In the night train, speeding back to Geneva, Major Hawke remembered

some old desperate associates of an enforced “social eclipse” at

Granville-sur-Mer. “With a half a dozen resolute fellows I might hang

around Jersey and, perhaps, force my way into the stronghold. It depends

on where the mansion is located. If the jewels are there, I will either

have them or else bend the old man to my will by threatened disclosures.

But I must first fool Anstruther and my pretty employer. If Justine had

only remained at Jersey I might have easily won my way to the girl’s

side. And yet she will be under a long three years guardianship.” Some

busy devil at his side whispered: “She would be helpless if she were

carried off.” And as the enraged schemer finished the last of a dozen

cigars and took a pull at his pocket flask, he disposed himself to

sleep, grumbling.

“They have upset all the chessmen. Old Fraser and the Louison, too, are

playing at cross purposes--evidently. They have, however, spoiled my

little game. I will spoil theirs!” He grinned as he decided “I will do

a bit of the Romeo act with Justine, and come back by Granville to

Boulogne. If the old gang is to be found there, I may get one of them

to spy the whole thing out. All these Jersey people are half French in

their birth and ways. I can sneak some fellow in from Granville. There

might be a chance. I’ll get to the old fellow, or the girl, or the

jewels--by God! I will! For I hold the trump cards.”

And yet his flattering hopes of gaining a permanent rank returned to

affright him in planning such a bold deed. “Ah! I must get some trusty

fellow--perhaps, in London,” he muttered as his head dropped, and the

train bore him on to the halls of learning, where poor Justine was now

weeping on her sister’s bosom, and unveiling all the secrets of a hungry

heart to the sympathetic Euphrosyne.

But, saddest of all the coterie who had trodden the tessellated floors

of the marble house at Delhi, was a lonely girl sobbing herself to

sleep, that very night, in a gray castellated mansion house perched upon

a sunny cliff of Jersey.

The fair gardens and splendid halls of the luxurious home seemed but

the limits of a cheerless prison to the broken-hearted girl who had

been astounded when her one friend, Douglas Fraser, the companion of a

thirty-five days’ journey, left her without a word. Nadine Johnstone had

opened her heart, shyly, to her manly young kinsman, Douglas Fraser.

And yet she guarded, as only a maiden’s heart can, the secret of the

blossoming love for Hardwicke--the man who had saved her life. She asked

her hungry heart if he would follow on her way, led by the appeal of her

shining eyes.

Worn, harassed, and wearied out by travel, she had sought a refuge in

Justine Delande’s clinging arms, on the night of their arrival from

Boulogne, for the path from India had been but a series of shadow-dance

glimpses of strange scenes. The ashen face of the tottering old pedant

had offered her no welcome to a happy home.

“How hideously like my father, this old bookworm,” murmured the

frightened girl in a strange repulsion, as she fled away to her room. It

was a grateful relief when the servant maid announced that the travelers

would be served in their rooms.

“The Master lives entirely alone,” the girl said shortly. Late that

first night the lonely girl sat gazing at the windows rattling under

the flying wrack, while Douglas Fraser and his father communed below her

until the midnight hour. Suddenly Justine Delande was summoned to join

them “on urgent business,” and the heiress of a million sat with clasped

hands, murmuring:

“Will he ever find me out here? This is only a cheerless prison. I am,

forever, lost to the world.” There was that in Justine Delande’s face on

her return which startled the heart-sick wanderer.

“Ask me nothing--nothing to-night. Only sleep, my darling,” murmured the

devoted Swiss. The shadows deepened over Nadine Johnstone as she fell

asleep dreaming of her mother, the gentle vision, and, the absent lover

of her girlish heart.

Sunny gleams came with the dawn, and Nadine was already wandering in the

beautiful gardens of “The Banker’s Folly,” as the home perched on the

hill was termed. It was there that Douglas Fraser suddenly came upon

her, walking with the white-faced Justine. Both women could see that

he bore tidings of grave import, and another shadow settled on Nadine’s

heart, as she clasped Justine’s hand.

Her cousin’s face was grave as he said, in a broken voice: “I

must hasten away instantly to catch the boat, and I have to return

immediately to India. There’s no time for a word. My father will tell

you all! It is a matter of life and death to our whole family interests.

May God keep you, Nadine!” the young man kindly said, as he bent and

kissed her hand. “I have tried to make your long journey bearable!” And

then, a wrinkled face at a window appeared to end the coming disclosure,

for Douglas was softening. A harsh voice rose up in a half shriek:

“Douglas! Douglas!” and the young man turned back, without another word,

springing away, over the graveled walks. Nadine’s face grew ashen white,

as the presage of coming disaster chilled her heart.

Without a word, Justine Delande led the startled girl into the house.

“You are to see your uncle at once! After our breakfast! And I will be

with you.” faltered Justine, with an averted face.

The orphaned girl was now dimly conscious of some impending blow. She

had been frightened at the solemnity of Douglas Fraser’s hasty farewell,

and, while Justine Delande affected to touch the breakfast spread

in their rooms by the Swiss lady’s maid, now gloomy in an attack of

heimweh, Nadine saw a four-wheeler rattle away over the lawn, while

old Andrew Fraser grimly watched it until the gates clanged behind the

departing Anglo-Indian. Over the low wall, on the road, Douglas Fraser

caught a last glimpse of the graceful girl standing there. He sadly

waved an adieu, and Nadine Johnstone was left with but one friend in

the world, save the silent Swiss governess. Though the two women were

sumptuously lodged “in fair upper chambers,” opening east and south,

with their maid near at hand, the gloomy chill of the silent household

had already penetrated the lonely girl’s heart. No single sign of the

warmer amenities. Only books, books, dusty books, by the thousand, piled

helter-skelter in every available nook and cranny.

The servants were slouching and sullen, and they moved about their

duties with gloomy brows. Even the gardener and his two stout boys

struck sadly away with mattock and spade as if digging graves. No chirp

of bird, no baying of a friendly dog, no burst of childish merriment

broke the droning silence. And this was the home to which a father had

doomed his only child.

When the frightened maid tapped at the door to summon her mistress, her

feeble rapping sounded like a hammer falling sadly on the hollow coffin

lid. The girl stammered, “The master would like to see you both in the

library.” And with a sinking heart Nadine Fraser Johnstone descended the

stair.

She had only cast a frightened glimpse at the yellowed, bony face,

the cavernous eye sockets, the bushy eyebrows, beneath which a cold

intellectual gleam still feebly flickered. Andrew Fraser had bent his

tall form over her, and peering down at her had whispered after their

few words of greeting:

“Did ye gain aught in knowledge of Thibet in your Indian life? My life

work lies there, and Hugh has sorely disappointed me. He was to send me

books and maps and papers for my ‘History of Thibet and the Wanderings

of the Ten Tribes.’” With a confused negation the girl had fled away

to the cheerless shelter of the great rooms whose drab and gray

arrangements bespoke the Reformatory or a Refuge for the Friendless.

And the stern old scholar waited for the fluttering bird whom adverse

Fate had driven into his dismal lair with all the pompous severity of a

guardian and trustee.

Seated at a long desk littered with a multitude of papers, Professor

Andrew Fraser coldly bowed the two women to convenient seats. The

parvenu banker who had fled away after a bankruptcy due to the erection

and embellishment of “The Folly,” had approved a semi-medieval plan of

construction which suggested a Norman stronghold or a Corsican mansion

arranged for a stubborn defense. Books, globes, maps, and papers

littered the floors, and were piled nearby in convenient heaps with

tell-tale flying signals of copious note taking. It was a bristling

Redoubt of Learning.

But on this sunny morning the retired Professor of Edinburg University

held sundry letters, dispatches, and legal papers clutched in his

claw-like hands. His eye rested upon Justine Delande, in a semi-hostile

glare, as he slowly said:

“I’ve sent for ye, as in the place of your father’s daughter, ye must

know of the changes that come to us, with the chances of Life and the

sair ways o’ the world.” He was nervously fumbling with a selection of

the papers and he paused and coughed ominously. “There has come to us

news which has posted my son Douglas hastily back to India, to do your

father’s last bidding.”

Nadine Johnstone’s trembling hand clutched Justine Delande’s still

rounded arm.

“Her father the double of this grim ogre?” There was horror in her

conjecture, but no pang of affection at the easily divined disclosure.

“The news came to us suddenly, yesterday, and Douglas and I are left now

to screen ye from the robbers and cormorants of the world! Ye’re one of

the richest women in Britain now--Hugh Fraser’s daughter--for yere guid

father is no more! A sudden death--a sudden death! and his will leaves

you to me as a legal charge, for yere body and yere estate, till ye come

o’ the legal age. T’hafs the next three years!”

With a single glance of stern deprecation, Andrew Fraser saw the girl

totter and her head fall upon the bosom of the woman who had “sorrowed

of her sorrows” in all the years of the lonely colorless infancy,

childhood, and budding womanhood! The old bookworm clung to the papers

as if that “documentary evidence” was an absolute guaranty, and he

held it ready to proffer in support of his theorem. His toughened

heart-strings were silent at natural affection’s touch, and only twanged

to the never-dying greed for gold--useless gold!

In an unmoved wonder, the senile scholar listened to the broken sobs

of the child of Valerie Delavigne. He was astounded at her financial

carelessness, when she moaned:

“Let me go away! Let me go!” and then she cried, “What care I for all

this money--this useless wealth. He is gone! I am now alone in the

world! And--and, now I never will know the story of the past!” There was

a stony gleam on the old Scotchman’s face as the girl sobbed, “Mother!

Mother! Lost to me forever, now.” The cunning old Scotchman’s face

darkened at the mention of that long-forbidden name. The woman who had

deserted the rich nabob.

