the carriage sped along.
"Now is the time to catch her off her guard." And so he made himself
sleek and patient, with the surface varnish of his "society manner,"
when Jules Victor, with semi-hostile eyes, ushered him into the presence
of Alixe Delavigne, still in her robes of "visitation splendor."

"What is this devil's work done in my absence? This spiriting away of
Nadine!" cried Alixe, grasping Hawke's wrist with a nervous clasp, which
made the strong man wince. "This juggling in my absence?" Her eyes were
sternly fixed on him in dawning suspicions.

"Madame," calmly said Alan Hawke, "if you had trusted to me, this would
not have happened. But you have chosen to make an enigma of yourself,
from the first. I am not tired of your moods, but I am of your cold
disdain, your contemptuous slighting of my useful mental powers. You
left me with no orders. I warned you that he was capable of anything.
See how he has treated me," he continued, with a well-dissembled
indignation. "He called me away to Allahabad to be bear-leader to
Abercromby, and the brute has just shown me the door, to-day, openly
saying that his daughter has gone to the Hills. I believe that he
lies! I know that he does! If you had deigned to trust me, I would
have followed on her track to hell itself, but you chose to play the
woman--the catlike toying with men! Damn him! I owe him one now! If
he had openly entertained me in this brilliant visit, I might have
re-entered the staff service--in a week. And, you threw all my
experience away in not trusting to me."

Alixe Delavigne looked up, with one piercing glance, as she sealed a
note. "Go openly to him--to Johnstone! Bring him back at once with you!
He dare not disobey this! I will denounce him, now, to-day! to both the
generals, and go to the Viceroy myself! I care not what excuse he makes!
BRING HIM!"

"And so I cut the last tie that binds me to a future reinstatement for
you, a callous employer, and am left adrift without an anchor out for
the future! You know that this man is a director of the Bank of Bengal!
A multi-millionaire! He will chase me from India! I might trace the
girl to her hiding-place for you! She has surely been sent home by sea!"
Alixe Delavigne was gliding up and down the room as noiselessly as a
serpent. She abruptly stopped her march.

"I will find her in Europe! What do you require to follow my orders for
three months? To wait here and then to take the road or to join me
i