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.
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