With uneasy, tottering steps the old scholar paced the room, watching

the two women in a grim silence, until Justine Delande, with a woman’s

questioning eyes, pointed to the rooms above.

“Before ye go, and I’ll now give ye these whole papers and documents, I

would say that my dead brother Hugh has here in his will laid out yere

whole life for the three years of the minority. He has put on me the

thankless labor and care of watching over yere worldly gear, and of

keeping ye safely to the lines of prudence and of a just economy. And

my duty to my dead brother, I will do just as his own words and hand and

seal lay it down! To-morrow I will have much to say to you. If ye will

come back to me here, Madame Delande, when my ward goes to her own room,

I’ll see ye at once on a brief matter o’ business. And now I’ll wait

till ye take her away!” It was a half hour before Justine Delande

descended to the rooms where the old egoist chafed at the loss of time

stolen from the maundering researches on Thibet and the Ten Tribes.

“Woman! woman! I sent up for ye twice!” he barked, as the half-defiant

Swiss governess at length joined him.

“I know my duty to my dear child, Nadine!” said the stout-hearted

governess, with a crimsoning cheek. The old man opened a check-book, and

sternly said:

“Sit ye there! I’ll arrange yere business in a few minutes! And, then,

ye can find other duties, and know them as ye care to. I’ll have none of

yere hoity-toity airs here!” Regardless of the look of horror stealing

over the face of Justine, the old man coldly proceeded as if receding

from the pulpit. “My late brother, Hugh Fraser Johnstone, of Delhi and

Calcutta, has sent me his own last instructions and orders. I have here

the last receipt for the stipend which ye have been allowed--and, I’m

duly following his orders, when I give ye this check for the six months

that has yet too to run.

“And-look ye here! A twenty-pound note to take ye back to Geneva! When

ye sign this receipt for the stipend, ye are free to leave my house at

once. There’s some letters and a couple of telegrams for ye! Bring me

the maid, now, and I’ll pay her in the same way; and, moreover, I will

give her ten pounds to take her home. Then, ye’ll both remember ye

are not to sleep another night here! I’ll give ye the whole day to say

good-bye and to make up yere boxes. There will be two four-wheelers here

after yere dinner, and ye’ll find the Royal Victoria Hotel suited to ye

both, at St. Heliers. If ye choose to go, the morning boat takes ye to

Granville. Bring the maid here now! Do you linger, woman? I’ll be obeyed

and forthwith!”

With flashing eyes, Justine Delande sprang up, facing the flinty-hearted

old Scotsman. “I will never abandon Nadine here! She will die in your

cheerless prison!” she cried. But the old pedant glowered pitilessly at

the startled woman, who cried: “To turn me away like a dog--after these

many years!” And her sobs woke the echoes of the vaulted room.

“Hearken, my leddy!” barked old Fraser, “One more word, and I’ll have

the gardener put ye off the premises! The girl ye speak of is young and

strong. She’ll have just what the Court gives her, and what her father

laid out for her, and I’ll work my will, and I’ll do his will. Ye’re

speaking to no fule, here now! Take yere money and yere letters, and

bring me the maid, or I’ll bundle ye both in a jiffey into the Queen’s

highway. I’ll have none but my own servants here--now!”

Then Justine Delande, without another word, stepped forward, and,

seizing the pen, signed her receipt for wages due, in silence. She

defiantly gathered up her withheld letters and papers. She returned in

a few moments with the maid, whose ox-like eyes glowed in the sudden joy

of a return to Switzerland. For the ranz des vaches was now ringing in

the stout peasant girl’s ears. “There, that’s all, now!” rasped the old

man, when the maid had gathered up her dole. “The butler will go down to

town with ye and see ye safe, and he will leave word at the bank to pay

yere checks. I keep no siller here. It’s a lonely house.” And the dead

tyrant worked his will through the living one, as his stony heart had

laid out the future.

Justine Delande faced the old miser pedant as she indignantly cried:

“God protect and keep the poor orphan who has drifted out of one hell on

earth into another! Your dead brother robbed her of a mother’s love, and

you--you old vampire--you would bury her alive! She shall know yet her

dead mother’s love, and--her brutal father’s shame!”

Before the excited woman could select another period of flowing

invective from her thronging emotions, the gaunt old scholar had pushed

her out into the hall and slid a bolt upon his door, with a vicious

click. There were certain qualms of fear already unsettling his

triumphant calmness.

While Justine Delande, with flaming cheeks, sprang up the stair, and

barricaded herself with the sobbing heiress, the old man, his eyes

gleaming with all the conscious pride of tyranny, seated himself and

indited a note directed to

PROFESSOR ALARIC HOBBS, (of Waukesha University, U. S. A.), ROYAL

VICTORIA HOTEL, ST. HELIERS, JERSEY.

He had already dismissed from his mind the sorrows of the orphaned

niece--he cared not for the spirited onslaught of the Swiss woman--and

he rejoiced in his heart at the fact of Douglas Fraser’s departure to

gather up the loose ends of his dead brother’s great fortune. “It’s a

vixenish baggage--this Swiss teacher! Hugh was right to bid me cut those

cords at once and forever between them! The girl shall have discipline,

and, that baggage, her mother, is well out of the world! I’ll work

Hugh’s will! She shall come under!” With a secret glee he ran over a

schedule of chapter headings upon Thibet, Tibet, Tubet--the land of

Bod--Bodyul or Alassa. He was drifting back into the dreamland of the

pedant, but a few hours deserted.

“This Yankee fellow has a keen wit! His ideas on the Ten Tribes are

wonderful! His life has been a study of the Mongolians, the Tartars,

and the history of the American Indians! I will be a bit decent to the

fellow, and I’ll get at the meat of his knowledge! He’s young and a

great chatterer, maybe, but a help to me. Body o’ me! But to get there

myself--to Thibet.

“Ah!” sighed the old misanthrope, “I’m too old now! And Hugh has failed

me! Nothing from him. This sair blow cuts off the last hope! And no

educated men of Thibet ever travel! Blindness--blindness everywhere!”

he babbled on, while above him, two women, in an agonized leave-taking,

were silently sobbing in each other’s arms, while the happy Swiss

servant made her boxes. Nadine Johnstone’s utter wretchedness gave her

no sense of a loss by the hand of Death. For a father’s love she had

never known, and her mother--a mystery!

The two women cowering together above the old pedant’s den with

sorrowing hearts communed while Justine Delande directed the packing

of her slender belongings. There was a new spirit of revolt stirring in

Nadine Johnstone’s breast, and her face glowed with the resentment of an

outraged heart. When all was ready for Justine’s flitting, the heiress

of a million pounds finished a little memorandum, which she calmly

explained to the Swiss preceptress. The sense of her future rights

stirred her like a bugle blast, and with clear eyes, she looked beyond

the three years toward Freedom.

“It rests with you, Justine, as to whether I am left friendless for

three years of a gloomy captivity. First you are to telegraph to Major

Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, Delhi, and if you receive no reply,

then telegraph to General Willoughby for the Major’s address. When at

Granville, and, not before, send this letter to Major Hardwicke at the

‘Junior United Service Club, London’.” The beautiful girl was blushing

rosy red as the sympathetic Swiss folded her to her breast. “Then, when

you get to Paris, go to No. 9 Rue Berlioz, and leave this letter there

for Madame Berthe Louison. Go yourself. Trust no one. When you have

conferred with dear Euphrosyne, you can send all your letters to Madame

Louison at Paris under cover. She will find out a safe way to get

them to me--even if she has to send her man, Jules, over here. He is

quick-witted, and he will find a way to reach me.”

There was a dawning wonder in Justine’s eyes.

“Who is this strange Madame Louison? Can you trust her?”

“Ah! Justine!” murmured Nadine, “She is only one who loves me, for

love’s own sake, but I know I can trust her. She knows something of my

mother’s past life--something that I do not know. This old tyrant

will now try to cut me off from all the outside world. He has had some

strange power given to him by the father who was only my father in name.

“I will obey you. I swear it!” cried Justine. “And old Simpson will

probably be coming on soon. He loves you. He will serve you.”

“Yes,” joyously exclaimed Nadine, with a glowing face. “And he adores

Major Hardwicke, whose father saved his life at Lucknow. There is one

dawning hope. You are not to write one word till you hear from me. I

know that Madame Louison will manage to send Jules to me in some safe

disguise,” she proudly cried, “and remember--I shall not be always a

poor prisoner with her hands tied. The day of my deliverance comes. When

I am twenty-one, I can reward both you and Euphrosyne. She shall have a

home to live in ease. And you,--you shall go out into the world with me,

and aid me to find my mother. Even in the tomb I shall find her. I

shall know of her love. For I shall see her loving face, even only in a

picture. The face that has blessed me in my dreams.”

Justine Delande saw a future reward awaiting the two faithful guardians

of the childhood of Miss Million. With a sudden impulse, she cried:

“There is one to aid even nearer to us now than Major Hardwicke. For I

have a telegram from Euphrosyne, that Major Hawke is at Geneva.”

Nadine Johnstone rose and seized both of Justine’s hands: “Promise

me now, by my dead mother’s grave, that you will never tell that man

anything of our secret compact of to-day! I fear him! I disliked him

from the first! He had strange dealings with the dead.” The girl’s face

was stern. “If I am approached by him in any way, I will cease every

communication with you forever! I will have no aid of Alan Hawke.”

And when the parting hour came, Justine Delande was amazed at the cold

dignity with which Nadine Johnstone faced the grim old uncle. It was

only at the gate of the “Banker’s Folly,” that the heiress for the last

time kissed her friend in adieu. “Fear not for me. I have learned the

lesson of Life. Remember!” she whispered. “Keep the faith! Guard my

trusts!” and then, Justine sobbed: “Loyal a la mort!”

