The old nabob's heart leaped up in a welcome relief at this command. His wrinkled face was of the hue of yellowed ivory, and his cold blue eyes were weak and watery, as he heavily lurched into a chair facing his hostess. Courage and craft had not failed him, for already Douglas Fraser was speeding on to Delhi from Calcutta, the sole occupant of a special train. In the long vigil of the night, Hugh Johnstone had evolved a plan to ward off the blow of the sword of Fate! But watchfully silent he awaited his enemy's conversational attack.

"Damn her! I will outwit her yet!" he silently swore.

"Before you give me your answer, Hugh Fraser," said the calm-voiced woman, "I wish to tell you again what, in your mad jealousy, you would not believe. I swear to you that Pierre Troubetskoi's letter, written to my dead sister, was written in ignorance of her marriage with you. The frightful scenes of the carnage of Paris had tossed us to and fro, and the careless destruction of the envelope, addressed to my sister under her maiden name, prevented me from proving her innocence as a wife. Pierre Troubetskoi had long known my father, who had been an attache in Russia. He was Valerie's knightly suitor. And he fell into the estates which now burden me with wealth, while absent upon the Czar's secret affairs. My gallant old father was sacrificed to the frenzy of the time; his soldier's face betrayed him, his rosette of the Legion doomed him, Troubetskoi's letter to our father demanding Valerie's hand was returned to the writer, through the Russian Legation, a year later, after the reorganization of the Paris Post-office. I do not ask you to believe this, but by the God of Heaven, it is my warrant for forcing myself to the side of my dead sister's child. She shall yet have every acre and every rouble that Pierre Troubetskoi would have given to this child whom you hide. My sister died with her empty arms stretched to Heaven, imploring God for her child. And now, what terms will you make with me. In the one case, an armed peace; in the other, 'war to the knife!'"

"What would you have?" he stubbornly muttered. "You seek my ruin."

"I do not!" solemnly answered Berthe Louison. "God has blasted your life in denying you the love of your own child. You rule her by fear. You, in your selfish passion, once reached out your strong hand and crushed this girl's mother, a poor, fragile flower, in her girlhood. Valerie believed Pierre to be dead or false when she timidly crossed the threshold of the wedded home which you made a prison for her! You only care for this bubble Baronetcy and for your heaped-up hoards. The tribute of the shrieking ryot! Now, here are my terms: I will go down with you to Calcutta, and deliver over to you there the receipt for the deposit of jewels which holds back your coveted honor. You may do with them as you will! A visit to the Viceroy will at once clear the path. Tell any story you will of their recovery. An underling's unfaithfulness or the loss of the paper. You may remove them and surrender them as you will. Perhaps a fanciful discovery of their hiding-place here, their surrender by Hindu thieves, frightened at last; any of these conventional lies will clear your official record of the olden stain. Long years ago I would have treated with you, but I wanted to find the child. You hid her away from me. I found you out by chance in your changed name and new official residence."

"And your terms?" demanded Johnstone. He saw, with lightning cunning, a pathway leading him out of his troubles. The vigil of the night before had borne its fruit already.

"That I have free access to your house and home. That I shall be the honored guest at your table. That I shall be left in no dubious social standing here. That I may see your daughter, learn to know her, and you may prudently arrange the story I am to tell her later. As Madame Berthe Louison, a tourist of wealth, an art dilettante, a French woman of rank and position, your social guaranty will keep the pack of human wolves away from my retreat here. I have my papers to prove all this."

"When must this be? Before I receive the jewels? Before my title to the baronetcy is perfected? What guaranty have I?" he replied.

"My honor alone! I pledge you now that I will not make myself known to Nadine until you have received the jewels and the Crown has obtained its long sequestered property. We are to come back here together. The future relations can be decided upon when I have satisfied my natural affection; when your innocently besmirched record has been righted." Hugh Johnstone's silvered head was bowed for a long interval in his trembling hands. "You will not betray me to the authorities, when all is done? Your lips shall be sealed as to the past?" Alixe Delavigne bowed in silence. "Then I accept your terms upon one condition only: That until we return from Calcutta, you will only see Nadine in my presence or in that of Mademoiselle Delande, her governess. It is only fair. When you have restored to me the jewels, you can then concert with me upon a plan to enlighten Nadine, with no scandal to me, no heart-break to her. The slightest gossip as to a family skeleton reaching the Viceroy or the home authorities would lead to my public disgrace."

Alixe Delavigne paced the room in silence for a few moments, while Hugh Johnstone's eyes were fixed upon the opened cabinet whence Jules Victor had so fiercely sprung forth as a champion.

"Be it so!" sternly replied Alixe Delavigne. "And may God confound and punish the one who breaks the pact."

"When do you wish to come? When can you go to Calcutta? I would like to hasten matters," demanded the old nabob, with his eyes averted. The beautiful woman paused, and after a moment replied:

"To-morrow, come here and bring me to your house to dine. This afternoon you may call here and drive me over Delhi in your carriage. This will set a public seal upon our acquaintance. My maid can accompany us. This done, I will go to Calcutta with my two European servants, as you wish. You can take the train on either the preceding or the following day. It will avoid both spies and gossip."

"I will go before you and await you!" eagerly said Hugh Johnstone, rising. "I will ask another person to dine with us to-morrow, and this evening I will prepare my daughter for the dinner, so that your coming will be no surprise to her. Shall I bring my carriage here at four to-day?"

"I will await you," gravely said Alixe Delavigne, as she bowed in answer to her guest's formal signal of departure.

An hour later Jules Victor reported to his mistress: "We drove to the telegraph office, where I awaited the gentleman for some time, and then we repaired to his home."

There was a disgruntled man whose curses upon his kinsman's changing moods were both loud and deep when Douglas Fraser received a telegram that night at Allahabad. "Is the old man crazy?" he demanded, as he read the words: "Wait at Allahabad for me. Keep shady. With you in three days. Telegraph your address." The canny young Scot thought of a coming legacy and obeyed the head of his clan.

Madame Berthe Louison, as Delhi was destined to know her, lingered long over her afternoon driving toilet. There was a recurring fear which made her tremble. "Would Hugh Johnstone divulge the facts as to the jewels to the Viceroy, and so gain his free rehabilitation-and then defy her? No-no! He never would dare!" she answered. "My agents are even now watching that bank. The bank would never give up the sealed packages contents unknown, save on surrender of the carefully drawn receipts." And then Berthe remembered her own secret work at Calcutta. The Grindlays knew of the surreptitious attempts made by the plausible Hugh Fraser to withdraw the deposit long before the baronetcy episode. And Berthe laughed, in memory of her capture of the receipts in the old days at Brighton, while looking for the stolen letter.

Long before that rising star of fashion, Major Alan Hawke, returned from General Willoughby's delightful dinner upon the day of Hugh Johnstone's crafty surrender, he knew that Hugh Johnstone had astounded Delhi by a personal exploitation of the Lady of the Silver Bungalow.

"By Gad! Hawke!" roared old Brigadier Willoughby, with his mouth full of chutney, "Johnstone is going the pace! First he produces a daughter, a hidden treasure, and now this wonderfully beautiful French countess."

"I suppose, General," lightly said the Major, "the old nabob will marry and retire to Europe on his coming baronetcy."

"Likely enough!" sputtered Willoughby. "You lucky young dog. I suppose you are in the secret?"

But neither that night, nor two days later, at Major Hawke's superb dinner at the Delhi Club, did the jeunesse doree of the old capital extract an admission from that mysterious "secret service" man, Major Alan Hawke. "You cannot deny, Hawke, that you dined at the marble house with the beauty whom we are all toasting," said a rallying roisterer. "And—with the Veiled Rose of Delhi!" said another, still more eagerly.

"It is true, gentlemen" gravely said Major Hawke, "that I was invited to dinner at the marble house, but Madame Louison is a stranger to me, and I believe a tourist of some rank. It was merely a formal affair. I believe that she brought letters from Paris to Hugh Johnstone." Late that night Alan Hawke laughed, as he pocketed his winnings at baccarat. "Three hundred pounds to the good! I'm a devil for luck!" And he sat down in his room to think over all the events of a day which had half turned his head. Warned by Justine Delande that Madame Louison was bidden to dine with Hugh Johnstone, Alan Hawke closely interrogated her. She evidently knew and suspected nothing. "Ah! Berthe plays a lone hand against the world," he smiled.

His mysterious employer had merely bidden him be ready to meet her there, without surprise. There was as yet no lightning move up on the chess board, and in vain he studied her resolute, smiling face. "All I can tell you," murmured Justine to her handsome Mentor, in the seclusion of Ram Lal's back room, "is that this Madame Berthe Louison comes to spend the day in looking over Hugh Johnstone's art treasures. Nadine and I are to meet her, with the master. Do you know aught of her?"

"Nothing, dear Justine," unhesitatingly lied Alan Hawke. "Watch her and tell me all."

"I will," smilingly replied the Swiss. "I have a strange fear that Hugh Johnstone has known her before, that he intends to marry her, and then to send us two, Nadine and I, away to a quiet life in Europe." Whereupon Alan Hawke laughed loud and long.

"She is only a bird of passage, some wealthy globe wanderer, perhaps even a sly adventuress. No, old Johnstone will not tempt Fortune."

"He has been so unusually amiable," agnostically said Justine. "Of course he could hide such a design easily from Nadine, who knows nothing of love."

"She will learn! She will learn—in due time," laughed Hawke. "There is but one thing possible. This whole pretended visit may be a sham—she may even be the belle amie of this old curmudgeon."

"I will watch all three of them! You shall know all!" murmured Justine, as she stole away, not without the kisses of her secret knight burning upon her lips.

"What a consummate actress!" mused Alan Hawke, when, for the first time, since Nadine Johnstone's arrival, a formal dinner party enlivened the dull monotony of the marble house. The round table, set for five, gave Hugh Johnstone the strategic advantage of separating his secret enemy from his blushing daughter. Hawke demurely paid his devoirs to Madame Justine Delande, with a finely studied inattention to either the guest of the evening or the beautiful girl who only murmured a few words when presented to her father's only visitor. "I wonder if Justine, poor soul, will see the resemblance?" It had been a triumph of art, Madame Berthe Louison's magnificent dinner toilette, those rich robes which effaced the opening-rose beauty of the slim girl in the simplicity of her rare Indian lawn frock. Rich color and flowers and diamonds heightened the splendid loveliness of the woman who "looked like a queen in a play that night."

