A Fascinating Traitor

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"I will sell my precious knowledge, bit by bit, to Madame Berthe,"
he ruminated. "Evidently the Louison dares not face this stony-faced
Swiss Medusa. The felites histoires of Francois will fill up my
mental notebook." Major Hawke then sat down at ease in the cafe
of the Hotel National to indite a dispatch of spartan brevity to
"Madame Louison" at the Hotel Faucon, Lausanne. "The Cook's Agency
tell me that the London draft will be paid to-morrow. Francois
will deliver me the photographs, and relate his selected historical
excerpts, and then I will be ready to have a duel of wits with
Madame Berthe." So he simply telegraphed to Lausanne:

"Successful--arrive to-morrow night." He then dispatched the head
porter with the telegram, and while enjoying his parting brandy and
soda, was suddenly made aware of the near proximity of Mr. Phineas
Forbes of Chicago, who was anxiously drinking cocktail after
cocktail in a moody unrest. The lank Chicago capitalist waved his
tufted chin beard dejectedly as he answered the Briton's casual
salutation. "I'm worried about the girls," he simply said. "They're
off on the lake, with the Marquis de Santa Marina and that French
chap, the Count de Roquefort. I don't more than half like it." The
hour was late, and the heavy father glued his eyes upon the darkened
window pane. "Is Madame Forbes with them?" murmured the Englishman.

"Oh, Lord, no!" simply said the Illinois capitalist. "The girls
are used to going out alone with their gentlemen friends, but I'm
afraid that these two damned useless foreigners will upset the boat
and drown my two girls. I wouldn't care a rap if they were alone.
But these Dago noblemen are no good--at least that's my experience.
I indorsed a draft for one of them that Mommer and the girls dragged
up to the house last year. Came back marked 'N. G.'--I wish to God
the girls wouldn't pick up these fellows."

Alan Hawke hazarded the inquiry "Why do you permit it?"

The Chicago pork jammer thrust his hand in his pockets and whistled
reflectively. "How the deuce can I help it?" he reflectively
answered, "Mother and the girls go in for high society. What'll you
have? You can talk French to this fellow. Now, order up the best
in the house," Alan Hawke laughed and charitably divided the hour
of long waiting with the simple-hearted old father. At half-past
twelve, with a rush and a flutter, the two young falcons sailed into
the main hallway and effusively bade adieu to their limp cavaliers,
who slunk away, in different directions, when they observed the
disgruntled parent and the heartily amused Briton.

"So they brought you home safely?" calmly remarked Hawke, as he
watched the happy father gathering his chickens unto his wing.

"We brought them home safe," cutely remarked Miss Phenie. "Those
fellows are heavenly dancers, but they are not worth shucks in a
boat. I wish we had had you out with us. I like Englishmen!" with
which frank declaration Miss Phenie and Miss Genie whisked themselves
away to bed, Miss Genie leaning over the banister to jovially cry
out:

"Don't you go away till we fix up that Chillon trip." Major Hawke
and Phineas Forbes, Esq., drank a last libation to the friendly
god Neptune, the old man huskily remarking:

"Say, Major, those are two fine girls, and they will have a million
apiece. I want 'em to be sensible and marry Chicago men, but, they
both go in for coronets and all that humbug." The laughing Major
extricated himself from the social tentacles of the honest old boy,
mentally deciding to play off Miss Genie against Mad-ame Berthe
Louison.

"I will give these strange girls 'a day out.' It may reduce the
nez retrousseeoi my mysterious employer." And so he dreamed that
night that he was an assistant presiding genius of the great pig
Golgotha, where Phineas Forbes was the monarch of the meat ax.
"Right smart girls, and you bet they can take care of themselves,"
was the last encomium of their self-denying parent which rang in
Alan Hawke's ears as he wandered away into the Land of Nod.