The evening shades were darkening the sculptured shores of Rozel Bay,

where clumsy luggers lay far below, high and dry on the beach, behind

the great masonry pier. Skiffs and fishing-boats lined the shores, and

the soft breeze moved the foliage of the luxuriant garden. The white

stars were peeping out and twinkling in the gray and lonely sea, as

Nadine shivered and walked firmly back to the portico, where the old

recluse awaited her.

With a stiff motion of perfunctory courtesy, he motioned the heiress

into the frosty-looking drawing-room, now lit up with spectral gleams of

wax candles. For he would treat his ward with a frozen dignity.

Andrew Fraser coughed in a hollow warning and wasted no words in his

first bulletin of “General Orders.” “I have here a certified copy of

your late father’s will,” he said, “for your perusal. You will see all

the conditions of life which he has wisely laid down for you. I have

telegraphed on to London for his solicitor to send a representative

here, and the original testament will be duly filed at Doctors’ Commons,

at once. I shall at once provide you with suitable women attendants.

I have already engaged a proper housekeeper, to whom you can state all

your wishes. With regard to money matters and your correspondence, you

must consult me! For the present, you will readily see that I deem it

imprudent for you to leave these spacious and splendid grounds! But,

ye’ll find ways to busy yourself. Women always do!”

The old pedant marveled at the young woman’s composure, for she simply

bowed and awaited a termination of the interview. Slightly disconcerted,

he abruptly demanded: “Have you anything to say?”

“Only this, Andrew Fraser,” coldly replied the heiress. “Your sending

away the only woman whom I know in the world has marked you as a tyrant

and a jailer.” Her spirit was as unyielding as his own, and he winced.

“Ye’ll find I had your father’s warrant. I’ll go on to the end and obey

him! There are to be no old associations kept up, and when ye come to

your own ye can do all ye will! I’ll go my way in my duty and do it

as it seems right!” When he finished he was alone, for the daughter of

Valerie Delavigne had passed him with a glance of unutterable contempt.

There was fire in the eye of the rebellious girl, and the elastic

firmness of youth in her tread, but above stairs, in her own lonely

rooms, her courage faded away quickly. But she wrapped her sorrows in

her own proud young heart and turned her eyes to the far East. “Will he

come?” she murmured.

When the clumsy island serving girl had trimmed the fire and drawn the

heavy curtains, Nadine Johnstone locked her doors. She sat spellbound,

with a wildly beating heart, until she had read the last of the sixteen

provisions of her father’s vindictive will. Though the whole fortune

was left absolutely to her, with the exception of twenty-five

thousand pounds each to Andrew Fraser and his son, she was tied up by

restrictions so infamously brutal, that her three years of minority

stretched out before her as a death in life. Five hundred pounds a year

of pin money were allowed to her until her majority, “to be expended

with the approval of her guardian.”

In an agony of lonely sorrow she threw herself, dressed, upon her bed

and sobbed herself into forgetfulness, her last cry for help mingling

the names of Berthe Louison and Harry Hardwicke. “Will Justine be true

to her oath?” she faltered, as she drifted into the blessed release of

dreamland.

As the night wore on, Justine Delande, tossing on her bed in the Royal

Victoria Hotel, waited for the dawn, to sail for Granville. She had

telegraphed in curt words her dismissal, and she burned to reach Geneva,

for to her the sight of Alan Hawke’s face was the one oasis in her

desert of sorrow.

Long after Nadine Johnstone had closed her tired eyelids, stern old

Andrew Fraser cowered below, glowering over his library fire, clad in

a huge plaid dressing gown. His greedy eyes watched the dancing flames,

and he rubbed the thin palms in triumph, while he sipped his nightly

glass of Highland whisky grog. It had been a famous secret campaign for

the surviving brother.

“If all goes on well; all goes well!” he crooned. “There’s Douglas, gone

for good! The boy is young and soft-like. He might fall into this pert

minx’s hands as young Douglas with Queen Mary of old. And, thank God,

he knows nothing of the packet of jewels! Not a soul knows in the wide

world! Why should I not save them for myself and turn them into gold?

Yes, save them for myself. For the boy? But he never must know! Ah! I

must hide them well! This stubborn girl knows nothing! That is right!

Janet Fairbarn will be here in two days, and I’ll have another man to

keep watch; yes, and a good dog, too! For the gallants must never cross

my wall!”

“He! He! She’ll no fule with Janet Fairbarn,” he gloated, “and the will

gives me every power. I must find a place of safety for the jewels,” he

mused. “I’m glad that I burned Hughie’s letter, as he told me. There’s

nothing now to show for them. The bank would not be safe. Never must

they go out of my hands. And, I can write a sealed letter for Douglas,

to be opened by him alone, if I should be called away. I can put it in

the bank, and take a receipt and send the boy the receipt. But, no

human being must know that I have them.” He tottered away to his sleep

murmuring, “But safer still, to turn them into yellow gold. There’s a

deal of them. I must find out in time how to dispose of them, but never

till the lass above is gone and my accounts all discharged.” And the

old miser, who had already robbed his dead brother, slept softly in love

with his own exceeding cunning.

Of all the loungers on the wind-swept wharf at Granville-sur-Mer next

day, decidedly the most natty was Jules Victor, who was now awaiting the

return of the little St. Helier’s packet, to engage a special cabin

for himself, with all a Gaul’s horror of the stormy passage. He sprang

forward, in a genuine surprise, as Mademoiselle Justine Delande, aided

by the stout Swiss maid, tottered over the gangplank. “Madame is ill, a

la bonne heure! Let me conduct you to the Hotel Croix d’Or, where Madame

Louison is even now awaiting the Paris train.” The ex-zouave was a

miracle of politeness and, he proudly conducted Justine to a waiting

fiacre, having deftly reserved himself the choice of staterooms. With

the skill of his artful kind, Jules hastened upstairs at the Hotel Croix

d’Or, to announce to his mistress the lucky find of a windy afternoon on

Granville quay.

That night, when Justine Delande reached Paris, she was assured in her

heart that her own future fortunes were safe, and that her sister would

surely be the recipient of Nadine Johnstone’s future bounty. For Madame

Berthe Louison, ever armed against possible treachery, announced her own

instant departure for Poland. “But, I leave Jules in charge in Paris,

and he will find the way to deliver your letters to your young friend.”

When Justine Delande was safely escorted to the train by the smiling

Madame Berthe Louison, she proceeded to register a packet for London,

addressed to “Major Harry Hardwicke.”

That young officer’s heart was light, three days later, when he received

the letter of Nadine which Madame Louison had cajoled easily from the

Swiss woman. And the happy Major’s heart was no lighter than Nadine’s

for the watchful Janet Fairbarn, now on duty, with her selected

subordinates, wondered to see the pale-faced girl laugh merrily as she

chatted over the garden wall with a strolling French peddler. “I may

trade at the gate, may I not, Miss Janet,” said Nadine, “or is that

one of the crimes?” But Jules Victor had brought her a new life. She

whispered, “He will come!”

CHAPTER XIII. AN ASIATIC LION IN HIDING.

Madame Alixe Delavigne sat alone in her snug apartment of the Hotel

Croix d’Or, at Granville-sur-Mer, four days after Justine Delande had

been driven forth from the Banker’s Folly! The perusal of a long letter

from Jules Victor was interrupted by the arrival of a telegram from that

rising young soldier, Captain Anson Anstruther. It needed but a single

glance to call the resolute woman to action.

Smartly ringing the bell, she ordered the maid, her bill, and a voiture

to convey her to the Boulogne station. “So, Hardwicke and Captain Murray

are safely in London! Major Hawke is at Geneva, and I am to hide

at Rosebank Villa until he has reported and been sent away on his

continental tour of the great jewel dealers!”

With flying fingers the lady soon penned a letter addressed to “Monsieur

Alois Vautier, Marchand-en-petit, Hotel Bellevue, St. Aubin, Jersey.”

“He can telegraph to me at Richmond, and one of us will soon be on

the ground to aid him! Now, ‘the longest way round is the nearest

way home!’” laughed the ci-devant Madame Louison, as she departed for

Boulogne, an hour later, having carefully mailed her letter personally,

and sent a brief telegram to the active Jules Victor.

The ex-Zouave had easily made the rounds of the pretty islet of Jersey,

in his capacity of merchant of small wares, long before Alixe Delavigne,

braving the stormy channel, had proceeded from Folkestone directly to

Richmond, and hidden herself in the leafy bowers of Rosebank Villa.

Smiling, gay and debonnair with all the women servants, he had a pinch

of snuff, a cigar of fair quality, or a pipe full of tabac for coachman

and groom, supplemented with many a petit verre from his capacious

flask. His Gallic gallantry, with the gift of a trinket or ribbon, made

him welcome with simple milk-maid or pert house “slavey,” and the dapper

little Frenchman was already an established favorite in the wine-room of

the Hotel Bellevue.

His greatest triumph, however, was the secret demonstration of the

cheapness of Jersey prices to the London sewing woman and smart lady’s

maid, now chafing under Janet Fairbarn’s iron rule at the “Banker’s

Folly.” “Nom de pipe! But I have to make shameful rabaissements de

prix,” muttered Jules, as he adroitly worked upon the susceptibilities

of the two new maid servants. While one or the other of these women

always accompanied Miss Nadine Johnstone in her daily wanderings through

the splendid gardens of the Folly, the merry voice of Jules Victor was

often heard by them singing on his way down the road. The gift of a

famous brule gueule had propitiated the simple Jersey gardener, whose

stout boy rejoiced in a new leather jacket, almost a gift, and the

second man, Andrew Fraser’s reinforcement, a famous drinker, was soon

a nightly companion of “Alois Vautier” at the one little “public,” down

under the scarped hill at Rizel Bay.

