ack 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