ef
breathing spell by the fates as the Major settled his plans.

It did not seem so very hard, this first fall from maidenly grace, when
Major Alan Hawke, entering the little armory chamber, politely led the
startled woman to a seat, with a graceful self-introduction.

"I should have recognized you any where, Mademoiselle Justine," deftly
remarked the Major, "by your resemblance to your most charming sister.
You have, I hope, received some private letters from her, with regard to
my visit?" The Swiss gouverriante faltered forth her affirmative answer,
while secretly approving the enthusiastic judgment of her distant sister
upon this most admirable Crichton of English Majors. "Then," said Hawke,
alluringly, "we must be very good friends, you and I, for we are alone
together, among strangers, in this far-away land!" Then he calmly
dropped into an easy discourse, in which Geneva and Sister Euphrosyne
punctuated the graceful flow of his friendly chat. There was nothing
very sinful in the debut of this little intrigue.

"Let us always speak French!" said Alan Hawke, with a quiet, warning
glance at the closed door. "These same soft-eyed Hindostanees are the
very subtlest serpents of the earth. The only way to do, is never to
trust any of them!" The Major was busied in carefully taking a mental
measurement of Mademoiselle Justine, who, still well on the sunny side
of forty, was really a very comely replica of her severer intellectual
sister. Justine Delande still lingered in that temperate zone of life
where a fair fighting chance of matrimony was still hers. "If a ray of
sunshine ever steals into the flinty bosom of a Swiss woman, there maybe
a gleam or two still left here," mused the Major, most adroitly avoiding
all reference to Justine's rosebud charge, and only essaying to place
her entirely at her ease.

But, in proportion as he gracefully labored, the frightened governess
began to realize the danger of her situation.

"I hope that no one will observe us," she said, speaking rapidly and
under her breath. "Mr. Johnstone is so eccentric, so haughty, and so
very peculiar!" Her distress was evident, and the gallant Major at once
hastened to allay her fears.

"I have already thought of that. My old friend, Ram Lal, has a lovely
garden in rear of his house and there we will be entirely unobserved.
For I have so much that I would say to you." It was with a sigh of
relief that the frightened woman hastily passed through Ra