There's a half dozen ways to spirit her
out of the Land of the Pagoda Tree. I must watch and trust to Justine.
To-night I may or may not know what this devil of a Berthe Louison is up
to. Will she try to take the girl away? That would be fatal."

"Hardly--hardly," he decided, as he mixed a brandy pawnee. He gazed
around at Ram Lal's sanctum, in which the old usurer received the
Europeans whom he fleeced in his nipoy-lending operations. "A pretty
snug joint. Many a hundred pounds have I dropped here." It was neatly
furnished forth with service magazines, London papers, army lists, and
all the accessories of a London money-lender's den. When the receipt
for his registered letter was laid away in his pocket-book, Alan Hawke
calmly ordered his carriage. "I'll take a brush around town and show
them that I am out of all these intrigues," he decided. It was six hours
later when he drew up at the Club, having passed Madame Berthe Louison's
splendid turnout swinging down the Chandnee Chouk. On the box the alert
Jules, in a yager's uniform, sat beside the dusky driver, and, even in
the dusk, he could see the neat French maid seated, facing her mistress.
"By God! She has the nerve of a Field Marshal! She will never hide her
light under a bushel!" he had gasped when Madame Louison, at ten feet
distant, gazed at him impassively through her longue vue, and then
calmly cut him. He was soon besieged by a crowd of gay gossips at the
Club upon dismounting from his trap.

"Tell us, Hawke, who is the wonderful beauty who has taken the Silver
Bungalow," was the excited chorus.

"How the devil should I know, when you fellows do not," good-humoredly
cried Alan Hawke, as the Club steward edged his way through the throng.

"There's a message for you, Major," said the functionary. "Mr. Hugh
Johnstone is quite ill at his house, and has been sending all over for
you."

"Ah! This is grave news" ostentatiously cried Hawke. "I'll drive over at
once." And then he fled away, leaving the gay loiterers still discussing
the lovely anonyma whose advent was now the one sensation of the hour.
"Who the devil can her friends be?"

"She plays a bold game," mused the startled Major.

On her return to the marble house, Justine Delande had been welcomed by
the anxious-eyed apparition of Nadine Johnstone, who burst into her
room in a storm of tears. "I have been so frightened," she cried as she
clasped her returning governess in her trembling grasp.

"My f