Alas, for Justine Delande, she was so busied with her mute telegraphy to Alan Hawke that she never saw the startling family likeness of the two women so eagerly watched by Hugh Johnstone. But the keen-eyed Alan Hawke saw the girl's fascinated gaze. He noted her virginal bosom heaving in a new and strange emotion. He marked the tender challenge of her dreamy eyes as Berthe Louison's loving soul spoke out to the radiant young beauty only held away from her heart by the stern old skeleton at the feast.

The long-drawn-out splendors of the feast were over, and the ladies had, at last, retired. Hawke observed the stony glare with which Johnstone whispered a few words of command to Justine Delande, when the two men sought the smoking-room.

The door was hardly closed upon them when the coffee and cigars were served, when Johnstone, striding forward, locked the door.

"See here, Hawke!" abruptly said the host "I want you to serve me to-night, and to stand by me while this she-devil is in Delhi. I've got to run down to Calcutta on business for a few days. She will not be here. She has some business of her own down there, also. First, find out for me, for God's sake, all about her. How she came here; where she hides in Europe; who her friends are. When you are able to, you can follow her over the world. I'll foot the bill, as the Yankees say.

"Now, to-night, I wish you to take your leave conventionally. Get away at once, and go immediately and telegraph to Anstruther in London. No, don't deny you are intimate with him. I know it. Telegraph him that I am in a position, now, to trace out and restore those missing jewels. The secret of their hiding is mine at last. Here's a hundred pounds. Don't spare your words. Within a month they will be in the hands of the Viceroy. I have to play a part to get them—a dangerous part. I pledge my whole estate to back this. But I must have my Baronetcy so that I can leave India, for I fear the vengeance of the devils who robbed the captured Princes of Oude.

"Once in England, I am safe. I'll not leave till I get the Baronetcy, and the jewels will not be delivered up until I get it. I am closely watched here."

Hawke's eyes burned fiercely. "And if I was to take the train and tell the Viceroy this?" he boldly said.

"Then I would say that you had lied—that is all."

"What do I get?" coolly demanded Hawke.

"Five thousand pounds the day that I get my Baronetcy," quietly replied Johnstone.

"I'll not do it," hotly cried Hawke. "You might say I lied," he sneered. "I want it now!"

The two men glared at each other in a mutual distrust. Hugh Johnstone pondered a moment, and said deliberately:

"I'll give you five accepted drafts for a thousand pounds each, when I return from Calcutta, on Glyn, Carr & Glyn, my London bankers, dated thirty days apart. That will make you sure of your money, and me, sure of my Baronetcy. Will you act?" Hawke knocked the ash off his Havana lightly.

"Yes, if you give me a thousand pounds cash bonus now! I am deliberately misleading Anstruther to help you. And I risk my own place to do it."

"All right," said Johnstone as he left the room, and in a few moments returned with a check-book. "There's your thousand pounds. Now listen. Not a word to old General Willoughby. He is a meddlesome old sot. I shall slip away quietly. To deceive the Delhi scandal-mongers you must call here every day in my absence. Mademoiselle Delande will receive you. My daughter, of course, sees no one in my absence. And you can inform Delhi secretly, guardedly, that Madame Berthe Louison is an art enthusiast, a Frenchwoman of rank and fortune, and one who, in her short stay, only studies the wonders of old Oude. I don't want this damned pack of local lady-killers—the lobster-backs—to get after her. Do you understand? I'll have further use for you. I may retire to Europe. You can trust the Swiss woman. I will give her my orders."

"All right! I will go and telegraph as soon as I can make my adieux. When do you start for Calcutta?" Hawke asked warily.

"The moment you get Anstruther's reply," decisively replied Johnstone. "I'll be away for a couple of weeks in all!" Hawke turned paler than his wont, but he mused in silence and cheerfully finished his coffee and cognac. In half an hour, he left an aching void in Justine Delande's bosom, but some subtle magnetism had so drawn Berthe Louison and the heart-stirred Justine together that Hugh Johnstone was happy, when, with courtly gallantry, he escorted the beauty, who had set Delhi all agog, to her garden-bowered nest.

"Have I kept my compact?" said Berthe, as they stood once more in her "tiger's den."

"You have, madame!" said Hugh Johnstone. "I have been considering all. I will leave secretly for Calcutta in two or three days. You had better follow me in a week. I have some private business there. I will ask my friend, Major Hawke, to show you the environs. You can trust him. Telegraph me to Grindlay's Bank, Calcutta, of your arrival. I will meet you. Our business transacted, we can return together on the same train. All will then be safe." His own secret preparations were all made.

"I agree to all," said Berthe. "And, as to Nadine?"

Johnstone turned with blazing eyes, "You are to see her each day, at her own home, in the presence of Justine Delande. She will have my orders. Remember our compact! All your future association with her depends on your prudence. I will not be betrayed or openly disgraced!" His face was as black as a murderer caught in the act.

"I remember!" said the beauty of the Bungalow.

"To mystify the fools here, if I will bring my daughter and take you for a drive, each day at four, till I go," said Johnstone. "And, then, I'll have Hawke show you the city." He bowed, and at once disappeared, leaving his enemy laughing. But he grinned.

"If she knew that I go to meet Douglas Fraser, my lady would pass an uneasy night! I hold the trump cards now!"

Major Alan Hawke smiled grimly the next day, when he presented to Hugh Johnstone a neatly got up cipher, answering dispatch in code words which had cost Ram Lal just half of the bribe which Hawke gave him for the sly Hindu telegraph clerk.

"Ah! Anstruther was prompt!" said the neatly tricked nabob, when Hawke translated:

"Intelligence gratifying. Name approved and on list. Appointment sure!" Three days later, Delhi missed Hugh Johnstone from the afternoon drives, which showed Madame Louison and Nadine to an eager bevy of Madame Grundys. But the envied of all men was Major Alan Hawke, escorting Madame Louison for a week over the storied plains of the Jumna.

When Madame Berthe Louison and her two body servants took the Calcutta train, local society jumped to its sage conclusion.

"Old Hugh will lead the beautiful Countess to the altar, while Major Alan Hawke will bear off the Rosebud of Delhi, and so become the richest son-in-law in India." But the handsome Alan Hawke, each morning lingering with Justine Delande in the grounds of the marble house, never saw the face of Nadine Johnstone. The beautiful girl breathlessly awaited her new-made friend's return. But stern old Hugh Johnstone, at Calcutta, laughed as he thought of his own secret coup de main.

"Wait! Wait till I return!" he gloated. "She is powerless now!"



CHAPTER VIII. HARRY HARDWICKE TAKES THE GATE NEATLY.



In the few days succeeding Hugh Johnstone's still unsuspected departure, the dull fires of a growing jealousy burned and smouldered in Captain Harry Hardwicke's agitated heart. The old nabob had neatly slipped away in the night, on a special engine, and the Captain heard all the growing tattle of Delhi, as to the social activity at the marble house. The open hospitable board of General Willoughby rang with the very wildest rumors. Alan Hawke seemed to be the "Prince Charming" of the hidden festivities.

Hardwicke, on the eve of his Majority, now darkly moped in his rooms, undecided to apply for a long home leave, unwilling to leave Delhi, and even afraid to ask his general for any positive favor as to a future station. Club and mess bandied the freest tattle as to old Hugh Johnstone's lovely "importation." Men eyed the prosperous Major Alan Hawke on his rising pathway with a growing envy. There was a smart coterie who now firmly believed that the Major's only "secret business" was to marry the Rose of Delhi, and then, departing on an extended honeymoon, leave the "Diamond Nabob," as the ci-devant Hugh Fraser was called, free to proclaim Madame Berthe Louison, queen of the marble house, and sharer of his expected dignity, the crown of his life, the long-coveted Baronetcy. When old Major Verner growled:

"That's the scheme, Hardwicke! My Lady of France makes the condition that the young heiress shall be settled first. Gad! What a lucky dog Hawke is!" Then, Harry Hardwicke suddenly discovered that he loved the moonlight beauty of his dreams—the fair veiled Rose of Delhi. Hawke rose up as a darkly menacing cloud on his future.

His morning rides were now but keen inspections of the Commissioner's garden, and, lingering on the Chandnee Chouk, he knew, by experiments, conducted with a beating heart, just where Justine Delande was wont to wander in the lonely labyrinth, with her lovely young charge. A low double gate, a break in the high stone wall, often gave him glimpses of the two women in their morning rambles and, with a softened feeling, born of her own secret passion for Hawke, Justine Delande watched a fluttering handkerchief often answer Captain Hardwicke's morning salute.

"Tell me, Justine," said Nadine, the morning after Hugh Johnstone had stolen away, "Why does my father not ask Major Hardwicke to visit us? He is to be promoted for his superb gallantry, he is so brave—so noble! He certainly has as many claims to honor as this—this Major Hawke—whom my father has made his confidant. I don't know why, but I don't like that man!"

"What do you know of Major Hardwicke, as you call him?" cried Justine in wonder at Miss Nadine's growing interest.

"Ah!" the agitated girl cried with blushing cheeks, "Mrs. Willoughby told me how he dragged his wounded friend out of a storm of Afghan balls, and gave her back the child of her heart. It was General Willoughby who got him his Victoria Cross. And, she says that he is a hero, he is so gentle and manly—so gifted—a man destined to be a commanding general yet." The guilty Swiss woman dared not raise her eyes to watch the fleeting blushes on Nadine's cheeks.

"It is time, high time we leave India," she mused, and then, the thought of separation from Alan Hawke chilled her blood. "Let us go in," she said. "The grass is damp yet." Captain Hardwicke's argus eyes, love inspired, were now daily fixed on the marble house. He scoured Delhi and amassed a pyramid of detached fragmentary gossip in all his alarm, but one star of hope cheered him. Though Major Hawke was known as the only cavalier of Madame Louison, save the old nabob, now supposed to be ill at home; though Hawke drove out for a week with the lovely countess—to the great surprise of the local society, the handsome renegade had never once been seen in public with Miss Nadine Johnstone. Stranger still, the star-eyed Madame Berthe Louison had never accompanied the young heiress in the regular afternoon parade en voiture. "There's a mystery here," mused the lover. "Old Hugh and the Major appear daily with the Frenchwoman, but Nadine Johnstone has never been seen alone with anyone save her father, or this Swiss duenna. Hawke is making slow progress there, if any." Meeting old Simpson, the nabob's butler, Captain Hardwicke tipped him with a five-pound note. The old retired soldier grinned and opened his confidence.

