sian brutality, fugitive Prince, Siberian wanderings, romantic
escape, killed the Russian general who burned his chateau; all that sort
of thing will enchant these. This may occupy Casimir and leave me free.
When the devil is idle he catches flies, and under the cover of this
rosy glow of romance I will get away to India, but only after Madame
Alixe Delavigne goes. I can afford to put in ten pounds on Casimir to
loosen his lying tongue. In vino veritas may apply even to a gallant
and distinguished Pole. If I can get the true story of Alixe Delavigne's
life, then I have the key of the Johnstone mystery. Ah! There is now a
duty signal for me!" The Major smartly approached the main entrance of
that cosiest of Swiss family hotels, the Faucon, as the anxious face
of a woman nurse appeared. "Madame veut bien voir Monsieur!" simply
announced the servant. Major Hawke brushed by her with a nod and quickly
mounted the stair. To his utter surprise, on entering Madame Berthe
Louison's apartment, the signs of an approaching departure were but too
evident. A stout Swiss maiden was busied stolidly packing several trunks
in an indiscriminate haste, while the fair invalid herself sat at the
center table poring over an opened Baedeker and the outspread maps
brought on by her "business agent." Hawke's murmured astonishment was
at once cut short by the decisive notes of Berthe Louison's flutelike
voice.

"We have no time to waste, Major!" she said, with an affected
cheerfulness. "I am all right now. There is an eleven-thirty train for
Constance. I will take that, reach Munich, and get right over to Venice
by the Brenner Pass, and thence go down to Aricona, and Brindisi.
You can return to Geneva, and, by Mont Cenis and Turin you will reach
Brindisi before me. So, I leave to-night; you can go up to Geneva
to-morrow night. No one will possibly suspect our business connection in
this way. I will have time to see you depart for Bombay, before I take
the steamer for Calcutta. I have marked off the sailings. This little
occurrence here to-night has brought us both too much under the eyes of
other people."

"Bah!" said the astounded Major. "No one knows anything of us here. We
are of no importance."

"You think so?" mused the woman, as if careless of his presence. "And
yet I have seen a face here, rising out of a past that is long dead and
buried. Now, are you ready to meet me at Brindisi?"

Alan Hawke blushed even through the sun-browned comp