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.