"The Major! Bless your stars!" gabbled Simpson, "She's a straightaway angel, and not for the likes of him! Major Hawke has a dark spot or two in his record—away back!" grumbled Simpson, "No, Captain! Major Hawke has never set eyes on her for a single moment, but the one night of that dinner. By the way, it is the only one we ever gave!" The butler swelled up proudly.

"That night she never lifted her eyes, nor spoke even a word to him. He comes to see the Guv'nor on business, an' mighty private business it is. They're locked up together often."

"And, this marrying? The stories are now told everywhere?" queried Hardwicke, blushing, but desperately remembering that "all is fair in love and war." He, an incipient Major, a V. C.—"pumping" an old private soldier.

"Rank rot!" frankly said the butler, "They're all strangers. The French countess is only sight-seeing here and buying out old Ram Lal's shop. The old thief! She brought letters to the Guv'nor! That's all! He's no special fancy to her, and he set Major Hawke on just to do the amiable. The Guv'nor's far too old to beau the lady around. Marry?—not him! And Miss Nadine's just as silent as a flower in one of them gold vases. All she does is to look pretty and keep still, poor lamb. Her music, her books, her flowers, her birds. And as to Major Hawke and this Madame Louison—I've the Guv'nor's own orders they are never to see Miss Nadine. That is, Hawke not at all, and the lady only when Miss Delande is present! Them's my solid orders, and the old Guv'nor put my eye out with a ten-pound note—the first I ever got from him. No, Captain! You've done the handsome by me, and I give you the straight tip—wasn't I in the old Eighth Hussars with your father when we charged the rebel camp at Lucknow? I've got a tulwar yet that I cut out of the hand of a 'pandy' who was hacking away at Colonel Hardwicke."

"How did you get it, Simpson?" cried the young Captain.

"I got arm and all! Took it off with a right cut! You may know, Cap'n, that we ground our sabers in those old days! No, sir! Miss Nadine's for none of them people, and Hawke is only in the house for business. He's a deep one—is that same Hawke," concluded Simpson, pocketing his note.

Captain Hardwicke began to see the light dawning. "Alan Hawke has then some secret business scheme with the old money grubber that's all," mused the young engineer officer, happy at heart. "I'll fight a bit shy of him. His scheme may take the girl in. So, old Johnstone's away a few days. Perhaps settling his affairs before his departure. I think," the lover mused, "I will follow them to Europe, if they go, and, if they stay, Willoughby will ask for my retention, and, after all, 'faint heart never won fair lady.' Hawke is not an open suitor. If the old man should ever marry this French beauty, I may find the pathway open to Nadine Johnstone's side!"

So, with a "fighting chance," Captain Hardwicke determined that Miss Nadine should know his heart before long, and have also a chance to know her own mind. "The fact is, the old boy has lived the life of a recluse, that's all, but I'll find a way to pierce the shell of his moroseness. There's one comfort," he smiled, "No other fellow is making any running."

In these swiftly gliding days of absence, Ram Lal Singh and the watchful Major Alan Hawke conferred at length over narghileh and glass. A sullen discontent had settled down on Hawke's brow when Berthe Louison publicly departed upon her business trip with not even a fragmentary confidence.

"Wait for my return, and only watch the marble house," said the Madame. "Do not be foolish enough to attempt to call on Miss Nadine. I heard Johnstone tell the Swiss woman not to allow you to follow up any social acquaintance with his daughter. 'I want Nadine to remain a girl as yet,' growled the old brute. Now, the Swiss woman may be able to give you some information."

"I'll do what I can," carelessly replied Alan Hawke, but his eyes gleamed when she said:

"Do not sulk in your tent. On my return I shall have need of you. You can prepare to go into action then."

"Where shall I address you at Calcutta?" demanded Hawke. "Something might happen."

"Ah," smiled Berthe Louison. "Nothing will happen. Not a line, not a telegram; send nothing, come what will! I return here soon, and, besides, Old Johnstone might watch and intercept it. Remember, we do not know each other. It would be a fatal mistake to write." And so she went quietly on her way. The house was locked, the Indian servants having the Madame's orders to admit no one, on any pretense. "Damn her!" growled Alan Hawke, when the door was shut in his face. "She feared I would give her away to Johnstone. No address! Not a line or a telegram! Only wait—only wait!"

Ram Lal infuriated him later with the news that nothing could be learned from the baffled spies of the household in the Silver Bungalow as to the first or second interwiew of Johnstone and the resolute Alixe Delavigne. "Money will not do it! Not a lac of rupees. The Frenchman and woman never leave her day or night. He is on guard with weapons and a night light at her door, and the maid sleeps in the room.

"And she has other secret helpers!" groaned the baffled Ram Lal. "She is writing and receiving letters all the time. And yet none of these come or go by the post. She does not trust you, Major," said the jewel merchant, with a cruel gleam of his dark eyes. "I believe that she is some old love of Sahib Johnstone. They have deep dealings. She has bought a great store of jewels and trinkets from me."

"Hell and fury! I've been duped!" cried Hawke. "I see it. That damned Frenchman takes and brings the letters! But who is her local go-between? Perhaps the French Consul at Calcutta, or some banker here! I can't buy them all. She only needs me in case of a violent rupture with Johnstone. Damn her stony-hearted impertinence!"

And he mentally resolved to sell her out and out to the liberal old nabob. "He might then give his daughter to me for peace and safety. But I've got to do the trick before he finds out the falsity of Anstruther's so-called telegram. And, first, I must have something to sell. She is the devil's own for sly nerve, is my lady."

"She is too smart for us, as yet," soothingly said Ram Lal. "But wait; wait till they return! Pay me well and I will find out all that goes on. I can always get into the marble house at night. At any time, I may spy on old Johnstone and get the secret there. I have a couple of men of my own in his house. They know where to leave a door, a window, an opened sash for me. And at the Silver Bungalow, I can go in and out secretly by day and night. She would not know. You would not wish anything to happen to her?" The old jewel merchant's voice was darkly suggestive.

"No! Devil take her!" cried Hawke. "What I want to know is hidden in her crafty head and stony heart. Death would bury it forever. Nothing must happen either to her or to him. It would spoil the whole game. Don't you see, Ram Lal, there's money in this for you and me just as long as we keep them all here under our hands. If they separate—even if one goes to Europe—you can watch one and I the other. You can always frighten money out of old Johnstone if we tell each other all, and I can follow that woman over Europe and dog her till she is driven crazy. She will fear me just as long as old Hugh Johnstone is alive, for I could sell her out to him. No one else cares. They must both live to be our bankers. Now tell me, why did either or both of them go to Calcutta—what for?" Ram Lal figuratively washed his hands in invisible water.

"Running water, passing silently, leaves no story behind, Sahib," he said, simply. "We have not caught our eels yet. But they are both coming back into our eel pot." And as the days dragged on Alan Hawke beguiled the time with the most energetic inroads into Justine Delande's heart.

"Some one must break the line of the enemy," darkly mused Alan Hawke, as in the unrestrained intimacy of their long, morning rides, he influenced the Swiss woman's heart, love-tortured, to a greater passionate surrender.

"It maybe all in all to me, in my secret career, your future fidelity," he pleaded. '"It will be all in all to you, and to your sister. There will be your home, the friendship of an enormously rich woman! The girl will have a million pounds! And you and I, Justine, shall not be cast off, as one throws away an old sandal." The cowering woman clung closer daily to the man who now molded her will to his own.

The absence of Johnstone and Madame Louison seemed confirmation of the rumors of coming bridals.

"They will come back, as man and wife!" growled old Verner, to Captain Hardwicke, "and then, look out for a second bridal! Hawke and the heiress!" But Harry Hardwicke only smiled and bided his time. His daily morning ride led him to the double gateway, to at least nearby the isolation of the lovely Rose who was filling his heart with all beauty and brightness.

Major Alan Hawke had withdrawn himself into a stately solitude at the Club. His evenings were spent with Ram Lal, and his mornings with the deluded Justine, who dared not now write to the calm-faced preceptress in Geneva how far the tide of love had swept her on. In the long afternoons, Major Hawke was apparently busied with the "dispatches" which duly mystified the Club quid mines, as they were ostentatiously displayed in the letter-box. No one but Ram Lal knew of the abstraction from the mail, and destruction of these carefully sealed envelopes of blank paper. But the thieving mail clerk in their secret pay, laughed as he consigned them later to the flames.

The astute Major was not aware that he was being daily watched by secret agents representing both the absent ones whom he desired to dupe. But a daily letter was dispatched by a local banker to a well-known Calcutta firm, which reached Madame Louison, and old Hugh Johnstone, busied at his lawyers, or sitting alone at night with Douglas Fraser in Calcutta, smiled grimly, when he, too, received his data as to Hawke's progress. A growing coldness which had cut off Hardwicke's friendship seemed to interest Hugh Johnstone. "I suppose that old Willonghby thinks Hawke is spying upon him. Just as well!"

There had been a lightning activity in the old man's movements before Madame Louison arrived in Calcutta. He was fighting for his future peace and his coveted honors. The lawyer with whom he spent his first day was astounded at the peculiar nature of the last will and testament which the old nabob ordered him to draft at once. "The steamer, Lord Roberts, goes to-morrow, and I wish a duplicate to be deposited here in the bank, under your care, as I shall write to my senior executor regarding it."

The nabob's remark, "Make your fees what you will. I give you carte blanche!" had silenced the remonstrances which rose to the lawyer's lips. "I know what I am doing, Hodgkinson," said Hugh Johnstone. "Blood is thicker than water! I can trust nothing else. These two men as executors will exactly carry out my wishes. In naming a guardian by will, for my daughter, I do not forget that she is yet a child at eighteen, and, at twenty-one, she may be the destined prey of many a fortune hunter! As for my directions and restrictions, I know my own mind!"