Andrew Fraser, closeted with the London lawyer, had almost forgotten the

existence of Nadine Johnstone.

A formal interview as to the filing of her father’s will, a mere mute

exhibition of perfunctory courtesy, released Nadine to her own devices,

while Professor Andrew Fraser returned to his afternoon studies with

that famous young Yankee savant, Professor Alaric Hobbs, of Waukesha

University.

The beautiful captive was now happy in dissembling her contentment, for,

though the sharp-featured Scotch housekeeper, Janet Fairbarn, keenly

watched all her outgoings, sending always one of the women as an

“outside guard,” the heiress had learned some of woman’s secret arts

quickly. The peddler, Alois Vautier, brought to her letters and messages

which made her lonely heart light, even in her stately semi-durance. And

the epistles of Major Harry Hardwicke left her with a heart trembling in

delight after their perusal.

And so it fell out that four days after Alixe Delavigne had returned to

Rosebank Villa, that a packet of important letters was smuggled past the

droning Professor’s picket line, one of which caused Nadine Johnstone to

hide her tell-tale blushes in her room.

“To-morrow I will come by, to deliver some little purchases of the

maids! Have your answers all ready. I will be here at ten, at the garden

gate!” Long after the Yankee Professor had left the “Folly” for St.

Heliers that night, the lonely girl bent her beautiful head over the

pages, destined to safely reach her lover’s eyes in fair London town.

And to Berthe Louison, she now poured out her loving heart, for she knew

that her protecting friends would soon be near her.

“We are waiting, watching, and planning,” wrote Alixe Delavigne. “Be

cheerful--silent--watchful! I must be near you, I must see you, face to

face, to tell you all the story of the past! I will then tell you, my

own darling child, of the mother whom you have never known. But, first,

Major Hardwicke must open a way to your side! Beware of the schemes of

Alan Hawke! He will be here to-morrow, and he may steal over to Jersey,

though his duty takes him for a month to the Continent! You will surely

see Major Hardwicke before you see me for Andrew Fraser might take alarm

at a sight of my face and so hide you away from us all!”

Miss Mildred Anstruther was a delicate symphony in gray, as she

gracefully presided the next evening over the dinner table at which

Alixe Delavigne, Captain Anstruther, Major Hardwicke, and Captain

Murray merrily discussed the sudden hastening of Captain Eric Murray’s

nuptials. Hardwicke’s duty as “best man” was now the only bar to the

beginning of a campaign destined to foil Andrew Fraser’s Loch Leven

tactics of imprisoning his niece and ward.

“You will have but a brief honeymoon, Eric!” laughed Hardwicke.

“You have promised to stand by me, Harry,” replied his friend. “See me

married to-morrow, then a week’s honeymoon at Jersey is all that I ask!

I can bestow my wife there with a dear friend, who has the prettiest old

Norman chateau-maison on the island, and after that be near you there at

Rozel Bay to work up the final discomfiture of this old vampire. I

only claim the attendance of the whole party at my wedding, then I will

disappear and spy out the ground for you long before you are ready to

astonish the dreamy old bookworm. I have made my own plans, and Flossie

has agreed to our runaway trip ‘in the interests of the service’! She

is a soldier’s daughter, remember!” Miss Mildred, wreathed in her soft

laces, shimmering in her gray poplin, and bending her stately head in

salutation, extended a delicate hand, loaded down with quaint old Indian

rings, to each, when the coffee was served.

“I will leave you now to the hatching of your famous conspiracy for the

invasion of the Island of Jersey.” The old gentlewoman passed smilingly

through the door where the three knightly soldiers stood bowing low, and

then the four conspirators sat down to arrange the dramatis persona of a

little society play in “High Life,” in which Professor Andrew Fraser was

destined to be the central figure, and act without “lines” or rehearsal.

The “leading lady” was at the present moment dreaming of a golden future

in her own rooms at the “Banker’s Folly.” Nadine Johnstone had been

allowed to make her apartments as bright and cheery as her buoyant

nature suggested.

For Andrew Fraser, after much discussion with Janet Fairbarn, had

convoyed the heiress to St. Heliers for a day. The resources of all the

local furnishers were taxed by the young prisoner’s taste, and, the old

executor, unbending a little, grimly vaunted his “dangerous liberality.”

“I’ll be bail for the expenditure of five hundred pounds, as an extra

allowance,” he said. “Now make yourself snug here, for ye’ll bide here

the whole three years! As to the bookmen, music, and libraries, I’ll

give ye a free hand.

“The yearly allowance of yere lamented father will cover all yere

dealings with mantua-makers and milliners. That is yere own affair--all

that sort of womanly gear. We will make one day of it, and if ye are

lacking aught, then Miss Janet can bring ye to town, or the dealers can

come.” It was, thus self-deluded, that Andrew Fraser noted the coming

cheerfulness of his defiant young charge. He fancied he had provided

every wish of her lonely heart. But the trailing lines of smoke of

the daily Southampton packets only spoke to Nadine of a growing

correspondence with Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers. She waited

now for Simpson’s arrival for news of the Delhi mystery--the death of

the unloving parent, who had been only her jailer.

At Rosebank Villa, Major Hardwicke was busied with Captain Murray, while

Anstruther drew Alixe Delavigne aside. “Listen to all Murray proposes,

and agree to it. You may be astonished at our plans, but between you and

I, alone, lies the deeper secret. My secret orders from the Viceroy

are for your ear alone. Your life-quest to reach Nadine’s side can

only be taken up after Murray and Hardwicke have finished their little

masquerade at the ‘Banker’s Folly.’ Let this secret be ours, alone! Do

you promise me, Alixe? I will aid you, heart, life, and soul!” And,

with her eyes softly shining in a growing tenderness, Alixe Delavigne

murmured: “I trust you in all things! It shall be as you wish.”

Captain Anstruther then led the way to the library, and closing the

doors with the minute attention of a true conspirator, cried: “Murray,

we will hear from you first!” Seated, with her lips parted in an

expectant smile, Alixe Delavigne listened in amazement as “Red Eric”

proceeded.

“I got the little idea from Frank Halton, of the Globe. You may

know that he was out at the Khyber Pass seven years ago, as the war

correspondent of the Telegraph, and he ran over Cabul at the time of the

Penj-Deh incident. He has prepared a series of varied skits and personal

items covering the visit incognito of Prince Djiddin, a Thibetan noble

of ancient and shadowy lineage. This ‘Asiatic Lion’ will be duly kept

in the shadows of a mysterious seclusion in the Four Kingdoms until we

introduce him to a small section of the British public.

“The Globe, the Indian Mail, the Mirror, the Colonial Gazette, and other

periodicals will darkly hint at his itinerary, and he will be paraded

judiciously, and no vulgar eye must ever rest upon him. These items will

be widely copied. A graceful, social phantom, a Veiled, mysterious young

potentate is Prince Djiddin!” “The humbug will be easily discovered!”

said Anstruther, still at sea.

“Not if you flung your protecting mantle over him!” cried Murray. “We

will shield him by a protecting Moonshee, who alone speaks his august

master’s language, a tongue not to be easily translated; in fact,

perfectly proof against all prying outsiders. The one way to hoodwink

old Fraser is to humbug him about the great work on Thibet. That is the

one soft spot in the hide of this old alligator. We have gone carefully

over the reports of your secret agent at St. Heliers. Make us square

with him, Captain, let him have your orders to aid us, and he can get us

first hooked on to this Yankee Professor Alaric Hobbs! We will jolly him

a bit, and so, get an interview with old Fraser, and then fool the old

chap to the top of his bent. We will supply him with theories enough to

set every bee in his bonnet buzzing. Your man is already ‘solid’

with Professor Alaric Hobbs, who is a quaint genius, and withal, a

hard-headed Yankee, but full of cranks and ‘isms.’”

Anson Anstruther exchanged doubtful glances with Alixe Delavigne, who

was still very agnostic. “The real object is to spy out the interior

of Fraser’s household without alarming him, and to locate his hidden

treasure, and, moreover, to open a safe, personal communication with

Nadine Johnstone. Letters and messages finally go astray. And, at the

very first sign of danger, old Andrew would clear out to the Continent,

shut up the girl, get rid of that insured package, and cut all future

communications! In the long three years, the girl might die, be

estranged from you, or perhaps fall into the hands of some foreign

fortune hunter. Human nature--woman nature--is a mutable quantity. But

once we are in communication we can provide for future correspondence in

any event.

“And you, Anstruther, would be defeated in recovering the hidden

property of the Crown. Moreover, these two Frasers are the only

heirs-at-law.

“Who knows what might not be done for a million, when a beggarly fifty

pounds will buy a death certificate in many a little continental town?”

They were all gravely silent as Murray soberly clinched his argument.

“It is idle not to believe that old Hugh Fraser Johnstone laid out his

brother’s whole future course! He certainly has trusted him with his

stealings, the lost crown jewels! He trusts his child’s whole future to

the care of these two cold Scotsmen, and gives the heiress over to old

Andrew, to keep her safe from Madame,” Murray bowed, “his only living

enemy, and from all the other relatives of his long-hated dead wife.

From your own disclosures and Madame’s own words, we must all fear

that her first appearance would be the signal for the spiriting away of

Nadine until the minority is at an end. And it might invite some secret

crime. She bears the hated face of her dead mother, you say!”

“True,” murmured Anstruther. “My solicitor tells me, too, that a

guardianship by will is the very strongest tying-up of a rich young

ward. We can follow on later, perhaps, if this opening could be

made, but where have we a ‘Prince Djiddin,’ and where, the wonderful

‘Moonshee?’”

