government launch steamed out, and an officer of the vessel
led up Her Majesty's Consul to address the mysterious lady passenger.

There was a rush of volunteers when the woman, always brave in sorrow
and ever fate defying, fainted away in a deathly trance as her eyes
eagerly scanned the brief dispatch of the Viceroy. They were underway
again when she realized the fearful decrees of a merciless fate! She
read with a shudder, the lines again and again, whispering: "Can it be?"

"Hugh Johnstone murdered by persons--unknown at Delhi? Hasten on to
London. Anstruther will have full details. Please acknowledge!"

And it was half an hour before the beautiful Nemesis who had clouded
Hugh Johnstone's life had penned her simple answer. Only at night, on
the voyage afterward, did she ever leave her splendid staterooms,
and when Brindisi was reached she vanished with her loyal servants so
quickly that even the veriest fortune hunter could not follow on her
trail. "Some terrible row--some sad family happening," was the general
smoking-room verdict! But, with a heart strangely yearning to the
orphaned child, Berthe Louison hastened, without stopping, by Venice to
lovely Munich and on to gay Paris. "She shall be mine now--mine to love,
to cherish, my poor darling!" vowed the woman whose eyes shown out in an
infinite pity! The cup of vengeance was dashed away from her lips for,
behind the arras, the waiting headsman of Fate had struck in the night
and laid low the man who would have compassed her death!

Madame Alixe Delavigne was only a gracious memory to the sympathetic men
passengers who hastened on to London via Mont Cenis, but the chattering
gossips of the Rue Berlioz noted, with an eager Gallic curiosity, the
return of the mysterious occupant of No. 9. Jules Victor and his wife
were seen, however, for only one day, busied about their usual household
avocations, and then the returning travelers vanished once more to
baffle the chatterers. "Diantre! Comme ils sont des voyageurs!" cried
the coachman who took the wanderers to the Gare St. Lazare. There
was need of haste now, for Madame Louison had received three foreign
dispatches, besides a letter from Captain Anstruther, now waiting
impatiently at London, and chafing over his unsuccessful queries
at Morley's Hotel. The gallant Captain's letter was pregnant with
governmental mysteries, and yet the beautiful woman sighed as she
saw the vein of personal interest but too clearly evi