ers still clutching the
photograph.

"There is a physician near by," hazarded a sympathetic woman who had
crowded into the room. The music had stopped with a crash.

"Summon him at once!" energetically ordered Hawke. "Some brandy--quick!"
he cried, listening to her agonized words, "Valerie! My God! It is
Valerie herself! My poor sister!" In a few moments an elderly man parted
the assembling loiterers. His bustling air of command soon dispelled the
loiterers. A woman attendant was bending over the still senseless woman
as the spectacled medico seized Alan Hawke's arm. "Has your wife ever
had a previous heart attack?" he gravely asked, as he opened his lancet
case. Major Hawke shook his head, and gazed pityingly upon the beautiful
pallid face before him.

"Can I be of any use to Monsieur?" demanded the chef d'orchestre in
evening grand tenue, his baton still in his hand.

There was a glance of wondering astonishment as the Englishman faced the
speaker. "Wieniawski--Casimir, you here?" The other dropped his voice as
the physician ripped up the sleeve of the patient's gown.

"Major Hawke, I thought you were still in Delhi? Your wife--" faltered
the artist, as he listened to a low moan when the lancet blade entered
the ivory arm of the sufferer. Then, with a backward step, he pressed
his hands to his brows. "My God! It is Alixe Delavigne!" he brokenly
said. But Hawke sprang to his side and quickly drew him from the room.

"Not a word! Not a single word to any one! Where are you stopping? I
will come to you tonight!" the excited man sternly said, his firm hand
still clutching the musician's arm.

"Here, at the Casino! Come in after ten! I will await you! But where did
you meet her?" the Polish violinist cried, speaking as if in a dream.

"You shall know all later! I must get her to the hotel!" He returned to
the physician's side, who authoritatively cried, "Now an easy carriage
and to the Faucon, you said?" In half an hour, Berthe Louison was
sleeping, a nurse at her side, while Alan Hawke counted the moments
crawling on till ten o'clock.

CHAPTER III. AND AT DELHI WHAT AM I TO DO?

Major Alan Hawke was the "observed of all observers," in the cosy
salon of the Grand Hotel Faucon, when the sympathetic hotel manager
interrupted a colloquy between the handsome Briton and the Doctor.
"A mere syncope, my dear sir. Perhaps--even only the result of tight
lacing, or inaction. Perhaps some sudden nerve crisis. The