I-Hind. He

is rich, why does he linger? And perhaps not return.

“All these long years of my watch thrown away! For, never a single one

of the sacred jewels has he shown me! They have never seen the light

since the awful day in Humayoon’s Tomb. Has he the jewels? Does he hide

them? Has he buried them? Has he sent them away? If he has them, then he

dies the death of a dog. The jewels of a king to be the spoil of a low

tax-gatherer! The King of Kings.

“But why does he not go? I have watched him for years.

“There is some reason! Hawke Sahib shall tell me all! He must tell!

He needs my help!” The old man’s slumbers were haunted with the olden

memories of a day of doom, the day when the bodies of the sacred Princes

of Oude lay naked in the glaring sun as they were despoiled after

Hodson’s pistol had done its bloody work. “They may have taken them all

from him, these English are greedy spoilers,” muttered the crafty old

man, as his head fell upon the silken cushions with a curse. He was a

rebel still, as rank as Tantia Topee.

In the splendid marble palace of Hugh Johnstone, the startled Justine

Delande was awake long before the dawn, thinking only of the meeting of

the morning, her bosom heaving with its first questionable secret, but

Major Alan Hawke smiled as he leisurely breakfasted later, reading a

telegram just received. “On my way. Will come to private address. Send

servants to Allahabad to join me. Silence and discretion.--Lausanne.”

CHAPTER V. A DIPLOMATIC TIFFIN.

Major Alan Hawke had designedly breakfasted in the stately seclusion of

his rooms, and as he came gravely sauntering into the Club ordinary, was

at once beset by a friendly chorus, as he carelessly glanced over the

morning letters which attested his progress toward the social zenith.

He, however, gazed impatiently at the club-house door, where a neat pair

of ponies awaited him, with servants deftly purveyed by the subtle Ram

Lal. His two body servants were also afrites of the same sly Aladdin.

His swelling port duly impressed his old friends.

The man “who had dropped into a good thing” gently put aside sundry

hospitable proffers, politely laughed away several tempting bargains

as to horses, carriages, furnished bungalows, and offers of racing

engagements, hunting bouts, and “private” dinners. “Waiting orders,

d’ye see!” he gently murmured. “Not worth while to set up anything!”

And then, with the air of a martyr, he disappeared, the ponies springing

briskly away, leaving all baffled conjecture behind. The curious men who

were left discussing a flying rumor that Major Hawke was authorized to

raise a Regiment of Irregular Horse for a special expeditionary secret

purpose, wrangled with those who maintained that a brilliant local

civil-service vacancy would be theatrically filled by the man who now

bore a brow of mystery. The advent of this prosperous Hawke had made the

great social deeps of Delhi to boil like a pot. His mission was one of

those things no fellow could find out.

Laughing in his sleeve, the object of all this sudden curiosity made

a number of detours, and adroitly followed a native servant down an

obscure rear street, after dismissing his pony carriage. The equipage

was busied during the earlier hours of the day in leaving the visiting

cards of the returned soldier of fortune in certain quarters well

calculated to attract social notice.

Threading the spacious gardens in rear of Ram Lal’s establishment, the

artful Major entered the jewel merchant’s abode without the notice of

the morning gossips of the Chandnee Chouk. “All right, now,” he laughed,

as he bade the sly merchant set a private guard to prevent all intrusion

upon their privacy. “I think that I have thrown these fellows off the

track very neatly!” he laughed. “No one knows of your rear entrances at

the club, I am sure!” It suited the luxurious old jewel merchant to hide

the opulence of his secret life, and to veil the graceful lapses of his

private code from the sober austerities of a dignified Mohammedanism.

“Look alive now, Ram Lal!” said Hawke, briskly, as he handed his

confederate the telegram from Berthe Louison. “You see that the lady

will arrive here tomorrow night! Some one must go down to Allahabad for

her! Are you all ready for her coming?”

“Perfectly!” smiled Ram Lal. “The Mem-Sahib could give a dinner of

twenty covers in an hour after her arrival! You know that the bungalow

was fitted up for--” he bent his head and whispered to Major Hawke, who

laughed intelligently and viciously.

“All right, then! Here is the address in Allahabad, where the lady is to

wait for her conductors. She seems not to wish me to come down. I will

be at the bungalow, then, on your arrival! I will give you a letter

for her,” said Hawke. Ram Lal’s eyes gleamed in anticipation of the fat

pickings of the Mem-Sahib. He pondered a moment over the case.

