beautiful girl who only murmured a few words when
presented to her father's only visitor. "I wonder if Justine, poor soul,
will see the resemblance?" It had been a triumph of art, Madame Berthe
Louison's magnificent dinner toilette, those rich robes which effaced
the opening-rose beauty of the slim girl in the simplicity of her rare
Indian lawn frock. Rich color and flowers and diamonds heightened the
splendid loveliness of the woman who "looked like a queen in a play that
night."

Alas, for Justine Delande, she was so busied with her mute telegraphy to
Alan Hawke that she never saw the startling family likeness of the two
women so eagerly watched by Hugh Johnstone. But the keen-eyed Alan Hawke
saw the girl's fascinated gaze. He noted her virginal bosom heaving in
a new and strange emotion. He marked the tender challenge of her dreamy
eyes as Berthe Louison's loving soul spoke out to the radiant young
beauty only held away from her heart by the stern old skeleton at the
feast.

The long-drawn-out splendors of the feast were over, and the ladies had,
at last, retired. Hawke observed the stony glare with which Johnstone
whispered a few words of command to Justine Delande, when the two men
sought the smoking-room.

The door was hardly closed upon them when the coffee and cigars were
served, when Johnstone, striding forward, locked the door.

"See here, Hawke!" abruptly said the host "I want you to serve me
to-night, and to stand by me while this she-devil is in Delhi. I've
got to run down to Calcutta on business for a few days. She will not be
here. She has some business of her own down there, also. First, find
out for me, for God's sake, all about her. How she came here; where
she hides in Europe; who her friends are. When you are able to, you can
follow her over the world. I'll foot the bill, as the Yankees say.

"Now, to-night, I wish you to take your leave conventionally. Get away
at once, and go immediately and telegraph to Anstruther in London. No,
don't deny you are intimate with him. I know it. Telegraph him that I am
in a position, now, to trace out and restore those missing jewels. The
secret of their hiding is mine at last. Here's a hundred pounds. Don't
spare your words. Within a month they will be in the hands of the
Viceroy. I have to play a part to get them--a dangerous part. I pledge
my whole estate to back this. But I must have my Baronetcy so that I
can leave India, for I fear the vengeance of the d