ne together that Hugh Johnstone was happy, when, with
courtly gallantry, he escorted the beauty, who had set Delhi all agog,
to her garden-bowered nest.

"Have I kept my compact?" said Berthe, as they stood once more in her
"tiger's den."

"You have, madame!" said Hugh Johnstone. "I have been considering all.
I will leave secretly for Calcutta in two or three days. You had better
follow me in a week. I have some private business there. I will ask
my friend, Major Hawke, to show you the environs. You can trust him.
Telegraph me to Grindlay's Bank, Calcutta, of your arrival. I will meet
you. Our business transacted, we can return together on the same train.
All will then be safe." His own secret preparations were all made.

"I agree to all," said Berthe. "And, as to Nadine?"

Johnstone turned with blazing eyes, "You are to see her each day, at her
own home, in the presence of Justine Delande. She will have my orders.
Remember our compact! All your future association with her depends on
your prudence. I will not be betrayed or openly disgraced!" His face was
as black as a murderer caught in the act.

"I remember!" said the beauty of the Bungalow.

"To mystify the fools here, if I will bring my daughter and take you for
a drive, each day at four, till I go," said Johnstone. "And, then,
I'll have Hawke show you the city." He bowed, and at once disappeared,
leaving his enemy laughing. But he grinned.

"If she knew that I go to meet Douglas Fraser, my lady would pass an
uneasy night! I hold the trump cards now!"

Major Alan Hawke smiled grimly the next day, when he presented to Hugh
Johnstone a neatly got up cipher, answering dispatch in code words which
had cost Ram Lal just half of the bribe which Hawke gave him for the sly
Hindu telegraph clerk.

"Ah! Anstruther was prompt!" said the neatly tricked nabob, when Hawke
translated:

"Intelligence gratifying. Name approved and on list. Appointment sure!"
Three days later, Delhi missed Hugh Johnstone from the afternoon drives,
which showed Madame Louison and Nadine to an eager bevy of Madame
Grundys. But the envied of all men was Major Alan Hawke, escorting
Madame Louison for a week over the storied plains of the Jumna.

When Madame Berthe Louison and her two body servants took the Calcutta
train, local society jumped to its sage conclusion.

"Old Hugh will lead the beautiful Countess to the altar, while Major
Alan Hawke will bear off the Rosebud of Delhi, and so be