Glittering wealth, splendid train of servants, the golden future stretching out before her, all this she noted not, for, even in the gray, colorless life of the pension school at Geneva, soft-eyed Hope whispered to her of a gentle and gracious mother! Loved--gone before, but not lost--and, here in the land of gaudy Asiatic splendors, a strange land of wonderment and fairy riches, she sobbed alone in her heart anguish: "He will not speak! He tells me nothing! A marble palace this, but never a home!" The timid girl had seen no beloved woman's face upon the fretwork of the walls of this Aladdin's castle.

And, in her own frightened heart, she remembered the ashen pallor of her father's face when she had faltered out the burning question of her yearning heart--the question of long years! The past was still a blank to her, while on this same night, crafty Alan Hawke in Delhi, and, in far Calcutta, a woman, pacing her boudoir in sad unrest, were both busied with the story of the vanished mother whom the Rose of Delhi had never seen! Alixe Delavigne, lonely and resolute, was thinking of her departure on the morrow, to face the man who had locked his dead past in his own marble heart, in his grand marble palace.

Her busy days at Calcutta had astounded the senior manager of Grindlay & Co.

The old banker marveled at the strange commissions and imperative orders of his beautiful business client, but many years had taught him much of the incomprehensibility of womanhood! Whereupon he marveled in silence, and bowing with his hand upon his heart, assured the lady of his absolute discretion, and the unbroken honor of the house.

"Some very queer little life histories go on out here in India!" mused the old banker, as he handed the lady her special letter to the Delhi agents of the great house which house which he directed.