When Hugh Johnstone, Esq., of Delhi and Calcutta, had seen the fleet steamer, Lord Roberts, sail away for London, bearing a carefully registered document addressed to "Professor Andrew Fraser, St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey, Channel Islands, England," he could not remember a detail forgotten in the voluminous letters of positive orders now also on their way to his distant brother. He smiled grimly as he entered the P. and O. office, and, after a private interview with the manager, called his nephew, Douglas Fraser, away to a private luncheon. They had first visited the one bank, which Johnstone trusted, and there deposited a sealed document to the order of "Douglas Fraser, executor." The young man had been alarmed at his stern old uncle's curtness, on the return trip from Allahabad, his strange manner and his grim silence. But he was simply astounded when his nabob relative quietly said:

"I have obtained a six months' leave of absence for you! Let no one know of your movements. Leave your rooms and baggage just as they are. I will now move in there, and put one of my servants in charge while you are gone. I have made my will and named your father as my executor and the guardian of my daughter, and you are to succeed, in case of his death! There will be a small fortune for you both in the fees, and neither of you are forgotten in the will! I have drawn two thousand pounds in notes for you, and here is a bank draft on London for three thousand more!" The young man was sitting in open-mouthed wonder, when the nabob sharply said: "Now! Have your wits about you! I bear all the expenses here, and your office pay goes on. You will be promoted on your return. The manager of the P. and O. is my lifelong friend."

"What am I to do?" gasped the young man, fearing his uncle was losing his wits.

"You are to disappear from Calcutta to-night. Go without a word to a living soul! You are neither to write to a soul in India, nor open your mouth to a human being, in transit. You are to go by Madras, take the first steamer to Brindisi, and then hurry by rail to Paris and Granville, and to St. Heliers. You will find your detailed orders there with your father. Then stay there, await my orders from here, not leaving your father's side, a moment. Now, I tell you again, your future fortunes depend upon your exact obedience! I will give you my private wishes after we have had luncheon. The only thing that you will have in writing is an address to which I wish you to cable each day after you land at Brindisi, until you turn over your business to your father. You may cable also from Aden and Port Said."

The luncheon was "a short horse and soon curried." For a half an hour Hugh Johnstone earnestly whispered to his nephew, whose face was grave and ashen. At last the old man concluded, "Here is a letter to use at Delhi. There will be a telegram already in the hands of the two parties intended.

"'Remember! You are to go, but once, from here to your lodgings. Then simply disappear! Take nothing but a mackintosh, an umbrella, and your traveling bag. Buy at Madras what you want. Here's a couple of hundred pounds. You will find the engine at the station now in waiting for you. The whole line is open for you. Do your Delhi work at night. The train will be made up for you the very moment you arrive at Delhi. I give you just one day to connect with the Rangoon at Madras. You are not for one single moment to lose your charge from sight till on the steamer. From Brindisi, the directions I have given cover all. Here is an envelope for the Swiss woman which will make her your friend. Now go, Douglas! This is the foundation of your fortune. If you succeed, you will have all I leave behind in India. In case of any trouble in India, telegraph instantly to this address, and I will join you at once. Memorize this address, and destroy it then! Telegraph to me from Delhi, but only when you start. And, when you sail from Madras, only the name of the steamer. The trainmen will do the rest. They have their orders already. Is there anything else?"

The young man pulled himself together. "It's like the Arabian Nights!"

"Go ahead, now, and show yourself a man!" cried Hugh Johnstone, almost in anguish. "I do not wish to see you again until you have earned your fortune! One last word: You are to make no explanations whatever!"

The young envoy grasped his kinsman's hands, crying: "You may count on me in life and death! I'll do your bidding."

Old Johnstone drank a bottle of pale ale and composedly smoked a cheroot, after he had watched the stalwart, rosy young Briton stride away on his strange journey. A robust, frank-faced, fine young fellow of twenty-six, with the fair brow and clear blue eyes of the "north countree," was manly Douglas Fraser.

Toiling resolutely to rise, step by step, in the service of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, he had never dreamed of the sudden favor of his rich kinsman, and yet, loyal as the good Sir James Douglas, he silently took up his quest.

"I can't understand the old gentleman." he mused as he hurried a half an hour later into the station, though prudently selected by-streets. "There may be some old official entanglement hanging over him yet. Some reason why he would quit India quietly, or perhaps some one who owes him a grudge. At any rate I'll do my duty to him like a man—to him and to the others—like a gentleman."

Hugh Johnstone measuredly betook his way to Douglas Fraser's lodgings.

Before the old man was settled on Douglas's cozy wicker lounge, the pilot engine was tearing away with the young voyager, who had simply stepped out of his own life to make a sudden fortune.

"Now, damn you, Alixe Delavigne," hoarsely muttered the old man, when alone, "I will see you to-morrow! You shall rule me until I get these two coffers out of the bank, and until our home-coming at Delhi. Then, you jade," he growled, "Ram Lal shall do the business for you, even if it costs me ten thousand pounds!" which proves that an old tiger may be toothless and yet have left to him strong claws to drag his prey down. "Money will do anything in India or anywhere else!" the old nabob growled, forgetting that even all the yellow gold of the Rand or the gleaming diamonds of the Transvaal will not avail to fill the burned-out lamp of life!

The prolonged absence of the embryo Sir Hugh Johnstone was a matter of public comment in Delhi, while the knowing ones winked significantly at the almost triumphal departure of Madame Berthe Louison, whose special car and ample retinue made her a modern European Queen of Sheba. "Tell you what, fellows," said "Rattler" Murray, otherwise known as "Red Eric, of the Eighth Lancers," "the old Commissioner will return superbly 'improved and illustrated' with her, a new edition of the standard old work. You see, there's a French Consul-General at Calcutta, and then and there the matrimonial obsequies will be performed. But I'll give him just a year's life," and the gay lieutenant struck an attitude, quoting the menacing jargon in "Hamlet":

"In second husband, let me be accurst; None wed the second, but who killed the first."

"What infernal rot you do gabble, Murray!" suddenly cried Alan Hawke, dropping a double barrier of the newest Times, as he prepared to leave the clubroom in disgust. "Hugh Johnstone was only called down to Calcutta on some important financial business some days ago, and he went there simply to rearrange some of his large investments. Madame Louison is only a stranger here, a tourist traveling incognito, and connected with some of the best noble families of France." With great dignity Major Hawke stalked away to his rooms, leaving the club for a long drive in disgust.

By the next evening Madame Berthe Louison had been discovered to be a noble relative of the Comte de Chambord, "traveling incognito," and then the clacking tongues of gossip rose up in a shrill chorus of greater intensity. Immense investments of the Orleans fortunes in Indian properties to be managed by Major Alan Hawke were discovered to be the object of her Indian tour, with wise old Hugh Johnstone as an infallible financial adviser. But Alan Hawke smiled his superior smile and said nothing.

All this and more soon reached the ears of Capt. Harry Hardwicke, whose fever of gnawing curiosity and romantically born love was now strong upon him. A second conference with his old friend Simpson enlightened the engineer officer upon many things, as yet "seen in a glass darkly." He began to fear that Alan Hawke was growing dangerous as the secret juggler in the strange social situation at the marble house. With the vise-like memory of an old soldier, Simpson had retained various anecdotes not entirely to the credit of the self-promoted Major Alan Hawke, and had partly supplied the hiatus between the sudden disappearance of the desperate lieutenant, a rake gambler and profligate, and the return of the prosperous and debonnaire Major en re'traite. "Don't let him work too long around Miss Nadine, Major Hardwicke," said the wary Simpson. "Sly and quiet as he seems, he's surely here for no good. I know him of old. He's forgotten me, though."

That night, the night when Berthe Louison, in her special car was nearing Calcutta, at last, Captain Hardwicke was haunted in his dreams by the sweet apparition of Nadine Johnstone, and her lovely arms were stretched appealingly to him. It was the early dawn when he awoke, and sprang blithely from his couch. "If that graceful shade crosses my path to-day, I'll speak to it in the flesh—though a dozen Hawkes and a hundred crusty fathers forbid," he gayly cried, for his entrancing dream had given him a strangely prophetic courage.

In the ambrosial freshness of the morning, a long gallop upon his pet charger, "Garibaldi," restored the equilibrium of the young officer's nerves. He had neatly taken the strong-limbed cross-country horse over a dozen of the old walls out by the Kootab Minar, and with the reins lying loosely on Garibaldi's neck, he rode back to the live city by the side of its two dead progenitors.

The bustle and hum of awaking Delhi interested him not, for a fond unrest led him down to the great walled inclosure of the marble house.

"Shall I see her to-day? Will she be in the garden?" he murmured in his loving day-dream.

The springy feet of the charger dropped noiselessly on the lonely avenue and already the double carriage gate was in sight. An instinct of martial coquetry caused Harry Hardwicke to gather up his reins and straighten lightly into the military position of eyes right. He was watching the gate of Paradise, a Paradise as yet forbidden to him.

Yes. There was the gleam of white robes shining out across the friendly gate.

Standing under a huge spreading camphor tree, a graceful form was there, clear cut against the dark foliage, and seeming to float upon the tender green of the dewy grass. A nymph—a goddess, shyly standing there, was shading her eyes with one slender hand and gazing down the path toward the golden East which was bringing to the Lady of his dreams, a flood of golden sunlight and her secret adorer, the man whose lonely young heart had throned her as its queen. Hardwicke raised his head quickly as a wild shriek sounded out upon the still morning air.

The lover with one agonized glance saw the outspread arms of Justine Delande, and heard again a voice which had thrilled his soul in loving memory. It appealed for aid. Nadine was shrieking for help.

With one glance, the young soldier gathered his noble steed. There was but twenty yards for the rally and the raise, but the game old "Garibaldi" dropped as lightly on the other side of the closed carriage gate as any "blue ribbon" of the Galway "Blazers."

There was a moment, but one fleeting moment, given to the lover to see the danger menacing the woman whom he loved. His heart was icy, but his hand was quick. There, a few feet only from the horribly fascinated girl, a cobra di capdlo rising and swaying in angry undulations. The huge snake was angrily hissing with a huge distended puffed hood swelling menacingly over the dirty brown body. "Standfast!" yelled Hardwicke in agony.

There was a gleam of steel, the rush of a charger's feet, and as man and horse swept by the fainting girl—the swing of a saber, and the heavy trampling of iron-clad hoofs! Only Justine Delande saw the flashing saber cleaving the air again and again, as Hardwicke gracefully leaned to his saddle bow, in the right and left cut on the ground. And Garibaldi's beating hoofs soon completed the work of the circling sword.

And then as the Swiss woman broke her trance and turned to run toward the house, the young horseman leaped lightly to the ground. "Go on, go on!" he cried. "The other snake is not far off!" When Simpson and the frightened domestics rushed out to the veranda in a panic, they only saw before them a graceful youth with his strong arms burdened with the senseless form of the woman he loved—the woman whose life he had saved!

And, dangling from his right wrist, by the leather sword-knot, hung the saber which Colonel Hardwicke had swung in the mad onslaught on the mutineers' camp at Lucknow.