“Then, I will go down myself,” complacently said Ram Lal, with an eye

to future business. “You can tell her to trust to me in all things. She

shall travel like a queen!”

“That is better, and so I will telegraph to her, at Allahabad, this

afternoon, that I have sent you to meet her! Have a covered carriage

awaiting her here, and no one must be allowed to follow her to her

hidden nest. It is the making of your fortune with her!” cried Hawke, as

he lit a cheroot.

“Trust to me, Sahib!” answered the wily jewel merchant, relapsing into

an expectant silence. He already connected the arrival of the beautiful

foreigner with the destiny of the opulent man whom he had revengefully

watched for twenty years. Hugh Fraser Johnstone had heaped up a fortune,

but it was not yet successfully deported to England.

“And the Swiss woman, when may I see her; this morning?” demanded the

adventurer, as he dropped into a cool, Japanese chair.

“My man will bring you the news of her coming!” answered the oily old

miscreant. “I told him to watch her, and run on to warn me!” Ram Lal was

a wily old Figaro of much experience.

“Good! Then go outside and wait for her,” coolly commanded the young

man. “When she comes, you can come in and warn me, and I will be ready.”

Ram Lal obediently left Hawke without a questioning word, and the busy

brain of the adventurer was soon occupied with weaving the meshes for

the bird nearing the snare. “This woman’s help is absolutely necessary

to me now!” he thought, as he contemplated his own handsome person in a

mirror. “If she can only hold her tongue and keep a secret, she may

be the foundation of my fortunes. I think that I can make it worth her

while, but she must never fall under the influence of this she-devil in

petticoats, who comes to-morrow night! And yet, the Louison knows she is

here! A friendship between them must be prevented!” He closed his eyes

dreamily, and studied the problem of the future attentively, revolving

every point of womanly weakness which he had observed in his past

experience.

He had finally hit upon the right thing. It came to him just as Ram Lal

entered, with his finger on his lip. “She is in there, waiting for you,

and she came alone!” said the crafty merchant. “I can perhaps frighten

her with the idea that Madame Louison wishes to supplant her as lady

bear leader. The future pickings of this young heiress would be then

lost to her! Yes! A woman’s natural jealousy will do the trick!” so

sagely mused the young man as he walked out into the hall, where Ram

Lal’s treasures were heaped up on every side. There was no one visible

in the shop, but Ram Lal silently pointed with a brown finger, gleaming

with whitest gems, to a closed door. It was the entrance to the room

specially devoted to the superb collection of arms, the regained loot of

Delhi, slyly collected in the days of the mad sacking by the revengeful

English soldiery. A bottle of rum then bought a princely token.

It had been with a guilty, beating heart that Justine Delande abandoned

her fair, young charge to the morning ministrations of a bevy of

dark-skinned servants. However, the sturdy Genevese waiting-maid who had

accompanied them to India was at hand, when the spinster incoherently

murmured her all too voluble excuses for an early morning visit to the

European shops on the Chandnee Chouk, and then fled away as if fearful

of her own shadow. She was duly thankful that no one had observed her

entrance to the jewel shop, and the refuge of the room, pointed out by

the amiable Ram Lal, at once reassured her. Justine was accorded a brief

breathing spell by the fates as the Major settled his plans.

It did not seem so very hard, this first fall from maidenly grace, when

Major Alan Hawke, entering the little armory chamber, politely led the

startled woman to a seat, with a graceful self-introduction.

“I should have recognized you any where, Mademoiselle Justine,” deftly

remarked the Major, “by your resemblance to your most charming sister.

You have, I hope, received some private letters from her, with regard to

my visit?” The Swiss gouverriante faltered forth her affirmative answer,

while secretly approving the enthusiastic judgment of her distant sister

upon this most admirable Crichton of English Majors. “Then,” said Hawke,

alluringly, “we must be very good friends, you and I, for we are alone

together, among strangers, in this far-away land!” Then he calmly

dropped into an easy discourse, in which Geneva and Sister Euphrosyne

punctuated the graceful flow of his friendly chat. There was nothing

very sinful in the debut of this little intrigue.