“There is Prince Djiddin,” laughed Captain Murray, pointing to Major

Harry Hardwicke, “and here is the Moonshee,” he tapped his own broad

breast.

“I fail to understand you,” slowly replied Anstruther, now blankly

gazing at the two men in a growing wonderment.

“Nothing easier,” briskly answered Murray. “I go quietly over to Jersey

and spend a honeymoon week with Flossie. She is soldier enough to

know that my little masquerade means full ‘duty pay and traveling

allowances.’ I will hide her safely with my Jersey friends, and while

Frank Halton works his secret Literary Bureau, I will steal over to

Southampton and bring ‘Prince Djiddin’ over to St. Heliers. I will see

that he naturally falls in with Prof. Alaric Hobbs, and then, ‘fond

of seclusion,’ I will embower my ‘Asiatic Lion’ not a league from the

‘Banker’s Folly.’ I will be near my Flossie, and I propose to bring

‘Prince Djiddin’ soon face to face with the heiress.

“As the Prince speaks not a word of English, even old Fraser will be

disarmed. Neither Hobbs, Alaric of that ilk, nor Fraser have ever been

in India, and we can easily fool them. Neither of us have ever been

in Jersey, and fortunately our figures, age, and complexions aid the

makeup. I can do the Moonshee. It was my ‘star’ cast in many a garrison

theatrical show. Remember, none of them have ever seen Hardwicke or

myself--only Miss Nadine will know us.”

“But,” faltered Alixe Delavigne, “Captain Murray makes no provision

for me. Must I be hidden here always?” Her voice was trembling with the

surging love of her longing heart.

“Ah! dear Madame!” replied Murray. “Place aux dames. You can be later

quietly escorted to St. Heliers. Old bookworm Fraser does not leave the

‘Folly’ once in six months. You shall, on to-morrow, arrange with Mrs.

Flossie Murray to share ‘those days of absence’ with her, while I am

playing the ‘Moonshee’ to ‘Prince Djiddin’s’ leading part. With your own

sly man-of-all-work, then how easy for the acute Jules Victor to

lead you into the extensive grounds, where you may often meet Nadine

Johnstone when all is safe. He has the friendly entree, and can hoodwink

the attendants of the garden, while your own ingenuity will enable

you to have stolen interviews in the splendid rambles of the ‘Banker’s

Folly.’ Old Andrew never quits his study, and all we have to do is to

watch Miss Janet Fairbarn. Jules Victor can guard against a surprise by

her.”

“It is an ingenious plan, but, a dangerous one,” mused Anstruther.

“Not so,” boldly replied Murray. “Remember that old Fraser is crazy on

his bookwork. Hobbs is his only male visitor. He has not a relative,

a friend--no one to watch on the outside while we hold the old chap at

bay. Miss Janet watches in the house.” Anstruther had been carefully

studying the two men’s faces. “‘Prince Djiddin’ will be all right, with

a little makeup, using walnut juice and a proper costume. His Indian

brown is quite the thing. But you, my boy, must be an Eurasian, the son

of a high English official and a native woman of rank. You were carried

away to Thibet by your beautiful Cashmere mother when she was abandoned.

The usual sad story will go. She, driven out by her family, refuges

finally in Hlassa, and your English was, of course, learned before

the death of your father, when you were eighteen. Your usefulness as

interpreter caused you to attach yourself to ‘Prince Djiddin’s’ noble

family.

“Yes,” said Hardwicke. “A couple of days spent in the British Museum,

and with your fertile imagination, Eric, you will be enabled to describe

the mysterious, lonely city on the Dzangstu, and even the gilded temples

of Mount Botala. You can easily book up all about the Dalai Lama. Make a

voyage a la Tom Moore to Cashmere!”

“Right you are!” laughed Eric Murray. “Frank Halton stole into the town

of Hlassa and he now offers to me his sketchbooks and private notebooks.

Foreigners from the south have occasionally been allowed to go into

Thibet since the Nepauese were driven out, but only very rarely. I will

have all the rig and quaint outlandish gear that Halton brought away. So

you see we are the ‘Ever Victorious Army.’ Yes. Prince Djiddin will be

a go.” And the others were fain to agree in the plausibility of the

scheme.

It was midnight when the quartette separated to meet at the quiet

wedding of the morrow. Alixe Delavigne had finally approved the plan,

when Anson Anstruther drew her away to confer upon the risk. “You see,”

he pleaded, “Murray will never even speak to Miss Johnstone. All that

pleasing task is left to Prince Djiddin, who can and will, of course,

choose any unguarded moment. Captain Murray will hold old Fraser

personally in limbo, while you and Prince Djiddin can meet the pretty

captive in alternation. At any danger signal, the Prince and Moonshee

can quit Jersey at once.” Then the lightning thought came to the lady:

“She already loves him! It must be so! He is the only young officer who

was ever allowed to enter the Marble House in that long year of golden

bondage. It shall be so! I can trust to him for her sake, if he loves

her for Love’s own sake. I can remain near Nadine then, even if they

have to disappear, for Jules will keep the pathway open.” And yet,

shamefaced in her own growing tenderness for her mentor, Anstruther, she

took these wise counsels away to hide them in her own happy heart. “It

will make us then, Captain Murray,” she said, as she extended her hand

in good night, “a little circle of five, gathered around this motherless

and fatherless girl to save her from the secret schemes of tyrant and

fortune hunter.”

“Precisely so, Madame,” laughed Murray, “when I have sworn in my

beautiful recruit to-morrow. Then we will be five in very truth.” There

was a flying early morning visit to Hunt and Roskell’s on the morrow,

which greatly astonished Captain Anstruther, who had escorted Madame

Alixe Delavigne down on her way to the pretty chapel at Kew, where

Captain Murray duly “swore in his beautiful recruit,” with bell, book,

and candle. The parure of diamonds which the lady of Jitomir gave to

Mrs. Flossie Murray caused even the eyes of “The Moonshee” to open in

wonder at the little campaign breakfast of the leaders of this Crusade

of Love. “Only suited to the wife of Prince Djiddin’s High Chamberlain,”

laughed Alixe Delavigne, as the happy Captain departed on his honeymoon

tour, escaping showers of rice, to “move upon the enemy’s works in

Jersey.”

“Thank God that I have got that sharp-eyed Hawke safely out of town,”

cried Captain Anstruther to his beautiful confidante, as they escorted

Miss Mildred back to beautiful Rosebank. The “lass o’ Richmond Hill” was

no fairer than the happy woman who had seen Major Hardwicke depart for

a long conference with that all powerful sprite of the magic pen, Frank

Halton, who was now busied in launching his creation, Prince Djiddin.

“A single word at the ‘F. O.’ will legalize our useful myth, ‘Prince

Djiddin,’ and I hope that Hardwicke and Murray will succeed. They can

surely lose nothing by the attempt. I am known to be the Viceroy’s

aide-de-camp ‘on leave,’ a near kinsman, and I am sure that old Fraser

would take alarm at the first visit or written communication from me.

Once startled, he would soon be off to hide the jewels on the Continent,

and then only laugh at our efforts. Of course he will swear that the

insured packet only contained family papers or some of the estate’s

securities. Yes! Alan Hawke is the only man whom I fear now as to the

safety of either the girl or the jewels. He seems to have had many old

dealings with Hugh Johnstone, too!” They were silent as they threaded

the beautiful Surrey garden lanes of the old burgh of Sheen. Loved by

the bluff Harrys of the English throne, its beauties sung by poet and

deputed by artist, the charming declivities of Richmond gained a new

name from Henry VII, and its bosky shades once saw a kingly Edward, a

Henry, and a mighty Elizabeth drop the scepter of Great Britain from the

palsied hand of Death. Its little parish church to-day hides the ashes

of the pensive pastoral poet Thomson, and the bones of the great actor

Kean. But, Anstruther’s active mind was only dwelling in the present, as

Miss Mildred nodded in the carriage. He saw again the simple wedding

of the morning, and heard once more those touching words “I, Eric, take

thee, Florence.” Then his eyes sought the face of Alixe Delavigne in a

burning glance, which caused that lady to seek her own bower in Rosebank

villa, and hide her blushes from “Him Who Would Not Be Denied.” Miss

Mildred smiled and nodded behind her fan, for she heard the Bells of the

Future sounding afar off.

The graceful woman escorted Captain Anstruther to the river’s edge that

night, when he departed to a conference of moment with Hardwicke and

Halton. She fled back, like the swift Camilla, to her own nest, as the

Captain went forth upon the river. Only the listening flowers heard her

startled answer when Anstruther had found a voice to tell the Pilgrim

of Love his own story in a soldier’s frank way. “Wait, Anson! Wait, till

you know me better, till our quest is done; wait till the roses bloom

here once more,” she had whispered.

“And if I do wait, Alixe--if I ask you again?” Anstruther cried as he

kissed her slender hand.

“Then you shall have my answer,” she faltered, but her eyes shone like

stars as she lightly fled away.

Captain Anson Anstruther had reckoned without his host when he rejoiced

over Alan Hawke’s departure. As the aide-de-camp sped down the darkened

river, he still saw Alixe Delavigne’s eyes gleaming down on him in every

tender twinkling star, but the wily agent whom he had dispatched to the

Continent four days before, was near him yet, and comfortably dining in

a little snug public in the Tower Hamlets, on this very night. He was

looking for tools suited to a dark game which busied his reckless heart.

Major Alan Hawke (temporary rank) had passed two days at Geneva in a

serious conference with the sorrowing sisters Delande. His meeting with

the softhearted Justine had brought the color back to the poor woman’s

face, and she shyly held up the diamond bracelet to his view, murmuring,

“I have thought of you and kissed it every night and morning, for your

sake, Alan!”

