oved!" 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 bra