d back upon the moody Adonis and
sighed for the vanished days, when she possessed both the physical and
mental capacity to wander from the beaten paths of the proprieties.

But--the world forgetting--the young man lingered long, gazing out upon
the broad expanse of the waters, his eyes resting carelessly upon the
superb panorama of the southern shore. He had wandered far away from the
Grand Hotel National, in the aimlessness of sore mental unrest, and, all
unheeded, the hours passed on, as he threaded the streets of the proud
old Swiss burgher city. He had known its every turn in brighter days,
and, though the year of ninety-one was a brilliant Alpine season, and he
was in the very flower of youth and manly promise, gaunt care walked as
a viewless warder at Alan Hawke's side.

He had crossed over the Pont de Montblanc to the British Consulate, only
to learn that the very man whom he had come from Monaco to seek, was now
already at Aix la Chapelle, on his way to America, on a long leave.
He had wearily made a tour of the principal hotels and scanned the
registers with no lucky find! Not a single gleam of hope shone out in
all the polyglot inscriptions passing under his eye! And so he had
sadly betaken himself to a safe, retired place, where he could hold the
aforesaid council of war.

The practical part of the operations of this sole committee of ways
and means, was an exhaustive examination of his depleted pockets. A
few sovereigns and a single crisp twenty-pound Bank of England note
constituted the rear guard of Alan Hawke's vanished "sinews of war." The
young man briefly noted the slender store, with a sigh.

"Twenty-five pounds--and a little trumpery jewelry--I can't ever get
back to India on that!" He seemed to hear again the rasping voice of the
vulpine caller at Monte Carlo: "Messieurs! Faites vos jeux! Rien ne va
plus! Le jeu est fait!" And, if a dismal failure in Lender had been his
Leipsic, the black week at Monaco had been his long drawn-out Waterloo!
"I was a rank fool to go there," he growled, "and a greater fool to come
over here! I might have got on easily to Malta, and then chanced it from
there to Calcutta!"

The sun's last lances glittered on the waters gleaming clear as crystal,
with their deep blue tint of reflected sky, and liquid sapphire! The
gardens were becoming deserted as the loungers dropped off homeward one
by one, and still the handsome young fellow sat moodily gazing down into
the rush