With a glance of veiled tenderness, the acute schemer took his fair dupe

out upon the lake, while Euphrosyne directed the slow grinding of the

mills of the gods. “I must lose no time,” Hawke pleaded, “as I have to

report for duty in London.” And so, he gleaned the story of the hegira

and the situation at the Banker’s Folly. He heard all, and yet felt that

there was a gap in the story. Justine was true to her plighted word.

He instinctively felt that Justine was holding back something of moment,

and yet in his heart he felt that the price of that disclosure would

be his formal betrothal to the loving Justine. But he dared not vow to

marry, and the Swiss woman was loyally true to her oath. He remained

“their loving brother” as yet, and when two days later, Alan Hawke

departed for London direct, he mused vainly over the tangled problem

until he reported to Captain Anson Anstruther. “If this greenhorn girl

has any designs of her own she has not told them yet to Justine. I must

get a man to help me to work my scheme, or go over to Jersey myself,”

he at last decided. He was secretly happy at Captain Anstruther’s prompt

injunctions to make ready for a tour of two months upon the Continent.

“I shall have all your detailed instructions prepared tomorrow, Major

Hawke,” said the young aide-de-camp. “Meet me, therefore, at the Junior

United Service at ten o’clock; you can take a couple of days to look

over London, and then proceed at once to the delicate duty which I will

give to you. And, remember, the Viceroy’s orders are that you are to

report to me alone, and also to preserve an absolute secrecy. Your

future rank will depend upon your discretion.” Major Alan Hawke was not

as cheerful, however, when he opened his private mail at Morley’s Hotel,

as when he had bade adieu to Captain Anstruther. A formal communication

from the Credit Lyonnais informed him that Monsieur le Professeur Andrew

Fraser had formally forbidden Messrs. Glyn, Carr & Glyn to pay the four

bills of exchange, acting in his capacity of executor of a will duly

filed at Doctor’s Commons, and that the four drafts must be proved as

debts against the estate, and so paid later, in due process of law

on proof of the claim. The refusal was due to the death of the drawer

before presentment.

“Damn it! I must play a fine game now!” he glowered. “Anstruther I must

obey in all! Once back in India with rank, however, I can force old Ram

Lal to pay these drafts. He dare not resist--there’s the rope for him!

“And I must find a fellow to spy out the situation in Jersey. I

certainly dare not linger here!” He be-took himself to an old haunt in

Tower Hamlets, where the first stars of the “swell mob” were wont to

linger, a haunt where he had once taken refuge in his changeling days,

years before.

A glance at a man seated enjoying a good cigar at a table caused his

heart to leap up in joy. “Jack Blunt--of all men! By God! this is luck!”

he cried. When the happy Alan Hawke tapped the smoker smartly on the

shoulder he first laid a finger on his own lip and then hastily said:

“Get a private room, Jack, I want you at once. I’ve a special bit of

business in your line.” Major Alan Hawke, Temporary Rank, unattached,

hastily bade the boni-face serve the best supper available for two.

“Mind you, no poison in the wine!” he sharply said.

“We’ve the best vintages of London Docks,” grinned the happy host, as he

sped away and left the two scoundrels alone.

“What are you doing now, Jack?” queried Hawke.

“Nothing,” sullenly replied the middle-aged star of the swell mob. “My

eyes! you are in great form,” he admiringly commented.

“Can you leave town for a week or so, on a little job for me?” briskly

continued the Major.

“Ready money?” said “Gentleman Jack” Blunt, stroking out a pair of

glossy side whiskers.

“Yes, cash in plenty on hand, and lots more in sight,” imperatively

replied the Major.

“Do I work with you, or alone?” asked Blunt.

“It’s a little private investigation,” replied Hawke, “and as I have to

leave town to-night, and spend a couple of months on the Continent, you

are the very man. I am afraid to appear in the thing myself, as I am

well known to the other parties, and so I fear being followed over

the Channel. I’m back again in the army.” Jack’s eyes grew larger in a

trice.

“Here comes the grub,” gayly said Blunt. “You can trust the wine here.

The crib is square, too. Now, my boy, fire away. We are alone, and

no listeners here.” Before Jack Blunt had put away a pint of best

“beeswing” sherry, he was aware of all Alan Hawke’s intentions. His keen

brain was working all its “cylinders.”

“Give me just five minutes to think it over, Governor,” said the

sparkling-eyed, dark-faced, swell cracksman. “I know Jersey like a

book. I worked the ‘summer racket’ there once. The excursion boats, the

farmers’ races, the Casino balls, the Military games, and the whole lay.

I think I can cook up a plan. You don’t show up just yet. I am to do the

‘downy cove.’”

“Not till I can double on my track, and you have piped the whole

situation off,” said Hawke. “The game is a queer one. I may want to come

over later and show up and make a little society play on the girl. I

may, however, join you and help you secretly, or I may have to stay away

altogether. But I must act at once. There’s money in it. If you have to

make the running yourself, you can get your own help.”

“And, you have the real stuff?” agnostically demanded Jack Blunt.

“What do you want for a starter as your pay for the report to be sent

to me at the Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, Switzerland?” Hawke was eager and

disposed to be liberal.

“Oh! A hundred sovs for the job, as you lay it out--and fifty for my

little incidentals,” laughed Jack Blunt. “Of course, if it goes on to

anything serious, you’ll have to put away the real ‘boodle,’ where

I have something to run with, if I have to cut it. I might run up a

dangerous plant!”

“Bah!” decisively said Hawke. “Only an old fool to dodge, who is

over seventy--a dotard--and a foolish girl of eighteen--a simple

boarding-school miss!”

“Yes, but she has a million, you say. There’s always some one to love

a girl with that money! Love comes in by the door, and the window, too,

you know!”

“She has never been five minutes alone with a man in her life!” cried

Hawke. “You are safe--dead sure safe!” Blunt’s roving black eyes rested

on Hawke’s eager face as he laughed.

“And you want to marry her, to keep others from her, or run her off at

the worst, you say? That’s your little game.”

“I will have either the girl, or those jewels! By God! I will! I’ve got

money to work with, plenty of it--not here,” cautiously said Hawke, “but

there’s your hundred and fifty. Do you stand in?”

“To the death--if you do the handsome thing, my boy!” said the handsome

ruffian, pocketing the notes. “When do I start?”

“Take the midnight train to Southampton, and go at work at once. I fear

they may send some damned spies over there! Now, what’s your plan?”

Major Hawke watched his old pal in a brown study.

Jack Blunt had smoked half his cigar, when he brought his white hand

down with a whack. “I have it! A combination of gentleman artist and

literary gent! ‘The Mansion Homes of Jersey,’ to illustrate a volume for

the use of tourists--London and Southwestern Railway’s enterprise. I’ll

sneak in and do the grand. You want a correct sketch and map of house

and grounds, and the whole lay out?” Artist Blunt was delightfully

interested in his Jersey tour now.

“Yes!” cried Alan Hawke, his eyes growing wolfish, and he leaned over

to his companion and whispered for a few moments. “That’s the trick,

Governor,” nodded Jack Blunt, “You work on the double event. And--I get

my money--play or pay?”

“Yes. Put up in good notes--only you are not to bungle!”

“Do you think I would fool around with a ‘previous conviction’ against

me? The next is a lifer, and I’ve got to use the knife or a barker, if

I run up against trouble, for I’ll never wear the Queen’s jewelry again!

I’ve sworn it!” The man’s eyes were gleaming now like burning coals,

“I’ll do the grand, and then, take off my beard and change my garb! I

look twenty years older in a stubble chin. I can watch them from the

public at Rozel Pier. I used to do a neat little bit of cognac, silk,

and cigar smuggling. I know every crag of Corbiere Rocks, every shady

joint in St. Heliers, every nook of St. Aubin’s Bay. Oh! I’m fly to the

whole game!”

“Could you not get a good boat’s crew there?” anxiously demanded Major

Hawke.

“Ah! My boy! I am ‘king high’ with a set of daring fishermen, who can

smell out every rock from Dover to Land’s End; and, from Calais to

Brest, in the blackest night of the channel, if it pays.”

“Then, Jack, your fortune is made, if you stand in. We’ll pull it

off, in one way or the other. You’ve got an easy job for a man of your

ability. I’ll meet you at Granville! Now, get over to St. Heliers, and

work the whole trick in your own way! Send me your secret address in

Jersey at once to Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, and run over to the French

coast at Granville and find a safe nest there for us. There we are

within seventeen miles of each other, with two mails a day, and the

telegraph. It’s a wonderful plant, so it is.”

“Yes, Governor! And old Etienne Garcia, at the ‘Cor d’Abondance’ in

Granville, is the very slyest rogue in France. When you find a Crapaud

who is dead to rights, he is always an out and outer. I’ll square you

with my old pal, Etienne, who slyly makes ‘floaters’ and then gets the

government cash reward for towing them in. He has always a half dozen

pretty girls hanging around there, and many a good looking stranger has

ended his ‘tour’ by a sudden drop through the flow of the drinking room

over the wharf where Etienne keeps his ‘boats to let.’”

“How does he do it?” mused Alan Hawke. “It’s a risky game in France.”

Jack Blunt laughed.

“A few puffs of smoke in a cognac glass, and the subject is knocked out

for an hour after drinking from the nicotine-filmed crystal, bless you,”

laughed Blunt, “there’s never a mark on Etienne’s victims. He is too

fine for that, only cases of plain, simple, ‘accidental drowning.’

“You may as well address me as ‘Joseph Smith, Jersey Arms, Rozel Pier,

Jersey.’ I am solid with Mrs. Floyd, the landlady there,” said the

scoundrel mobsman, anxious to spend some of his cash.

“All right, then, Jack! Go ahead!” cheerfully cried Major Hawke. “Don’t

overgo my instructions a single hair! I’ll either join you in the grand

stroke, or else meet you at Granville and there tell you what to do.

