Alan Hawke had already abandoned the idea of any sentimental advances upon Alixe Delavigne. “Strange, strange,” he murmured; “a woman can sometimes easily be flattered into a second conjugation of the verb ‘To Love,’ but an internal previous evidence of man’s unreliability can do that which no personal sorrow can effect. The key to this woman’s behavior is in the story of her sister’s shadowed life. “The hiatus from Hugh Fraser to Pierre Troubetskoi covers the tragedy of Valerie Delavigae’s life, the death blow was then struck, and the central figure is the child. So, with the strangely acquired fortune at her beck and call, Alixe Delavigne has consecrated herself to that most illogical of human careers--a woman’s silent vengeance! That achieved, will the furnace fires of her stormy heart be lit by the hand of passion?” He ruminated sagely over these matters as he sped on over the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. The western Ghauts were now far behind him and their dark basalt crags. Bombay, Hyderabad, Berar, the Central Provinces, Central India, and the southern prong of Oude was reached. He was, however, no whit the wiser when he reached the Ganges and hastily sought the telegraph station at Allahabad. But he felt like a prince in the direct line of succession with his net eight hundred pounds still to the good. His first care was to telegraph to Madame Berthe Louison, to the care of Grindley, at Calcutta: “Waiting at Allahabad for your letters, and news of your safe arrival.” While rushing past the Vindhia Mountains he had encountered several of his old Indian acquaintances. The mere hint of a secret governmental employ of gravity satisfied the languid curiosity of the qui hais. For a week he lingered in the “City of God,” and daily haunted the post and telegraph offices. He had sent on to the Delhi Club a note for the maw of the local gossips, and also had dispatched a skillfully constructed letter to the unsuspecting Hugh Johnstone. With a veiled flattery of the old civilian’s wisdom and experience, he referred to his desire to consult him as to a secret journey in the direction of the Pamirs. The opportune windfall of Anstruther’s ecarte and Berthe Louison’s liberal advance enabled Major Alan Hawke to maintain a dignified and easy port as he wandered through Allahabad. Strolling by the waters of the Ganges and Jumna, he invoked anew the blessings of the goddess Fortuna, as he gazed out upon the majestic heaven descended stream. The daily tide of travel toward Delhi brought on each day some familiar faces, and yet Alan Hawke lingered gently, declining their traveling company. “Waiting orders,” he said, with the sad, sweet smile of one enjoying a sinecure. His swelling outward port thoroughly proved that the days were gone when he was to be scanned before the morning salutation. Les eaux sout basses, the impecunious Frenchman mourns, but there was a swelling tide bearing Alan Hawke onward now.