“Let us always speak French!” said Alan Hawke, with a quiet, warning

glance at the closed door. “These same soft-eyed Hindostanees are the

very subtlest serpents of the earth. The only way to do, is never to

trust any of them!” The Major was busied in carefully taking a mental

measurement of Mademoiselle Justine, who, still well on the sunny side

of forty, was really a very comely replica of her severer intellectual

sister. Justine Delande still lingered in that temperate zone of life

where a fair fighting chance of matrimony was still hers. “If a ray of

sunshine ever steals into the flinty bosom of a Swiss woman, there maybe

a gleam or two still left here,” mused the Major, most adroitly avoiding

all reference to Justine’s rosebud charge, and only essaying to place

her entirely at her ease.

But, in proportion as he gracefully labored, the frightened governess

began to realize the danger of her situation.

“I hope that no one will observe us,” she said, speaking rapidly and

under her breath. “Mr. Johnstone is so eccentric, so haughty, and so

very peculiar!” Her distress was evident, and the gallant Major at once

hastened to allay her fears.

“I have already thought of that. My old friend, Ram Lal, has a lovely

garden in rear of his house and there we will be entirely unobserved.

For I have so much that I would say to you.” It was with a sigh of

relief that the frightened woman hastily passed through Ram Lal’s

spacious snuggery in rear of his jewel mart and was soon ensconced in

a little pagoda, where Major Hawke seated himself at her side and

skillfully took up his soft refrains.

In half an hour they were thoroughly en bon rapport, for the graceful

Major Hawke adroitly conversed with his laughing eyes frankly beaming

upon the lonely woman. He had drawn a long breath of relief when he ran

over the letter which the delighted Justine frankly submitted to him

for his inspection. The fair Euphrosyne’s secret advices justified his

warmest anticipations. He had conquered her heart.

“I will not delay you longer this morning,” he said at last, with an

artful mock confidence. “I am infinitely grateful to you for so kindly

coming to meet me here. And it is only due to you to tell you why I

begged you to come here to-day. The nature of my important official

duties is such that I am not permitted to exhibit my real character to

any one here as yet. I am charged with some very delicate public duties

which may force me to linger here for some time, or perhaps disappear

without notice, only to return in the same mysterious manner. But in me

you have a stanch secret friend always. I have already written to your

charming sister, and I expect to receive from her letters which will be

followed by letters to you from her. And I shall write to-day and tell

her of your goodness to me.” Miss Justine Delande’s eyes were downcast.

Her agitated bosom was throbbing with an unaccustomed fire, and the

desire to be safely sheltered once more in Hugh Johnstone’s marble

palace was now strong upon her.

Hawke paused, still keeping his pleading eyes fixed upon the

fluttering-hearted woman’s face. “Miss Nadine sees absolutely no one!”

murmured the governess, “and, of course, I never leave her. It is a very

exacting and laborious position, this charge which I now fill, and

of course the life is a very lonely one, though Nadine is an angel!”

enthusiastically cried Miss Justine.

“And so,” earnestly said Major Alan Hawke, “I am absolutely prevented

from seeing you, unless you will trust yourself to me, and come here

again.” The frightened woman cast a glance at the unfamiliar loveliness

of the secluded garden, with the hidden kiosques, sacred to Ram Lal’s

furtive amours.

“I dare not!” she said, with trembling lips. “I would like to come,

but--”

“Listen!” said Alan Hawke, softly taking her unresisting hand, “I will

confide in you. I must, even to-day, go to Hugh Johnstone’s house. He

has bidden me to a private interview. And he gives a tiffin in my honor.

I have known him in past years. He does not as yet know of my official

position. My duties are secret. My very honor forbids me to divulge

it. I dare not openly acknowledge an acquaintance with you, with your

sister. It rests with you that we meet again, for my sake, for your own

sake, for your sister’s sake. I cannot lose you for a mere quibble.”

There was a genuine alarm in Justine Delande’s voice as she started up,

crying out, “You come to us to-day?”

“Precisely!” gravely said Major Hawke, as he tried a long shot.

“Both Captain Anstruther and myself have the gravest secret duties in

connection with Hugh Johnstone’s future. He soon may be Sir Hugh, you

know. And I dare not divulge to him my own delicate functions in this

matter. Now you understand me at last,” said Hawke, warmly pressing

Justine Delande’s hand. “I feel that I must not lose you, because I have

my duty to perform, and I trust my honor to you. All will be well if

you will only favor me with your womanly kindness, and trust to me as

frankly as I to you. We must meet to-day at Hugh Johnstone’s as absolute

strangers. We must also remain strangers to all appearances for a time,”

he said at last. The Swiss spinster gazed up at him piteously.

“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.”