"They are a queer lot," laughed the happy schemer, as he woke next
day to his closing labors at Geneva. "Now, for my check cashing,
then, Monsieur Francois, a farewell visit to Miss Euphrosyne, and
a secret council with the fair Genie," He merrily breakfasted, and
was more than rewarded for his Mephistophelian entertainment of
Francois. The sly Figaro "parted freely," and when he slunk back
to the "Institute" he was the richer by fifty francs. Major Hawke
was the happy possessor of the coveted photographs, and a private
address of Francois, artfully informing that person that he was going
to London, and on his return, in a few months, desired a cicerone
in the hypocritically placid town. Francois's eyes gleamed in a
happy anticipation of more Cognac and many easily earned francs.
"Now, Madame Berthe, I think I have the key of the enigma! I see
a year's assured comfort before me, for I can play the part of the
Saxon troops at Leipzig," the schemer joyously ruminated.

His farewell to Miss Delande impressed that thrifty dame with
the golden fortunes which had descended upon her sister. "Should
you return to India, Major," she sibillated, "I will give you
a confidential letter to Justine, for I know there is no one more
fitted to remain in charge of sweet Nadine than my dear sister!"
The Major blushingly accepted the honor, and directed the letter to
be sent at once to Morley's Hotel, for, as he mysteriously whispered,

"The Foreign office may send me back to India--in fact, I may be
telegraphed for at any moment, and your sister will surely find a
fast friend in me."

"Easily gulled!" laughed Alan Hawke. "I will sweeten' upon Miss
Justine; those thin lips indicate the auri sacra fames. These
miserly Swiss sisters may aid me to approach the veiled Rose Bird."
His delight at fingering the crisp proceeds of Anstruther's check
sent him to the Ouchy steamer in the very happiest of moods,
and, his cup was running over when the birdlike Miss Genie Forbes
descended upon him to announce a meeting on the morrow at Montreux.

"We can do the castle, and essay the airy railroad at Territet
Glion, have a jolly dinner on the hill, and come home on the last
boat! You be sure to meet Phenie and me." The astounded Major
murmured his delight and surprise. "Oh! Popper will let us go
up there. He likes you--he says that you are a thoroughbred. So,
we'll cut the other fellows and come alone. Say, can't you scare
up another fellow like yourself for Phenie?" Whereat Alan Hawke
laughed, and promised to secure an eligible "fellow" among the
migratory Englishmen hovering around Lausanne-Ouchy, and he pledged
a future friendship with the patient Phineas Forbes, who lingered
in the cafe, engulfing cocktails, while "Mother and Phenie were out
shopping." The vivacious Genie had confided to her callous swain
that she had watched him as he lingered on Rousseau's Island.

"I rather thought that you were sick and distressed, you looked
so peaked like, and I was mighty near speaking to you. I was just
bound to meet you." And upon this frank declaration, Alan Hawke
kissed her firm white hand, agreeing to her plans, and the glow of
prosperity shone out upon his impassive face, as he glided away to
meet the strange woman whom he distrusted. "I hold the trump cards
now, my lady!" he cried, as he watched Miss Genie's handkerchief
fluttering on the quay. Major Alan Hawke wasted no time in his
three hours' voyage to Lausanne-Ouchy in carefully preparing for
his interview with Madame Berthe Louison. He abandoned the idea of
trying the "whip hand," remembering how suddenly he had descended
from the "high horse." "Bah! She is about as sentimental as a
rat-tail file. However, she is good for my passage to India, at
any rate, and, the nearer I am to old Johnstone and this pretty
heiress to be, the better my all-round chances are." So, he contented
himself with watching the pictured shores of Lake Leman glide by,
and wondering if he might not turn aside safely to the chase of the
bright-eyed, sharp-featured, Miss Genie Forbes. He had profited by
Phineas Forbes's frank disclosures, and yet the Madame Sans Gene
manners of the heiresses rather frightened him. He was aware from
the amatory failure in the dim old cathedral that Miss Genie was
armed cap-a-fie. "Those American girls, apparently so approachable,
are all ready to stand to arms at a moment's notice." And so, he
drifted back in his day dreams toward the Land of the Pagoda Tree,
with Ouchy and Chillon. He studied the beautiful face of the lonely
child from the school-girl photograph, and decided, in spite of
hideous frocks and a lack of conventional war paint, that she was
a rare beauty.