Remember that I’ll settle all your Jersey bills, and I will send a post

order for ten pounds extra to you at the ‘Jersey Arms,’ to give you a

local standing with the postman.

“That you can spend on the underlings around the Banker’s Folly, but

beware of an old body servant named Simpson--an old red-coat who may

turn up any day now from India! He was Johnstone’s own man, and he hates

me, at heart, I know! Now, if you can do the ‘artist act,’ you must find

out where the old man keeps his stuff! I don’t know yet whether we want

him first or the girl; or to crack the whole crib! If we ever do, then,

Simpson must get the--” Hawke grimly smiled, as he drew his hand across

his throat! “I must be off!” he hastily said as he noted the time.

On his way over to Folkestone, Major Alan Hawke mused over his great

coup, as he lay at ease, wrapped up in a traveling rug, and now

resplendent in a fur-trimmed top coat, befrogged and laced, which

indicated the officer en retraite.

“I will first do up Holland, Belgium, and Denmark, and take a little

preliminary look around Paris,” mused the Major, studying a list of the

missing jewels which Captain Anstruther had artfully arranged. Sundry

deductions and additions, with an admirable disorder in the items

(judiciously divided and reclassified) served to guard against any old

confidences exchanged between Ram Lal and his secret friend Hawke. The

real list in the original was now in the private pocket-book of the

Viceroy.

“Each of our Consuls at the cities you are to visit has this list,” said

Anstruther to the Major, “and you can vary your travel as you choose,

but visit all these jewel marts, and report to the local Consuls. If

they have further orders for you, you will get them there, at first

hands. Should you find that any of the jewels have been offered for

sale, simply report the facts to the local Consul, and write under seal

to me at the Junior United Service, then go on and examine further at

once! You are to take no steps whatever to recover them, or to alarm

the thieves! All your expenses and your pay will be advanced by me!” The

acute schemer decided not to risk any suspicions by marketing his own

jewels. “They might bounce me for the murder,” fearfully mused the

Major. “I could show no honest title through Ram Lal. They might arrest

him, and I need him to pay the protested drafts--later, when I go back

on the Viceroy’s staff!” He smiled and wove his webs like a spider in

his den.

On his arrival in Paris, from a run to the Low Countries, a week later,

Major Alan Hawke betook himself at once to No. 9 Rue Berlioz. And there

Marie Victor greeted him, handing him a letter which was dated from

Jitomir, Volhynia. “How is your mistress?” he affably demanded.

“She is well, and will remain for several months longer in Russia!”

politely answered Marie, bowing him out.

“By God, then, she has given up the chase! I see it all!” mused Hawke,

as he pored over the letter on his way to the Hotel Binda. “The trump

card she wished to play was to blast the old fellow’s hopes of a

baronetcy. Death has struck down her prey, and, she will now wait till

the girl is free! She is too sly to face old Fraser; his brother has

warned him. But she says she will need me in the winter, on her return.”

The deceived scoundrel laughed. “The coast is left clear for me now!

I’ll telegraph to Joseph Smith, run on to Geneva, deposit my own

jewels there, in the agency of the Credit Lyonnais, and then return the

notifications of protest of the Bills of Exchange to Ram Lal.

“I wonder if I can steal those jewels, get my Major’s rank as a reward

from the Viceroy, and marry the girl? It would be the luck of a life!”

he dreamed.

Two days later, on the terraces of Lausanne, he laughed over Jack

Blunt’s cheeky campaign.

“The ‘artist dodge’ worked to a charm,” wrote Jack. “I used the Kodak,

and I have a dozen good views of the house, and as many more of the

grounds. My chapter on the ‘Artistic Homes of Jersey,’ will be a

full one! I soon jollied a couple of the London maid servants into my

confidence. By the way, send me, at once, another ‘tenner’ for expense,

and some money for my own regular bills. I can make great play on the

two frolicsome maids. They are up for a lark. The shy bird keeps her

rooms; and there really seems to be no young man around. Devilish

strange! A room is being got ready for the old body servant who is now

on his way from India. He might fall over Rozel cliff some night, when

half seas over! That’s a natural ending for him! Maps, sketches, and all

will be ready for you at the place we agreed. It’s all lying ready to

our hand, and ten minutes of a dark night is all I want. The old chap

is always mooning alone in his study, till the midnight hours, over his

books, and he has the whole ground floor to himself. The men are in the

gardener’s house, ten rods away, and all the women sleep upstairs.

He sees no one but a half crazy Yankee professor, who drops in of a

morning. But, the shy bird keeps in her cage, and lives in great state,

upstairs. More when you send the money.”

On his way to say adieu to Justine, before departing to Vienna, Alan

Hawke smiled grimly. “I can strike now, when I will, and as I will! But,

first to race around a little, and then, having fulfilled my mission, to

get a couple of weeks’ furlough, to go about my own affairs. The coast

is clear. Jack Blunt’s plan is right. Simpson must be first put out of

the way. He would fight like a rat on general principles.”

At Rosebank Villa, Madame Alixe Delavigne was nightly busied now in

official conferences with Major Harry Hardwicke, who had lingered in

the concealment of Anstruther’s home. The Captain found abundant time

to prosecute his “official business” with his lovely aid in the secret

service. And he had learned all of Alixe Delavigne’s lessons now,

save to acquire the patience to wait. But a growing album of newspaper

clippings was daily augmented by Frank Hatton’s artfully disseminated

items regarding “Prince Djiddin of Thibet,” the first visitor of rank

from that land of shadows. The warring journals who wrangled over

the rich young visitor’s “stern retirement” from all public intrusion

referred to the political coup de main to be looked for in “the near

future.” From various parts of the United Kingdom, the mysterious

princely visitor’s trail was daily telegraphed, and a hearty laugh

from all three of the conspirators of Rosebank Villa greeted the final

article in the St. Heliers Messenger, stating that a learned Moonshee

or Pundit, “the only Asiatic attendant of Prince Djiddin of Thibet” was

arranging for a brief visit of a descendant of the Dalai-Lamas.

Anstruther and Hardwicke laughed merrily at Frank Halton’s last graceful

touches. “A romantic gratitude to a retired British officer, who had

once befriended the Prince’s august father, was the one impelling cause

of a visit, in which the strictest retirement would be guarded by

the dweller on the Roof of the World,” etc., etc. So read out Madame

Delavigne, closing with the remark that the “Moonshee had already

visited the Royal Victoria Hotel at St. Heliers to arrange for the

coming of his friend, and to the regret of the authorities, the Prince

would decline all the hospitality due to his exalted rank.”

“Captain Murray must be even now at work,” anxiously said the fair

reader.

“We will hear at once,” said Anstruther. “Prince Djiddin, you must now

materialize! For Murray’s letter tells me that he is already in full

communication with Jules Victor at the Hotel Bellevue. So the ‘Moonshee’

has one faithful friend near at hand. If there is any shadowing of

either of you, Jules Victor is an invincible avant garde. He knows the

faces of all the dramatis personae. You see, Douglas Fraser is gone to

India and old Andrew has never seen any of our ‘star actors.’ We are

absolutely safe!”

“It seems that fortune favors us,” tremblingly said Alixe Delavigne.

“This prying and curious Yankee, Professor Hobbs, also seems to have

fallen at once into the trap! Captain Murray’s description of his

‘interview,’ at the Royal Victoria, with Alaric Hobbs, is a crystallized

work of humorous art!”

“Of course the Yankee savant will write columns to the Waukesha Clarion,

describing this Asiatic lion, Prince Djiddin, and exploit him in the

States as an ‘original discovery’ of his own. His eagerness to arrange

an interview between the Prince and Professor Fraser is most ludicrously

fortunate for us,” said Captain Anstruther.

The entrance of the butler with a telegram disturbed “Prince Djiddin”

and his lovely confidential staff officer. “An answer, please, Captain,”

formally continued the household factotum.

“Hurrah!” cried Hardwicke, when the little conclave gathered around the

red light. “Simpson has arrived, and now Nadine and I have some one whom

we can both trust!” The further information that the “Moonshee” would

arrive forthwith to conduct “Prince Djiddin” to the safe haven where

that fascinating bride, Mrs. Flossie Murray, awaited her beloved

truant, was a call to prompt action. “I am ready! I shall drop the Royal

Engineers and live up to my ‘blue china’ as a Prince!” cried Hardwicke.

CHAPTER XIV. THE COUNCIL AT GRANVILLE.

When Major Alan Hawke returned, three weeks later, to the Hotel Grand

National, at Geneva, he was sorely wearied and dispirited. A round of

inspection of all the principal jewel marts of the continent had been

only a fruitless, solitary tourist promenade. And the ominous silence of

Captain Anson Anstruther, A. D. C., boded no good to the military

future of the adventurer. “Damn me, if I don’t think that I have been

hoodwinked!” growled Major Hawke, on his re-turn from Moscow and St.

Petersburg, whither he had been ordered, as a last resort, to see the

Court jewelers.

From Warsaw, he wrote to the Hotel Faucon, at Lausanne, to send all

his letters to meet him at Berlin, where Jack Blunt had given him the

address of the safest “fence” in all Kaiser Wilhelm’s broad domain. He

had his own jewels valued there in Russia, but dared not sell them.

With a sudden inspiration, born of a growing fear for the stability of

his house of cards, so flimsy in construction, he ran down to Jitomir,

and the half-crazed adventurer only lingered an hour with the Intendant

of Madame Alixe Delavigne’s grand old domain. He found the bird flown.

