"Bring the General, here, tomorrow evening, at eight! I will be busied till then! There is nothing for you to do now!" The astonished schemer was in a maze as he dashed away to the Calcutta Club to meet General Abercromby.

"She is a very devil and a mistress of the Black Art!" he mused.

"I will stand by her," he admiringly cried, "as long as it pays me." It was the honest tribute of a grateful scoundrel's heart! While the happy Abercromby dallied with Major Hawke over a claret cup, an official messenger sought him out, at the Club.

"There, my boy! You see that I am a man of my word!" cried the would-be lover.

Alan Hawke's lip trembled as he tore open an envelope directed to him and marked: "On Her Majesty's Service." The first in many years.