"Here, Simpson! Send for Doctor McMorris!" cried Hardwicke, as a dozen willing hands sprang to aid him. "Bring brandy, ammonia, and oil!" There was a bamboo settee on the veranda. It received the precious burden which the soldier had held against his heart. "Carry her to her rooms! Gently, now!" commanded the captain. Seizing Justine by the arm, he said: "I think that I arrived in time. Go! Go! You will find me waiting for you here! Examine her at once! The hot iron and artery ligatures alone will save her if she was bitten!" His brow was knotted in agony.

"You came between them!" gasped Justine. "The thing never reached her side!"

"God be thanked! Go! Go!" cried Hardwicke. "I have my work to do here!" A black servant had already led the dancing Garibaldi out to the open safety of the graveled carriage drive. "Look to my horse!" cried Hardwicke. "See that he is not bitten!" and then he slowly walked over to where a dozen menials, with heavy clubs, had beaten the writhing cobra into a shapeless mass.

"Come away, all of you!" cried the captain, in Hindustanee. "Run, some of you, and get the snake catcher!" Doctor McMorris, arriving on the gallop, had reported the absolute safety of the frightened girl, when Harry Hardwicke, leaning on his sheathed sword, watched a slim, glittering-eyed Hindu, followed by a boy bearing an earthen pot, who had noiselessly reconnoitered the vicinity of the great tree. The boy most keenly watched all the movements of his white-robed master, who, drawing a little fife from his red cummerbund sash, began to play a shrill, weird tune. A frightened household coterie watched from a safe distance the thirty-foot circle of herbage around the shade of the giant tree trunk. A shudder crept over the watchers as a huge brown head, with two white circles on the back of the neck, rose slowly out of the grass, and two red-hot gleaming eyes blazed out, as an immense cobra swelled out its fearfully disgusting hood, and, rising halfway, bloated out its loathsome head, swaying to and fro, to the strange music. "There's the mate!" quietly whispered Hardwicke to Simpson. The snake now showed its greasy belly, like dirty stained marble, and the lithe boy, circling behind it, warily essayed to drop the red earthen pot over its head. But one of the excited servants, stealing up, had released a little mongoose, which now bravely darted upon its deadly enemy.

Seven times did the active little animal dart upon the huge reptile, in a confusedly vicious series of attacks and close in a deadly conflict, and, when, at last, the snake charmer walked disgustedly away, the little ferret's sharp teeth were transfixed in the throat of its dead enemy.

A handful of silver to the snake catcher and his boy sent them away delighted, while the wounded mongoose, having greedily sucked the blood of the dead cobra, wandered away in triumph, creeping on its belly into the rank grass in search of the life-saving herb which it alone can find, to cure the venom-inflamed wounds of the deadly "naja." The silent duel was over, and the bodies of the dreadful vipers were hastily buried.

"I shall call this afternoon, at five, to ask Miss Johnstone if she has entirely recovered," gravely said Captain Hardwicke to Mademoiselle Justine Delande, when the still excited Swiss woman poured forth her congratulations to the young hero of this morning's episode. Hardwicke was standing with his gloved hand grasping the mettlesome "Garibaldi's" bridle. Justine Delande threw her arms around the neck of the noble horse and kissed his sleek brown cheek. Then she whispered a few words to Captain Hardwicke, which made that young warrior's heart leap up in a wild joy.

He laughed lightly as he said: "Keep this quiet. Pray do not allow Miss Johnstone to walk any more in the dewy grass. These deadly reptiles affect moisture, and, strange to say, they love the vicinity of human habitations. As for 'Garibaldi,' good old fellow, I'll bring him this afternoon, but I'll not take him again over the gate. It was a pretty stiff jump for the old boy." When Simpson escorted the happy Captain to the opened carriage gate, he threw up his wrinkled hand in salute.

"You're your father's own son, Captain, and God bless you and good luck to you and the young mistress."

There was no answer as Harry spurred the charger down the road, but Simpson pocketed a sovereign, with the sage prophecy that things were at last, going the right way.

The watchful Hugh Johnstone was already in waiting, on this very morning, at the East Indian station in Calcutta, with a sumptuous carriage; for a telegram had warned him that the woman whom he dreaded, and had secretly doomed, was fast approaching. His heart was resolutely set upon the master stroke of his life, for a private audience with the Viceroy of India had been graciously granted him at two o'clock. "I am saved—if nothing goes wrong," he murmured, as the Delhi train trundled into the station.

A steely glare lit up his eyes as he advanced with raised sun helmet to meet the Lady of the Silver Bungalow.

In the train were one or two of the curious Delhi quid nuncs, who smiled and exchanged glances as the embryo Sir Hugh led the lady to the carriage.

On the box Jules Victor sat bolt upright clasping a traveling bag, while Marie gazed at the swarming streets of Calcutta from her mistress's side. "She is on the defensive. I'll show her a trick," old Hugh murmured, as he noted the servants' presence.

A few murmured words exchanged between the secret foes caused Hugh Johnstone to sternly cry, "To Grindlay and Company's Bank."

The dark goddess Kali, patron demon of Kali Ghatta, was hovering above them in the pestilential air as the carriage swiftly rolled along the superb streets of the metropolis born of Governor Charnock's settlement in sixteen eighty-six. The gift of an Emperor of Delhi to the ambitious English, Fort William had grown to be an octopus of modern splendor. Down the circular road, past the splendid Government House, they silently sped through the "City of Palaces." Berthe Louison never noted the varied delights of the Maiden Esplanade, nor, even with a glance honored Wellesley and Ochterlony, raised up there in marble effigy. Her face was as fixed as bronze, while Hugh Johnstone, right and left, saluted his countless friends.

Men of the Bengal Asiatic, the Bethune, the Dai-housie, plumed generals, native princelings, gay aides-de-camp, grave judges, and university Dons eagerly bowed to the richest civilian in Bengal—the homage of triumphant wealth.

Stared at from club windows, Johnstone, with proudly erect head, nodded to fashion's fools, crowding there all eager to catch a glimpse of the lovely Lady Johnstone in posse.

For these last days of waiting had been only a mental torture to the nabob assailed by rallying gossipers. He was now counting grimly the moments till a telegram from Delhi should seal his safety for life. And then, his dark and silent revenge!

At Grindlay's Bank, Madame Louison quietly descended, leaning on the arm of Hugh Johnstone. There was hurrying to and fro on their appearance, and in ten minutes a second carriage received the disguised Alixe Delavigne, while the Manager of Grindlay's escorted her, under the eyes of her two guardians. The Golden Calf was the reigning god, even in these later days.

With a dignified pace, the carriage of Hugh Johnstone led the way to the Bank of Bengal, where a private room soon hid the three principal parties from the gaze of the multi-colored throng of clerks and accountants. A conference of the gravest nature ensued, as both the Bank Managers jealously watched each other.

Hugh Johnstone was as pale as a man wrestling with the dark angel when Madame Louison produced a faded document and a receipt of extended legal verbiage. The Manager of Grindlay's gazed, in mute surprise, when the highest dignitary of the Bengal Bank at last entered the room, followed by two porters bearing two brass-bound mahogany boxes of antique manufacture. Hugh Fraser Johnstone's stony face was carelessly impassive.

"Pray examine these seals!" the newcomer said, "and, remember, Mr. Johnstone, that we exact your absolute release for the long-continued responsibility. Here is a memorandum of the storage and charges. You must sign, also, as Hugh Fraser—now Hugh Fraser Johnstone."

Old Hugh Johnstone's voice never trembled, as he said, after a minute inspection:

"I will give you a cheque." Then, dashing off his signature upon the receipt tendered by Madame Louison, he calmly said: "These things are only of a trifling value—some long-treasured trinkets of my dead wife's. May I be left alone for a moment?"

The three silent witnesses retired into an adjoining room. In five minutes, Hugh Johnstone called the Bank Governor to his side. "There is your receipt, duly signed, and your cheque to balance, Mr. Governor. We are now both relieved of a tiresome controversy. Will you please bring in the others?"

With a pleasant smile, the flush of a great happiness upon his face, Hugh Fraser Johnstone remarked: "I desire to state publicly that Madame Louison and my self have, in this little transaction, closed all our affairs. I have given to her a quit-claim release of all and every demand whatsoever." With kindly eyes, Berthe Louison listened to a few murmured words from Hugh Johnstone. Bowing her stately head, she swept from the room upon the arm of the polite manager of Grindlay's.

"Home," said the genial banker, as he deferentially questioned the Lady of the Silver Bungalow. "Do you honor us with a long visit?" he eagerly asked.

"I return to-morrow evening, on the same train with the soon-to-be Sir Hugh. I only came here to attend to some business at the French Consulate and to adjust this trifling matter." Hugh Johnstone writhed in rage, as he saw the cool way in which Berthe Louison fortified her safety lines.

Before they were in the shelter of the banker's superb mansion, Hugh Johnstone was double locked within the walls of Douglas Fraser's apartment.

"I have two hours to work in" he gasped, after a nervous examination of the contents of the cases which had been placed at his feet in his carriage. "And, then, for the Viceroy! But first to the steamer and the Insurance Office!'"

Not a human being in Calcutta ever knew the contents of the small steel strongbox which occupied the place of honor in the treasure room of the Empress of India on her speeding down the Hooghly. But a Director of the Anglo-Indian Assurance Company opened his eyes widely when Hugh Johnstone, his fellow director, cheerfully paid the marine insurance fees on a policy of fifty thousand pounds sterling. "I am sending some of my securities home, Mainwaring," the great financier said. "I intend to remove my property, bit by bit, to London. I do not dare to trust them on one ship." The director sighed in a hopeless envy of his millionaire friend.

Hugh Johnstone's Calcutta agent was also solemnly stirred up when his principal gave him some private directions as to the custody of his private papers and a substantial Gladstone bag, consigned to the recesses of the steel vaults. "I go back with these papers to Delhi to-morrow night. Give me the keys of my private compartment till then. In a few months I may be called to London. Douglas Fraser will have my power of attorney."

With a sunny gleam in his face, Hugh Johnstone then alertly sprang into his carriage, when he had finished his careful toilet, to meet the Viceroy of India. The two brass-bound mahogany cases were left standing carelessly open upon his table in Douglas Fraser's rooms, neatly packed with an assortment of toilet articles and all the multitudinous personal medical stores of a refined Anglo-Indian "in the sere and yellow."

