Johnstone?" quietly said the delighted
Hawke.

"Just stand by me about this baronetcy, and bamboozle this damned
foolish woman, while I slip quietly away to Europe! She is mercurial
and vain. Abercromby will get her into the fast Calcutta set, after one
necessary appearance at the Viceroy's! She is, after all, only a woman.
You can catch them with a feather, if you can catch them at all! Once
properly launched by Abercromby, you are a made man for life! He will
not dare to 'go back on you!' as our Yankee cousins have it. The Viceroy
will do anything for him!"

"By God! Johnstone! I'm your man! Count on me in life and death!" warmly
cried Hawke. The two men clasped hands.

There was a clatter and a jingle. The old warrior was on his return.
"Here he comes now! Fall in with his humor, and success to you at
Calcutta," whispered Johnstone. There was the very jolliest breakfast
imaginable at the marble house that day, and that same afternoon Major.
Alan Hawke rode all over Delhi as volunteer aide to General Abercromby.

Two nights later General Abercromby whispered to Hugh Johnstone, at a
Grand Ball at Willoughby's Headquarters: "I've just had a telegram from
the Viceroy to return at once. Your matter is now all right. I leave the
property with Willoughby here. I'll go down in the morning, if you'll
fix me up." And then, Johnstone signing to Major Alan Hawke, who had
been the cynosure of all eyes, as he gracefully led Madame la Generate
Willoughby through a lanciers, took the favorite of fortune aside.

"Make your adieux! Get out of here! Settle all your little affairs! Send
all your traps over to my house! General Abercromby wants to slip away
quietly in the morning! No one is to know! And you go with him, at his
urgent request."

And that very evening at Calcutta, Alixe Delavigne would have laughed
in triumph to know of Hugh Johnstone's strange eagerness to dispatch
his amorous guest. For the lady--in the safe haven of the great banker's
home--had just returned from a captivated Viceroy, who had instantly
recalled Abercrornby by a dispatch to be "obeyed forthwith."

"You, Madame, have laid me under an obligation which I can never
forget," said the graceful statesman. The list of Ram Lal was in his
hands now! And so Hugh Johnstone was highly pleased, and Madame
Berthe Louison, still in her masquerade, was happy, and the watchful
Commanding-General Willoughby was more than pleased; and the now doubly
hopeful Major Al