"Yes! She will do--with the money. All she needs is the art to show
off her points, and that is easily gained. The recruits in Vanity
Fair easily pick up the tricks of society, and old Hugh's money and
prospective elevation will surely draw suitors around like flies
swarming near the honey." The boat gracefully glided in to the port
of Ouchy before Major Hawke's day dream faded away.

A flattering dream which led him on to a future gilded by Sir Hugh
Johnstone's money. He longed to ruffle it bravely with the best.
To hold up his head once more in official circles, and to smother
the ugly floating memories ef a renegade who had served those English
guns under the fierce Sikkim hill tribes against his one-time fellow
soldiers. "I must have that money, with or without the girl! There
must be a way to it! I will cut through the barriers to get it!"
There was a steely glitter in his blue eyes as he murmured: "Now
for the fox's hide! She shall have her way--for a time! My play
comes on later, when the deal is with me!"

He sprang lightly ashore, and was chatting with the gold-banded
porter of the Hotel Faucon, when a lovely face, thrilling in its
awakened emotion, met his glance at the window of a carriage. He
dispatched his luggage to the Faucon, and sprang lightly in the
carriage when the omnibuses had departed for the Lausanne plateau.
Alan Hawke was carefully differential in his greeting and he meekly
answered all the rapid queries of his mysterious employer.

"You have closed up your own private affairs?" she briskly queried.

"All is ready for the road in one day more. I have a private social
engagement for to-morrow," he replied. "But I brought you all the
sailing dates and the detailed information you requested."

"You obtained the pictures safely, then, and with a prudent caution,"
anxiously demanded Madame Louison.

"You shall know all soon. I hope that I have satisfied you!" he
said, handing her a packet, failing to tell her that he had kept
two pictures of the far-away girl for his own private use. They were
now near the plateau where the Hotel Faucon shows its semi-circular
front to the splendid panorama unrolled before its windows.

An afternoon concert was in progress at the Casino, near the local
museum. "We will stop here for a few moments," said the excited
woman. "You can go on alone, and walk over to the hotel and secure
your own rooms. Then send your card up to me in the usual manner.
To-night we will go out separately and meet for a conference. We
can arrange all our business." The Major bowed submissively, and
assisted the lady to alight.

Madame Louison dismissed her carriage, and the confederates-to-be
entered the afternoon concert room. A superb orchestra was playing
the finishing bars of the last number on the program, and the audience
had dwindled away to a few knots of demure residents. Following
his passive policy, the adventurer sat silently, stealing oblique
glances at his companion as she nervously unfolded the wrappings of
the coveted pictures. There was a gasp, a low moan, as the woman's
head fell back. Alan Hawke's strong arms were clasped round her, as
she leaned back helplessly in her fauteuil. But a smile of secret
triumph was on his face as he quickly bore the helpless form to an
anteroom at once opened by the frightened ushers. Berthe Louison's
face was corpse-like in its pallor, as she lay there upon a divan,
her fingers still clutching the photograph.

"There is a physician near by," hazarded a sympathetic woman who
had crowded into the room. The music had stopped with a crash.

"Summon him at once!" energetically ordered Hawke. "Some brandy--quick!"
he cried, listening to her agonized words, "Valerie! My God! It
is Valerie herself! My poor sister!" In a few moments an elderly
man parted the assembling loiterers. His bustling air of command
soon dispelled the loiterers. A woman attendant was bending over
the still senseless woman as the spectacled medico seized Alan
Hawke's arm. "Has your wife ever had a previous heart attack?" he
gravely asked, as he opened his lancet case. Major Hawke shook his
head, and gazed pityingly upon the beautiful pallid face before
him.

