“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 complexion of the Nepaul days, as the clear-eyed woman, faintly smiling, discerned his “hedging” policy. “You will not be put to the slightest inconvenience.” She opened a handsome traveling bag. The falcon-eyed Major Hawke observed the gleam of a pearl handled and silver chased revolver of serviceable make, and there was also a very wicked-looking Venetian dagger lying on the table, even then within the lady’s reach! “Here is the sum of five hundred pounds in English notes,” said Berthe. “That will neatly take you to Delhi, and there is fifty more to liquidate my bill, and pay the medical expenses. I am not desirous that the landlord should know of my departure. You may bring all my trunks on. I will be waiting for you at the ‘Vittorio Emmanuele’ at Brindisi. Please do telegraph to me from Turin of your arrival.” Cool globe-trotter as he was, Alan Hawke was speechless. “Shall I not see you safely on board the Constance train?” he muttered. “The nurse will attend to all that; money will do a great deal,” the lady said. “I will send her back from Constance. Please do ring the bell.” The Major was obedient, and he listened in dumb astonishment, as Madame Louison ordered a very dainty supper for two, with a bottle of Burgundy and a well-iced flask of Veuve Cliquot. When the door had closed upon the gaping servant, the lady merrily laughed: “Pray take up your sinews of war, Major. I shall consider you as retained in my service, if I am obeyed.” Alan Hawke turned and faced the puzzling “employer” with a half defiant question: “And when shall I know the real nature of my duties?” as he carefully folded up the welcome bundle of notes, without even looking at them.