ng soldier's fiery
glances. For Anson Anstruther had posted there on his first voyage from
Geneva to find the bird flown.

"Then you may keep Marie, your maid, here," slowly replied Anstruther,
"and send Jules over to Paris. Alan Hawke will surely seek for you
there. Let Jules inform him that you have gone to Jitomir to attend to
your Russian interests."

Alixe Delavigne bowed her head in a mute assent. Day by day the proud
self-reliant woman was yielding to the imperious will of the young
soldier. It was a soft, self-deception that reassured her on the very
evening when he left her.

But there was one now weaving his webs at Lausanne whose fertile
brain was busied with sly schemes of his own. Alan Hawke always first
considered "his duty to himself" and so the acute Major decided to spy
out the land before he precipitately appeared at London, or dared to
risk himself at St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers.

"It is just as well to know all that Justine can tell me before I see
this young dandy Anstruther, and to find out what Euphrosyne knows
before I interrogate her sister," he murmured; "I must make no mistake
with the Viceroy's kinsman!"

With much prevision he had telegraphed the date of his probable arrival
in London to Captain Anstruther from Munich, adding that convenient
fairy tale, "Delayed by illness" and he had also left this telegram
behind, so as to be sent on to allow him four days leeway near Geneva.

The signature bore also an injunction to answer to Hotel Binda, Paris.
"This is no little card game," muttered Hawke. "It is for rank, wealth,
and the hand of Miss Million, the rose of Delhi."

Alan Hawke was practically received with open arms by the
fluttering-hearted Euphrosyne, who nobly resigned herself to Justine's
victory over Alan Hawke's heart. For the younger sister's letters had
filled the elder's mind with rosy dreams of enhanced family prosperity.

"Only this telegram. That is all!" murmured the preceptress, as she
handed the Major a dispatch dated at St. Heliers, stating, "Arrived,
well, news of Mr. Johnstone's assassination just received. Will write!"

"This is all I know of this strange homecoming, as yet!" summed up the
child of Minerva.

Hawke softly delved into Mademoiselle Euphrosyne's inner consciousness
until he knew all the corners of the simple woman's heart.

"I am quite sure that she speaks the simple truth!" he decided, after
he had informed the Swiss woman of his address, "Hot