mured. "You shall pay for all you get, and pay as you go."
He cheerfully dined alone in Ram Lal's little business sanctum, and
listened to the measured disclosures of the Hindu in return for the
fifty-pound note.

"It's to-morrow's interview that I want to know about," quietly directed
the major, whereat Ram Lal modestly said:

"I'll find a way to let you know all."

"That's more than she will, the sly devil," said Hawke, in his heart, as
he leaned back in the consciousness of "duty well done."

In the Silver Bungalow, Alixe Delavigne sat in her splendid dining-room,
under the ministrations of her Gallic body-guard. Her eyes were very
dreamy as she recalled all the fearful incidents of the annee terrible.
The flight from Paris after their father's death, the escape to England,
the refuge at a Brighton hotel--the sudden projecture of Hugh Fraser
athwart their humble lives. When the returned Indian functionary
abandoned all other pursuits and plainly showed his mad craving to
follow Valerie Delavigne everywhere, then the younger sister had learned
of his rank, of his long leave and wealth and future prospects. The man
was most personable then. He was of a solid rank and a brilliant civil
position, and the penniless daughters of the dead Colonel Delavigne were
now reduced to a few hundred francs. The hand of Misery was upon them,
poor and friendless. Alixe, with a shudder, recalled the two years of
silence, since the ardent Pierre Troubetskoi had whispered to beautiful
Valerie Delavigne in Paris: "I go to Russia, but I will soon return and
you must wait for me!"

Day by day, when the skies grew darker, Valerie Delavigne had gazed
with a haunting sorrow in her eyes, at her helpless sister. Some strange
possessing desire had urged Hugh Fraser on to woo and win the helpless
French beauty, whom an adverse fate had stranded in England. The mute
sacrifice of the wedding was followed by the two years of Valerie's
loveless marriage. It was an existence for the two sisters, bought by
the sacrifice of one and Troubetskoi never had written!

Sitting alone, waiting for the morrow, to face Hugh Fraser once more,
Alixe Delavigne recalled, with a vow of vengeance, that sad past, the
slow breaking of the butterfly, the revelation of all Hugh Fraser's
cold-hearted tyranny, the sway of his demoniac jealousy--jealous, even,
of a sister's innocent love. And that last miserable scene, on the eve
of their projected voyage to India, when t