"Five pounds worth!" laughed Hugh Johnstone, as he closed the door. "Now, in one hour, my Lady Disdain, I can say 'Checkmate.' Ram Lal shall attend to you later—behind all your bolts and bars. He will find a way to reach you."

It was a matter of profound speculation to the gilded youth of the Government House what strangely sudden friendship had blossomed to bring the august representative of the great Victoria, Kaisar-I-Hind, and Queen of England, as far as the middle of the audience room, in close colloquy with, and manifesting an almost affectionate leave-taking of, the silver-haired millionaire of Delhi.

But that night the most confidential General "at disposal" received from the Viceroy some secret orders which caused the experienced soldier's eyes to open widely.

"Remember! The personal interests of the Crown are involved here!" said the Viceroy. "Any mistake might cost me my Sovereign's confidence and you your commission, perhaps a Star of India!" he laughed, with an affected lightness.

In far-away Delhi, as the sun faded away into the soft summer twilight, Harry Hardwicke was sitting at the side of Nadine Johnstone, while her stern father secretly exulted in distant Calcutta. He had already mailed by registered post a set of duplicated receipts and insurance policies for his last shipment addressed to "Professor Andrew Fraser" and his mind was centered upon some peculiarly pleasurable coming events to take place in the Marble House. But the dreamy-eyed girl watching the man who had so gallantly saved her life, thought only of a love which had stolen into her heart to wake all its slumbering chords to life, and to loosen the sweet music of her singing soul! They were alone, save for the bent figure of Justine Delande at a distant window, and the spirit of Love breathed upon them silently drew them heart to heart.

Here now, before the divinity so fondly worshiped, Harry Hardwicke lost his soldier's ready voice. "Say no more! You need rest, Miss Nadine! I shall only call to-morrow to assure myself of your perfect recovery. When your father returns I shall do myself the honor to ask his formal permission to visit you later." There was a sigh and a sob as Nadine Johnstone took her silent lover's hands and pressed them in her own, bursting into happy tears.

"I owe you my life—my father shall speak, but in my own heart I shall treasure your splendid bravery forever!" Her tall young knight stooped over the little hands, kissed them, and was turning to go, when the maiden slipped off a sparkling ring. "Wear this always for my sake; I can say no more till we meet again!" And, bending low, Captain Hardwicke stepped backward, as from a queen's presence, leaving her there, weak, loving, and trembling in a strange delight.

As he rode slowly homeward in the evening's glow, he passed Major Alan Hawke dashing away to the railway station in a carriage. Traveling luggage told the story of a sudden jaunt. A wave of the hand and the secret-service man was gone. Hawke growled: "Damned young jackanapes, I'll fool you, too; but what does old Johnstone want?" He was reading a telegram just received: "Come to meet me at Allahabad. Have brought the drafts. Want you for a few days down here."

At ten o'clock next morning, Simpson, his voice all broken, his old eyes filled with tears, dashed into Captain Hardwicke's office. "Dead?" cried the young soldier, springing up in a sudden horror. "No. Gone over night—both the women—God knows where, but they left secretly, by the Master's orders!" And then Hardwicke sank back into his chair with a groan. But, at Allahabad, Major Alan Hawke was raving alone in a helpless rage. There was no Johnstone there, and Ram Lal Singh had telegraphed him: "The daughter and governess went away in the night by the railroad—special train. A man from Calcutta took them away."

"You shall pay for this, you old hound!" he yelled, "Yes, with your heart's blood.'"



CHAPTER IX. ALAN HAWKE PLAYS HIS TRUMP CARD.



When the Calcutta train rolled into Allahabad, two days after Harry Hardwicke's crushing surprise, Major Alan Hawke, the very pink of Anglo-Indian elegance, awaited the dismounting of the returning voyagers. He had passed a whole sleepless night in revolving the various methods to play oft each of his wary employers against each other, and had decided to let Fate make the game.

"The devil of it is, I'm not supposed to know anything of the flitting!" he mused, after digesting Ram Lal Singh's carefully worded telegrams. All the light in his shadowy mental eclipse was the positive information that a special train had been made up for Bombay at the station, "on government secret service."

"The old man is preparing to fight, now," he decided. "His 'wooden horse' is within Berthe Loiuson's camp. If she is not wary, she may never leave India, Johnstone can be very ugly. But what must I do? Shall I warn Berthe, now? If I do, she will both doubt me and make a scene. Old Johnstone will then know at once that I have betrayed him." An hour's cogitation led Alan Hawke to decide to let the "high contracting parties" fight it out themselves at Delhi.

"I'll secretly join the winner and then bleed them both. I must be unconscious of all. Johnstone's money I want first, then, Berthe must pay me well for my aid." With an exquisite nosegay of flowers, he awaited the slow descent of the social magnates. A second telegram from Johnstone had warned him that the wanderers were on the same train. "He is a cool devil!" mused Hawke.

Radiant in beauty, pleasantly smiling, and watched by her French bodyguard, Madame Louison swept into the grand cafe room upon the arm of Hugh Johnstone, who deftly exchanged a silent glance of warning with the artful Major. The first intimation of Johnstone's craft was the fact that Alan Hawke found he could not manage to see Madame Louison alone, even for a single moment. There was a veiled surprise in her beautiful brown eyes, when the nabob led Hawke a few tables away for a conference in full view of the beauty, who was surrounded with a cloud of obsequious attendants. "As we have but one hour, Madame, pray at once, order a repast for us all. I must have a few words with Hawke." Johnstone was as smiling as a summer sea.

"We were delayed a day by my own private business," genially cried the nabob. "What's new in Delhi?"

It was the crowning lie of Hawke's splendidly mendacious career when he carelessly said, "Nothing. I supposed, of course, that you had grave need of me here."

"So I have," earnestly replied Johnstone, as the station master bustled up, scraping and bowing, with a bundle of letters and several telegrams. "Just look over these five drafts on Glyn, Carr & Glyn's, while I look at the letters," whispered Johnstone, handing Hawke an official looking envelope. Even while the adventurer carefully scanned the bills of exchange, he saw a gleam of devilish triumph in the old man's eyes as he opened the telegrams, and with affected carelessness shoved his letters in his pocket. "See here, Hawke! You can even earn a neat 'further donation' if you will play your part rightly. General Abercromby, as personally representing the Viceroy, arrives here to-morrow night to adjust my accounts finally. He will be a week or so at Delhi. I want you to represent me and receive him here. I've telegraphed back to Abercromby that you will bring him up in a special car. He does not want old Willoughby to think he is nosing around Delhi. Now, do the handsome thing. Abercromby knows you. Here is a pocket-book. Lose a few fifty-pound notes to the old boy on the train. Amuse him, mind you, and set him up well! The car will be well stocked. I leave my two men here to wait on you and him. That's all. I want to go off 'in a blaze of glory,' as the Yankees would say. I will meet you at Delhi. Abercromby comes to my house. Can I depend on you? And, not a single word about the Baronetcy. The Viceroy has graciously sent a special dispatch to England."

"All right. Let us join the Madame," said Hawke, with an uneasy feeling of a coming tropical storm, "I'm glad to be out of it," mused Hawke. "If Abercromby stays a week, both parties will defer hostilities until he goes. If that soft-hearted Swiss fool only telegraphs! By God, I would have liked to have had one final tete-a-tete. She can make my fortune yet."

The flying minutes glided easily away, with Hugh Johnstone's old-time gallantry artfully separating the two secret conspirators against his peace. Alan Hawke lunched gayly, with but one lurking regret—a futile sorrow that he had not bent Justine Delande to his will. There was no dark pledge between them, no secret bond of a man's perfidious victory, no soft surrender, the seal of a woman's dishonor.

"Will she telegraph?" the adventurer asked himself with a beating heart and a burning brain. "If so, then I hold them both in my hands, and the game is mine." When the train drew out, the Major watched the disappearing forms of the mortal enemies in a secret wonder. "Have they made it up? Will they marry after all?" he growled, and yet he laughed the idea to scorn. "And yet fear, as well as love, has tied the nuptial knot before," he mused.

A new proof of Johnstone's craft was afforded him after he had, in a leisurely way, verified the regularity of his windfall in good London exchange, signed by the millionaire upon his home bankers, and duly stamped. A mental flash of lightning showed him how he was "sewed up," for Johnstone's all too polite servants shadowed him, alternately, in his every movement. He even dared not visit the secret telegraph address. "Old scoundrel!" raged Alan Hawke. "I will only get the first news after the fair and probably in a storm from Berthe. The denouement may occur with me languishing here in Capua. Suppose that this she-devil would bolt? Where would I land then?" He was most sadly rattled.

In the Delhi train, Hugh Johnstone busied with his late London papers, slyly smiled as he studied a route map and railway time table. He had received a single telegraphed word, dated Madras, and wisely left unsigned, but that one word was the keynote of his coveted victory—"Arrived."

"Ah! my lady," he mused, casting his eyes in the direction of Madame Louison's cozy private compartment. "To-morrow at Delhi, if Douglas Fraser is true to his trust, there will be the message which tells of a 'bark upon the sea,' which bears away forever all the brightness of your life—away from you, yes, forever! And Hawke, this smart cad, is powerless now, and both of them are outwitted. The Baronetcy is safe the very moment that Abercromby's work is done. I've paid Hawke now, and he has been very naturally brought down here, out of the way. Madame! Madame! Now to settle accounts with you the very moment that Abercromby has reported back from Calcutta. I think I will just have a good old-fashioned talk with Ram Lal Singh. I need his evidence to hoodwink this old cask of grog, Abercromby. I must blow off' his vanity in great style."

While Berthe Louison slept, while old Hugh Johnstone plotted, while Ram Lal Singh fumed at Delhi, and Harry Hardwicke "mourned the hopes that left him," Major Alan Hawke retired to the Nirvana of a long afternoon siesta. There was a little departing detachment on this golden afternoon at Madras—two frightened women, now gladly seeking the shelter of their cabins, as the fleet steamer Coomassie Castle turned her prow toward Palk Strait. The terrible ordeal of "passing the surf" had appalled them, and the exhausted Nadine Johnstone at last fell asleep with her arms clasped around her sad-hearted governess. A hundred times had they read over together the old nabob's telegram: "Going home from Calcutta to settle the Baronetcy appointment. Will meet you in Europe." Nadine's letter from her stern father bade her implicitly trust to her new-found kinsman, Douglas Fraser. The old nabob's judiciously private letter had filled Justine Delande's sad heart with one twilight glow of happiness. A comforting cheque for one thousand pounds was contained therein.

