to the rescue of the captive Princess. Justine Delande really loved her beautiful charge with all the fond attachment of a mature woman for the one rose blossoming in her lonely heart. Their gray passionless lives had run on together since Nadine’s childhood, as brooks quietly mingle, seeking the unknown sea! She now felt the wine of life stirring within her, and, seizing upon another justification for her dangerous secret association with Alan Hawke, she murmured: “I will tell him of all this. He has high influence with the Home Government. This Captain Anstruther on the Viceroy’s staff is certainly his firm friend. We must leave here and return to dear old Switzerland. Perhaps the Major himself knows the secret of the family history!” And there was a meaning light in her eyes as she stole back to Nadine’s room when the silver gong sounded, and throwing her arms around the girl, whispered: “We are going home soon, darling! Be brave and trust to me! I will find out the story of the past and tell you all, my darling!” Justine Delande unwound the girl’s arms from round her neck, while honest tears trembled in her eyes. The low cry: “My mother! My darling mother! He never even breathes the name!” had loosened all the tide of repressed feeling long pent up in Justine Delande’s heart. “Trust to me! You shall know all, dearest! I am sure that Euphrosyne knows, and we shall see her soon!” So with an added reason for their second meeting, Miss Justine descended the grand marble stair, murmuring: “He shall tell me all he knows; he can search the past here! He can help me, and he must--for Nadine’s sake!” And as he bowed low before her in courteous acknowledgment of the master’s presentation, Alan Hawke caught the lambent gleam of the newly awakened fires in Justine Delande’s eyes. “She is another woman,” he mused. With one silent glance of veiled recognition, Alan Hawke returned to his diplomatic fence with the wary old nabob who sat at the head of the glittering table. He was in no doubt now as to the second meeting at Ram Lal Singh’s shop, for Justine Delande’s eyes promised him more than even his habitual hardihood would have dared to ask. “What the devil’s up now?” he mused, “Something about the girl, I warrant. I suppose that the old brute has exiled her here for safety.” And then and there, Alan Hawke swore to reach the side of the Veiled Rose of Delhi, though the cold gray eyes of the host never caught him off his guard a moment in the two hours of the pompously drawn-out feast. Both the men were keenly watching each other now. It had been no mere accidental slip of the tongue which guided Alan Hawke in his greeting of the old ex-Commissioner when Hugh Johnstone entered the reception-room, a study in gray and white, with only the three priceless pigeon-blood rubies lending a color to his snowy linen. “Upon my word, Sir Hugh, you are looking younger than I ever saw you,” said the visitor gracefully advancing.