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 deferential 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.