The words: "Your salary and expenses will be paid by me in Europe. This is only a little present. Another may await you and your sister, if you fulfill your trust, that no man, not even Douglas Fraser, meets my daughter alone until you give her back to me. He is but my traveling agent. Nadine is in your hands alone. I have so written to her." With a breaking heart Justine Delande kissed her beloved gage d'amour, the diamond bracelet, murmuring: "Alan! Alan! To part without even a word!" She lay with tear-stained eyes, watching the low shores of Madras fade away, and listened to the sleeping girl's murmur: "Harry! Harry! I owe you my life!" Even the maid mourned a dashing Sergeant-Major! With a desperate courage, trying to fan the spark of love, which had slowly crept into her lonely heart, Justine Delande had timidly bribed a stewardess, going on shore for some last commissions, to telegraph to the secret address at Allahabad the words: "Madras steamer Coomassie Castle, Brindisi."

The signature, "Your Justine," brought a grim smile to Alan Hawke's face, the next night, when on the arrival of General Abercromby, he stationed Hugh Johnstone's secret spies on duty with the redoubtable Calcutta warrior. "By God! She is both game and true!" cried Hawke. "Here is my fortune, and Justine shall share my spoils yet!" As the special train rolled out into the starlit night the old nabob, in a paroxysm of delight, read in the marble house words telegraphed by the happy-hearted Douglas Fraser, now taking up his endless deck tramp on the Brindisi bound steamer. The young Scotsman, ignorant of all intrigue, was relieved to know that he had laid the firm foundation of his future fortunes. His last shore duty was done when he had wired to his urgent relative in Delhi the glad tidings: "All right. Coomassie Castle. Orders strictly obeyed."

Even the astute Alan Hawke failed, after many days of futile private research, to trace the route of the train which had pulled out of Delhi in the dead of night, beat the record to Allahabad, and then, turning off apparently for Bombay, had curved, on a loop, to the Madras line, and surpassed all speed records on the Indian Peninsula. Even when he telegraphed to Ram Lal's friends at Madras, he could obtain no definite trace, the railway officials were silent, and the travelers had sought no hotel in Madras. Hugh Johnstone's well applied money had smothered all inquiry. Even the driver and stokers of the special train never knew who so generously presented them with a ten pound note apiece. "Some secret service racket," they laughed over their ale. Not a tremor of a single muscle betrayed Major Alan Hawke when he delivered over his official charge, Major General Abercromby, to Hugh Johnstone in the golden glow of Delhi's morning. "I've kept your interests in view," he whispered. "The old boy's just two hundred pounds richer. And, you may be sure, he wanted for nothing. I know all his damned old tiger and mutiny stories by heart. I'm going up to the Club for a good long sleep. My compliments to the ladies," lightly said Alan Hawke, as he gracefully declined Hugh Johnstone's invitation to breakfast. Then Johnstone bore off his purple prize, set in red and gold.

The wide ripple of excitement caused by General Abercromby's reported arrival had crowded the railway station. Hugh Johnstone chuckled, "Evidently Hawke knows nothing," as the two old friends drove away in splendid state. But Major Hawke, an hour later, at his Club, was suddenly interrupted in a cozy breakfast by the most unceremonious entrance of Major Harry Hardwicke, whose promotion was at last gazetted. "Hello! I see you're a Major now. Lucky devil! What can I do for you, Hardwicke?" cried Alan Hawke, eyeing the haggard and worn-looking young officer with a strange dawning suspicion of the truth. "Did he know, too, of the Hegira?"

Major Hardwicke threw himself down in a chair, curtly saying: "You can tell me who effectuated this lightning disappearance act of Madame Delande and young Miss Johnstone."

"You speak in riddles to me, Hardwicke," coolly said the wary Major. "I've just come in from Allahabad with General Abercromby, who is here to settle old Johnstone's accounts. I know nothing of what you refer to. I expected to meet both the ladies at dinner to-day."

"Then I will not uselessly take up your time, Major Hawke," gloomily rejoined Hardwicke, as he picked up his sword, and, with a cold formal bow, quitted the room.

"I must watch this young fool," growled Alan Hawke. "Thank my lucky stars, the woman is far away! But, he's well connected, has a brilliant record, and is a V. C. now for Berthe Louison and the fireworks! But, first, old Ram Lal! They bowled the old boy out! I suppose that he has already told Alixe Delavigne that she has been outwitted. I hold the trump cards now! No single word without its golden price! I must not make one false step! As to the club men, I only join in the general wonder." He made a careful and very studied toilet and sauntered out of the club en flaneur, and then stealthily betook himself to the pagoda in Ram Lal's garden, where his innocent dupe had so often waited for him with a softly beating heart.

"I'm glad the girl is gone," mused Alan Hawke. "If she were here, the chorus hymning Hardwicke's perfections might set her young heart on fire." He was, as yet, ignorant of the tender bond of gratitude fast ripening into Love. For, Love, that strange plant, rooted in the human heart, thrives in absence, and, watered by the tears of sorrow and adversity, fills the longing and faithful heart, in days of absence, with its flowers of rarest fragrance and blossoms of unfading beauty. Nadine Johnstone, speeding on over sapphire seas, had already conquered the tender secret of the simple Justine Delande's heart; and in her own loving day-dreams:

"Aye she loot the tears down fa' for Jock o' Hazeldean!"

"I must see him again! I must see him!" she fondly pledged her waiting heart. With the serpent cunning of a loving maiden, she brooded like a dove with tender eyes, and so in her heart of hearts, determined to draw forth from her stalwart cousin, Douglas Fraser, the secret of their future destination. And the honest fellow became even as wax in her hands; while the gloomy Hardwicke, in far-away Delhi, eyed the parchment-faced Hugh Johnstone in mute wonder, at the long official reception in the Marble House. "Will he not vouchsafe to me even one word of thanks?" thought the young man, in an increasing wonder.

But, Ram Lal Singh, when Major Alan Hawke drew him into the sanctum behind the shop, showed a dark face, seamed with lines of care. "There will be some terrible happening!" muttered the smooth old Mohammedan.

He had good gift of the world's gear, and now preferred the role of fox to lion. "She knows nothing as yet. I waited till I could see you. I dared not to tell her. She only fancies that this official visit of the General-Sahib from Calcutta will, of course, take up all their time at the marble house. But she begs me to watch them all, and she has given me some little presents—money presents." Hawke winced, but in silence. His employer trusted him not. Here was proof positive.

"How in the devil's name did they get away without you knowing of it?" demanded Hawke. "If you are lying to me, Ram Lal, we may lose both our pickings from this fat pagoda tree. You see old Johnstone may slip away after the girl. He may leave here with Abercromby."

The jewel merchant's eyes gleamed with a smoldering fire. "Johnstone Sahib will not leave Delhi. It is in the stars! He has too much here to leave. There are many old ties which bind. No, he will not go like a thief in the night." Hawke was surprised at the old rascal's evident emotion.

"Then tell me what you think about the disappearance of these women," said Hawke, watching him keenly.

"I have seen all my friends in the station, even the mail clerks, telegraph men, and all," began Ram Lal. "A train 'on government service'—a special—came in that night from Allahabad at ten o'clock. Then two small trains were kept in waiting for some hours; one left for Simla before daylight, and the other drew out for Allahabad. There was a crowd of ladies, officers' ladies, and some children and servants in the waiting-room. They like to travel at night in the cool shade. No one knew them. Now, at Allahabad, the east-bound train could branch off either for Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay."

"So you know not which way these women fled?" The old merchant seemed absolutely at sea. As Hawke shook his head the story was soon finished.

"My men at the marble house tell me that a strange young man arrived at ten o'clock. He was admitted by Simpson, the private man of Johnstone Sahib. The Swiss woman talked with him alone a half hour in the library, and then Johnstone's daughter came down there, but only for a few moments. My men watched him writing and reading papers in the library; then they all went away."

"That is all. I slipped into the house when Simpson went away next day. He often goes out to drink secretly, and he has a pretty Eurasian friend or two, besides, down in the quarter." Ram Lal winked significantly. "I went all over the upper part of the house myself. The women's rooms were left just as if they had gone out for a drive along the Jumna. If they took anything it was only a few hand parcels. Now you know all that I know. No one ever saw the strange man before. And these people are gone for good, that is all. Go now to the Mem-Sahib at the Silver Bungalow. I fear her. But tell me what I must say to her." The old man was evidently in a mortal fear. "There is that French devil—that old soldier. He is a fighting devil, that one, and the woman a tiger. The lady herself is a tiger of tigers!"

"Say nothing, Ram Lal," soothingly said Hawke. "Leave it all to me. I see it. Old Johnstone has sent the girl to the hills to keep her away from the young fellows who will crowd the house, while this General Abercromby is here. There'll be drink and cards, and God knows what else."

"I know," grinned Ram Lal. "I knew old Johnstone in the old days, a man-eater, a woman-killer, a cold-hearted devil, too! What does he do with this General?" The jewel merchant's eyes blazed.

"Oh! Buying his new title with some official humbug or another. I don't know. Perhaps he is really settling his accounts," laughed Hawke.

"I have a little account of my own to settle with him! I will see him at once! He, too, may slip away and follow his girl to the hills," quietly said Ram Lal. "I know his past. He is never to be trusted—not for a moment—as long as he is alive!" Alan Hawke stared in wonder at Ram Lal, who humbly salaamed, when he closed:

"See the woman over there—come back, and tell me what I must do or say. You and I are comrades," the jewel seller leeringly said, "and we must lie together! All the world are liars-and half of the world lives by lying." with which sage remark the old curio seller betook himself to his narghileh.

In a half an hour, Major Alan Hawke was wandering through the garden of the Silver Bungalow with Alixe Delavigne at his side. Behind them, at a discreet distance, sauntered Jules Victor, his dark eyes most intently fixed upon the promenaders. Madame Delavigne was pleased to be cheerfully buoyant. She had silently listened to Hawke's recital of the probable causes of General Abercromby's visit. "I could see that Johnstone evidently wished to occupy us both at Allahabad. Your conduct was discretion itself! Have you seen him yet? Or the ladies?" She eyed her listener keenly.

"No, Madame," frankly said Hawke. "There is all manner of official junketing on here now. I am not, of course, to be officially included, as I am not on the staff of either the visiting or commanding general. I must wait until I am invited—if I am!" he hesitatingly said. "You know that my rank is—to say the least—shadowy!" The lady passed over this semi-confession in silence.