"Can I be of any use to Monsieur?" demanded the chef d'orchestre
in evening grand tenue, his baton still in his hand.

There was a glance of wondering astonishment as the Englishman faced
the speaker. "Wieniawski--Casimir, you here?" The other dropped his
voice as the physician ripped up the sleeve of the patient's gown.

"Major Hawke, I thought you were still in Delhi? Your wife--"
faltered the artist, as he listened to a low moan when the lancet
blade entered the ivory arm of the sufferer. Then, with a backward
step, he pressed his hands to his brows. "My God! It is Alixe
Delavigne!" he brokenly said. But Hawke sprang to his side and
quickly drew him from the room.

"Not a word! Not a single word to any one! Where are you stopping?
I will come to you tonight!" the excited man sternly said, his firm
hand still clutching the musician's arm.

"Here, at the Casino! Come in after ten! I will await you! But
where did you meet her?" the Polish violinist cried, speaking as
if in a dream.

"You shall know all later! I must get her to the hotel!" He returned
to the physician's side, who authoritatively cried, "Now an easy
carriage and to the Faucon, you said?" In half an hour, Berthe
Louison was sleeping, a nurse at her side, while Alan Hawke counted
the moments crawling on till ten o'clock.

CHAPTER III.

AND AT DELHI WHAT AM I TO DO?

Major Alan Hawke was the "observed of all observers," in the cosy
salon of the Grand Hotel Faucon, when the sympathetic hotel manager
interrupted a colloquy between the handsome Briton and the Doctor.
"A mere syncope, my dear sir. Perhaps--even only the result of
tight lacing, or inaction. Perhaps some sudden nerve crisis. These
are the results of the easy luxury of an enervating high-life. All
these social habits are weakening elements. Now, fortunately, your
wife has a singularly strong vital nature. You may safely dismiss
all your fears. Madame will be entirely herself in the morning."

"Can I be of any service?" demanded the genial host, secretly urged
on by a coterie of curious, womanly sympathizers in silk and muslin.

"I am the trustee of Madame Louison, in some important business
matters, and not her husband," gravely remarked the Major. "I only
came up here to confer with her upon some matters of moment." Both
the listeners bowed in silence.

"Then, my dear sir, you can be perfectly reassured," the physician
briskly concluded, tendering his card. "My professional conscience
will not allow me to make even a single future visit, as doctor,
to the charming Madame Louison. Should Madame awake in other than
her normal health and spirits, I should be professionally at fault."

Major Hawke then led the doctor aside and pressed a five-pound
note upon him. "Madame is of a wonderfully strong constitution.
An heiress of nature's choicest favors," the happy Galen floridly
said, as he took his leave.

"So she is," grimly assented Hawke.

The gossipy boniface was already spreading such meager details of
the sudden seizure as he had been able to pick up, and, the words
"Polish noblewoman," "Italian marchesa," "French countess," were
tossed about freely in the light froth of the conversation in the
ladies' drawing-room.

Meanwhile, Alan Hawke was smoking a meditative cigar alone, while
pacing the old Cantonal high road before the Faucon. "I think I will
remain on picket here," he mused. "This fiddler fellow, Wieniawski,
must not meet her. She must be led on to leave here at once.
Constitution, nerve, aplomb; she has them all. She should have been
born a man. What a soldier! One of nature's mistakes--man's mental
organization, woman's soft, flooding emotions, and beauty's fiery
passions."

"I must pump Casimir. He will be safely nailed to the platform
by his duties, from eight to ten. I will not leave her a moment,
however, till he has the baton in his hand. I will then watch
him until ten--meet him down there, and, if he meets her after we
separate for the night, he is a smarter Pole than I take him for.
And now I must go and frighten her away from here."