"It is not like Johnstone to let Nadine meet all the gay coterie which will fill the great halls," mused Madame Delavigne. "I suppose that the dear child will have a week of 'marble prison' in her rooms, with only the governess. I think I shall let General Abercrornby leave before I call. What do you advise? Johnstone has always ignored the ladies of Delhi!"

"I really am powerless to counsel you," said Major Hawke gravely, "as I am outside of the circle. I would watch this man keenly. He bears you no good will. And now—what shall I do? Did your business at Calcutta bring me the summons to action?" There was no undue eagerness in his voice. He was gliding into a safe position for the future eclaircissement.

"Not yet. But it will come! It will come—as soon as this General goes. For I now will demand the right to drop Berthe Louison, and to be my own self. To be Alixe Delavigne to one bright, loving human soul only, in this land of arid solitudes, of peopled wastes. The land of the worn, scarred human nature, which, blind, creedless, and hopeless, staggers along under the burden of misery under the menace of the British bayonet."

"When do you leave it?" quietly asked the cautious Major.

"When my work is done!" the resolute woman replied. "I am here for peace or war! We have only crossed swords! I do not trust this man a moment! He is capable of any foul deed! Now, you must keenly watch the clubs, the social life. Find out all you can! Come to me here every night at ten. If I suddenly need you, then I will send Ram Lal!"

"By day or night I am ready!" gravely said Major Hawke. "I do not like to intrude upon you," he hesitatingly said.

"You will win your spurs yet in my service!" said Alixe. "The real struggle is to come yet. I am only knocking at the door of Nadine's heart. And the old nabob is but half conquered."

Major Hawke, with a bow, retired and wended his way to the Club, where he spent an hour in preparing a careful letter to Euphrosyne Delande. It was a careful document, intended to prudently open communication with Justine through the Halls of Learning on the Rue du Rhone, Geneva, but a little sealed inclosure to Justine was the grain of gold in all the complimentary chaff. "Her own heart, poor girl, will tell her what to do," said Hawke, as he departed and registered the letter himself.

The passing cortege of General Abercromby, returning the visit of the local chief, excited Hawke's attention. He caught a glimpse of the silver-haired millionaire whom two widely different natures had denounced that day as "being capable of anything."

"And so old Ram Lal has it 'in for him,' too! What can he mean?"

With a sudden impulse Major Hawke drove back and made a formal call upon the ladies at the Marble House. He was astounded when old Simpson, with a grudging welcome, openly announced that the ladies were permanently not at home. "Gone to the hills for a month or two," curtly replied the veteran servant, and then, on a silver tray, the butler decorously handed to Major Alan Hawke a sealed letter. "I was to seek you out at the Club, sir, as this letter is important. I take the liberty to give it to you now. It was the master's orders: 'That I give it into your own hands!'"

Major Alan Hawke's face darkened as he read the curt lines penned by Hugh Johnstone himself. With a smothered curse he thrust the letter in his pocket. "Both of them are trying to keep me in the dark, I'll let Madame Berthe Louison run her own head into the trap. Then, when she pays, I will talk, but not till then." The careful lines stated that for a week the writer would be greatly engrossed with private matters, and at home to no one. "I will send for you as soon as I am able to see you, upon some new business matters."

The last clause was significant enough. "He prepared this to give me a social knockout!" coolly said the renegade. "All right! But wait! By Gad! I fancy I'll take a cool revenge in joining Ram Lal and Berthe Louison. Suppose that the old duffer were put out of the way? Could I then count on Justine, and my wary employer? There is a storm brewing, and breakers ahead. I must soon get my 'retaining fee' from the lady of the Silver Bungalow or I may lose it forever! And I will let her uncover the empty bird's nest herself! She must not suspect me!" And yet the curt letter of the old civilian wounded him to the quick. "What does this jugglery mean? He ought to fear me, by this time, just a little! He intends to crush Berthe Louison by some foul blow, and then will he dare to begin on me? I will double forces with Ram Lal. That's my only alliance!" The Major's soul was up in arms.

When the splendid reception at General Willoughby's was over, Hugh Johnstone cautiously approached Major Hardwicke. "I am just told that General Abercromby will remain and dine 'en famille' with his old brother in arms. Will you drive with me to my house? I have something of a private nature to say to you. I can give you a seat in my carriage." Major Hardwicke bowed and, obtaining his conge, sat in expectant waiting until the two men were comfortably seated in Johnstone's snuggery in the deserted mansion. They talked indifferently over Abercromby's arrival till Simpson announced dinner.

"I would like you to dine with me, Major Hardwicke," said the old Commissioner, "for I have something now to say to you." He rang a silver bell, and, whispering to Simpson, faced his young visitor, who had bowed in acceptance. The butler returned in a few moments with a superb Indian saber, sheathed in gold, and shimmering with splendid jewels. He stood, mute, as Johnstone gravely said: "I learned from Simpson, on my return from Calcutta, of your prompt gallantry in aiding my daughter in her hour of peril." He continued, "Simpson alone, was left to tell me, as I have sent the child away to the hills for a couple of months. For reasons of my own, I do not care to have a motherless girl exposed to the indiscriminate hubbub of merely official society. The young lady will probably not remain in India. I therefore sent them all away before this official visit, which would have forced a child, almost yet a school girl, out into the glare of this local junketing," he said with feeling.

"Take this saber, Major. It was given up by Mir-zah Shah, a Warrior Prince, in old days, so the legend goes. It is the sword of a king's son. It will recall your own saber play so neatly conceived, and, as a personal reminder, wear this for me! It is a rare diamond, which I have treasured for many years. And its old Hindustanee name was 'Bringer of Prosperity.'" Hardwicke bowed, and murmured his thanks.

The nabob slipped a superb ring from his finger, and then, as if he had relieved his mind forever of a painful duty, dismissed the subject, almost feverishly entertaining his solitary guest at the splendid feast which had been prepared for General Abercromby. It was late when the strangely assorted convives separated. "I will now send Simpson home with you, in my carriage," solicitously remarked Johnstone, as the hour grew late. "There is a prince's ransom on that sword—and, you did not bring your noble charger! You must treat him well for my sake—for my daughter's sake!"

"Will Miss Johnstone return soon?" said the heart-hungry lover, catching at this last straw.

"It is undetermined! I may send them home in a few months. But, if I have any little influence left, 'at Headquarters,' that shall always be exerted for you. I am always glad to meet you, your father's son, for Colonel Hardwicke was a true soldier of the olden days—brave, loyal, and beyond reproach."

The lover's beating heart was smothered in this flowing honey. "Ah! I must trust to Simpson!" he mused. "The old man is a sly one!"

Politely bowed out by the stern, lonely old man, Major Hardwicke departed, his conversational guns spiked with the deft compliments, as the mighty clatter of the returning General filled the courtyard of the Marble House.

In the soft, wooing stillness of the night, Simpson, at the young Major's side, found time to whisper: "Never let the Guv'nor see us together! He's a sly one! There's a honey-baited trap in this! The girl's been spirited off to Europe! I only know that—but, as yet, no more."

"What do you mean? Is he lying to me?" gasped Hardwicke, with a sinking heart.

"Rightly said!" huskily whispered Simpson. "Seek for her—London ways—I'll find it out soon where she is, and I'm just scholar enough to write! Give me your own safe London address! I heard ye would soon take yer long leave. Bless her sweet soul! I'll tell ye now! She whispered to me: 'Tell him—tell Major Hardwicke—he'll hear from me himself, even if I was at the very end of the earth! and give him this!'" The frightened servant thrust a little packet into the officer's hand. "It was the only chance she had."

"That Swiss woman watched her every moment, and the man—the one the father sent from Calcutta. There was a telegram to her. I gave it to her myself! Major, my oath—they're on the blue water, now! I'll watch and come to you! Don't leave Delhi till I post you!"

"You're a brave fellow, Simpson. Keep this all quiet," softly said Major Hardwicke. "I'll follow your advice, and I'll not leave here till I know more from you. I'll follow her to Japan, but I'll see her again."

"That's the talk, Major!" cried the happy old soldier, who felt something crisp in his hand now. "Distrust old Hugh! He'll lie to ye and trap ye! Watch him! He's capable of anything." The carriage then stopped with a crash and Hardwicke sprang out lightly. "Make no sign! Trust to me! I'll come to ye!" was Simpson's last word.

Before Simpson had discovered in the marble house the pleasing figures on a ten-pound note, Harry Hardwicke, striding up and down his room, in all the ecstasy of a happy lover, had kissed a hundred times a little silver card case—a mere school girl's poor treasure, but priceless now—for within it was a hastily severed tress of gold-brown hair, tied with a bit of blue ribbon. A scrap of paper in penciled words brought to him "Confirmation stronger than Holy Writ." "I will write or telegraph when not watched. Do not forget. —Nadine."

The words of the old servitor returned to the soldier in a grim warning. "He is capable of anything."

"So am I," cried Harry as his heart leaped up. "I will find her were she at the North Pole. He cannot hide her from me. Love laughs at locksmiths!"

If the would-be Sir Hugh Johnstone had heard the three verdicts of the hostile critics of his being "capable of anything," he might have laughed in defiance, but after several friendly "night caps" with the slightly jovial General Abercromby, it might have seriously disturbed the host to know what hidden suspicions the Viceroy's envoy had brought back from a very secret conference with that acute old local commander, Willoughby.

"It sounds all very well, Abercromby, my old friend," said Willoughby, "but Johnstone, or old Fraser, as we call him, is a hitman shark! Without a list or some general details, he will surely rob the crown of one-half the jewels, you may be sure. His cock and bull story of their recovery is too pellucid. It's Hobson's choice, though. That or nothing. He, of course, slyly claims to have only lately made this bungling accidental recovery. If the return is a really valuable one, then all you can officially do is to accept it. But be wary! I can give you some friendly aid here, when you get all the returned treasure. I'll give you a captain's guard here. Bring all here at once. We, you, and I, will seal it up, and I'll have old Ram Lal Singh secretly come here and value them. He's the best judge of gems in India, and he was once an official in the Royal Treasure Chamber of the old King of Oude. Less than fifty thousand pounds worth as a return would be a transparent humbug, and besides you can delay your signature for a day or so, till you and I, after listing the gems, see this old expert and have him examine them in our presence. No one need know of it but you and I, and His excellency, the Viceroy. As for Hugh Johnstone, he is simply capable of anything. I told the Viceroy's aid, Anstruther, so. And I'll be damned glad to get Johnstone out of my bailiwick, that I will."