Major Hawke was quick to note all the outer indications of man's
varying fortunes. He had so long buffeted the waves of adversity
himself that he was a past master of the art of measuring the depth
of a hidden purse. He recalled the brilliant Casimir Wieniawski
of eight years past--the curled darling of the hot-hearted ladies
of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and Singapore. In a glance of cursory
inspection Alan Hawke had noted the doubtful gloss of the dress suit;
it was the polish of long wear, not the velvety glow of newness.
There was a growing bald spot, scarcely hidden by the Hyperion Polish
curls; there were crows'-feet around the bold, insolent eyes, and
the man's smile was lean and wolfish when the glittering white teeth
flashed through the professional smirk of the traveling artist.
The old, easy assurance was still there, but cognac had dulled the
fires of genius; the tones of the violin trembled, even under the
weakening but still magic fingers, and the splendid sapphire and
diamond cluster ring of old was replaced by a too evident Palais
Royal work of inferior art.

"Poor devil! It is the downward fluttering of the wearied eagle!"
mused Alan Hawke. "Women, roulette, champagne, and high life--all
these past riches fade away into the gloomy pleasures of restaurant
cognac, dead-shot absinthe, and the vicarious smiles of a broken
soubrette or so! And all the more you can be now dangerous to me,
Monsieur Casimir Wieniawski, for the old maneater forgets none of
his tricks, even when toothless."

Casimir, the handsome Pole, glib of tongue, the heir to a thousand
minor graces, reckless in outpouring the wine of Life, had truly
gone the downward way with all the abandon of his showy, insincere
race. Hawke well knew the final level of misery awaiting the
wandering, broken-down artist here in a land where really fine
music was a mere drug; where the orchestra was only a cheap lure
to enhance the cafe addition. The "Professor" was but a minor staff
officer of the grim Teutonic Oberkellner of the Brasserie Concert.

"But how shall I muzzle this Robert Macaire of the bow?" cogitated
Hawke, as he anxiously eyed the two windows of Madame Louison's
rooms, and then sternly gazed at the open front doors of the Hotel
Faucon.

A light broke in upon his brain. "There is the golden lure of the
Misses Phenie and Genie Forbes, of Chicago, U. S. A. Those madcap
girls will be easily gulled. They arrive to-morrow at nine. A few
stage asides, as to the stock romance of every Polish upstart, will
do the trick!"

"Russian 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 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.

"Major, you are not an homme d'affaires. Do me the favor to count
your money," laughed the mocking convalescent. "Thank you," continued
the lady as he obeyed her. "Now I will only detain you here till
ten o'clock. Then you must disappear and not know me again until
we meet at the Hotel Vittorio Emmanuele at Brindisi. Should any
accident occur, you are to take the Sepoy for Bombay direct and go
on to Delhi. Leave me a letter at Suez and also one at Aden, care
P. and O. Company. I will ask at each of these places. I will go
direct to Calcutta, and will then meet you at Delhi. Arriving at
Delhi, you may telegraph to me care Grindlay & Co., Calcutta."

"I wonder if she bled Anstruther," inwardly growled Hawke, as he
recognized the name of that social butterfly's bankers. But the
lady only sweetly continued: "I have some business in Calcutta. You
can write to me at the general postoffice at Allahabad, and leave
your Delhi address there. I shall probably telegraph for you to
come down and meet me there."

Major Hawke, neatly entering the lady's directions in a silver-clasped
betting book, murmured lazily without lifting his eyes: "You seem
to know a great deal about Hindostan."

"I have made a careful study of it for years--long years," said
the woman with a telltale flush of color, as the servants entered
with the impromptu feast.

They were left alone, at an imperious signal, and Madame Louison
bade Hawke regale himself en garcon. The Major paused with suspended
pencil, as he quietly approached the decisive question: "And at
Delhi, what am I to do?"

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