Had he been duped? A permission to view the old chateau was courteously

accorded, and then Alan Hawke soon realized that he was betrayed. For

the fact that Madame was still absent, “traveling around the world,” and

had not visited her Volhynian estate for a year, proved to him now that

he had been doubly tricked. “Ah! By God! I have it!” he cried, as he set

his teeth in a white rage. “That fool, Anstruther, is bewitched by her

Polish wiles, the mongrel inheritance of La Grande Armee’s visit to

Russia!” Straight as the crow flies, Alan Hawke then pressed on to

Lemberg, and hastened to Berlin, having sent on his last official report

to Captain Anstruther, at London. In Berlin, a letter from Jack Blunt

decided his whole career. There was news of moment, which set his hot

blood boiling in his veins.

“Simpson, the old body servant, has arrived from India,” wrote the

disguised ex-convict. “And he’s mighty thick with your shy bird, too.

There is some strange game going on here, which I can’t make out. The

cute Yankee professor is furious, for old Fraser has temporarily given

him the ‘dead cut.’ The American is totally neglected, for the old idiot

spends half his time, now, shut up in his study with a visiting nigger

prince from India, and the yellow fellow’s half-breed interpreter. I

send you a dozen cuttings from the papers. The Prince, however, seems

to be all O. K. He never even notices the shy bird. He probably buys his

women at home. How could he, for he does not speak a single damned word

of English. But I’ve caught sight of this Moonshee fellow trying to do

the polite to the heiress. Old Simpson keenly watches the whole goings

on, and I’ve tried to pull him on! No go! But he sneaks off himself,

gets roaring full, down at Rozel Pier, with a little French peddler

fellow, that he has picked up. And, I don’t like this French chap’s

looks. Too fly, and far too free with his money. There’s no one else

who has, as yet, showed up here. Not a woman, no other human being but

a London lawyer. And I’m told now the guardian and niece are soon going

over to London to deposit all the papers that Simpson brought home and

to do ‘a turn’ at Doctor’s Commons. Now’s your very time--the dark of

the moon. Better cut your job and come over to me at Granville; and why

can we not turn the place up-while they are away? To do that, we must do

Simpson ‘for fair,’ and I now know his nightly trail. Send money, plenty

of it, and come on. I am ‘on the beachcomber’s lay,’ now, down at

the Jersey Arms, Rozel Pier. Write or telegraph me a line, and I’ll

instantly meet you at Granville, at the Cor d’Abondance.”

A loving letter from Justine Delande inclosed a notice of a registered

letter waiting at the Agence du Credit Lyonnais, Geneva. It is marked

“Tres Important,” she wrote, and then added: “I have received a

letter from Nadine, who says that her guardian is now half crazy with

excitement over the finishing of his ‘History of Thibet, and Memoir Upon

the Lost Ten Tribes,’ for he has an Indian visitor of princely rank, and

he even proposes to take this Prince Djiddin and his ‘Moonshee’ into the

house, so as to shut the world out from the wonderful disclosures of the

only visitor of rank who ever left Thibet.”

Alan Hawke’s brow was gloomy when he read the last letter, which was

a brief note from Captain Anstruther, informing him that his final

instructions would be forwarded “in a week.” The ominous silence of

“Madame Berthe Louison,” the living lie of her pretended visit to

Russia, the trick of the letters sent on from Jitomir to his Parisian

address, now only confirmed his jealous rage.

“They are living in a fool’s paradise together, this dapper aide and the

wily woman, hiding in England! One has betrayed me, and the other will

now coldly abandon me! I’ll soon raise a hornets’ nest about their

ears!” So, with a simple telegraphed word “coming,” dispatched to

“Joseph Smith,” he sped on to Geneva from his “Leipsic defeat” at

Berlin, but only to meet a ghastly “Waterloo” at the Grand Hotel

National. He had ordered the letters from the Hotel Faucon to be sent on

there to Miss Justine, and when he had freed himself from her clasping

arms he read a curt official note from the Viceroy’s aid-de-camp which

left him livid in a paroxysm of fury. On his way from the station he had

only stopped long enough at the Agence du Credit Lyonnais to receive an

official-looking document. “My accounts, I presume,” he had muttered,

thrusting them in his pocket. But, when he had read Captain Anstruther’s

formal note, he tore open the letter of the great French Banking

Company. The two letters curtly illustrated the old saw, that “it never

rains, but it pours!” With a fluttering heart poor Justine Delande

watched her undeclared lover’s blackening face.

“Hell and furies!” he cried, “the whole world is leagued against me.

I’ve got to go back to India now, Justine, and go alone. Luck is dead

against me now.” And the whitening face of the woman who hung on his

every glance made the infuriated man even more reckless. “Damn them,

I’ll grind them all to powder!” he growled. For the tide was on the

turn, and it was dead water again at Geneva, the tide fast receding,

and the man who was “a devil for luck” was soon left on the rocks of a

silent despair.

Alan Hawke’s eyes gleamed out with a murderous sheen as he scanned both

letters carefully. “It is his work--the low dog--and he shall die.

Wait till Jack Blunt and I get a hack at him,” he mused, with a sudden

conviction that he dared not now show himself at St. Heliers, nor openly

approach the Banker’s Folly. “I stand to lose all and win nothing. I

must work in the dark. I cannot dare to brave this Anstruther. They

would simply drive me from India. But, Simpson and Ram Lal shall pay!

And, Berthe Louison--Ah! By God! I will strike her to the heart now! I

see the way!”

The official words of Captain Anstruther were few but crushing in there

stern brevity. And Alan Hawke’s heart sank as he read them over again.

“By the orders of His Excellency, the Viceroy, I have the honor to

inform you that he has withdrawn your temporary rank, and all powers

heretofore delegated to you will cease on the receipt of this letter,

which please acknowledge. On reporting to me in London in person, you

will receive the payment of all your accounts with your back pay

and transportation back to Calcutta, the place of your temporary

appointment. All the Consuls in continental Europe have now been

notified of the cessation of your powers, and you will therefore, in

no way act in the future in regard to the confidential business once in

your hands. The inquiry has been finally abandoned by the order of the

Indian Government.

“Please do report as soon as possible, and deliver over all papers

and vouchers now remaining in your hands. With assurance of my

consideration, Yours,

“ANSON ANSTRUTHER, Captain and A. D. C.”

“Official,

“Confidential.”

The letter of the Credit Lyonnais was even more menacing in its tone.

The Direction Centrale referred to a formal letter of the solicitors of

the estate of Hugh Fraser Johnstone, deceased, totally repudiating

the four unaccepted drafts of five thousand pounds sterling each, and

legally notifying the Direction of an intended suit to recover from the

payee and the in-dorser, the first draft for five thousand pounds paid

before Executor Andrew Fraser had filed his objections with Messrs.

Glyn, Carr & Glyn. “The arrival from India of the papers of the

deceased, and the testimony of his body servant Simpson, as well as

the Calcutta Banker and solicitors, proves that no such considerable

withdrawals as twenty-five thousand pounds were ever contemplated by

the deceased, who had sent the most minute business instructions to his

agent and later executor.”

“I shall have to throw this all back on Ram Lal.” mused Alan Hawke, who

hastily bade Justine an adieu, until he could conjure up an explanation

for the Geneva agents of the Credit Lyonnais. The closing words of the

Paris Derection were semi-hostile. “Be pleased. Monsieur, to call at

once upon our Geneva branch and explain these imputations. We are forced

to withhold your present deposits to cover any reclamation and legal

expenses, and we therefore beg you to discontinue the drawing of any

drafts upon us until the solicitors of Messrs. Glyn, Carr & Glyn and the

Executor notify us of the settlement of this distressing imputation upon

the regularity of our actions as your business agents.”

“That leaves me only the jewels, and about a thousand pounds ready cash

on hand, and that is due from Anstruther,” gloomily decided Alan Hawke,

when he was safely locked in his rooms at the National.

“Tricked by this double-faced devil Louison-Delavigne, thrown out of my

future rank, held for the five thousand pounds already advanced, and,

with eleven thousand embargoed in that Paris pawnbroker shop of a Credit

Lyonnais, I’ve but one course left to me now.”

He took counsel of the brandy bottle, and then, ignoring all else, he

sent off a careful letter to Joseph Smith. “I’ll jolly poor Justine a

bit, so as to leave one faithful friend to watch and get all my letters

here. Jack can raise money on the jewels now for us both. I must tell

these fellows of the French Bank here that I go to London to see my own

lawyers. I’ll go over, settle with Anstruther, and then just quietly

disappear. The next blow shall come out of the blackness of night, and

I’ll strike them all at once!”

In the evening, Major Alan Hawke drove with Justine Delande to the

restaurant garden, where, long months before, he had first learned the

daring hardihood of his fair employer--the acute woman who had fooled

him at every turn. His heart was saddened with all the fresh hopes which

had failed him. He had frankly told Euphrosyne Delande that a return

journey to India, and a long and bitter struggle now lay between him and

the rank and competence which he would need to make her loving sister

his wife.

Three hours later Justine Delande’s arms clung desparingly around the

handsome outcast, as he was leaving her to be escorted home by the

adroit Francois, already in waiting without the restaurant with a closed

carriage. The presage of sorrow weighed upon her loving heart.

“Alan, My God, I can not let you go. You are the one brightness of my

life. My heart of hearts. My very soul,” sobbed the wretched woman. “I

have fears for you. They will kill you in that far land, these powerful

enemies. That mysterious devil woman who bends all to her will will ruin

you.” And then, really touched at heart, the desperate trickster drew

off his finger a superb diamond, the nonpareil, the choicest stone

of Ram Lal’s unwilling tribute. “Wear this always, and think of me,

Justine,” he said. “You are the only woman who ever loved me, and, if I

succeed, I swear you shall share my better fortunes--if not, then--” he

crushed her to his breast and ran out of the room, before she could

drag him back. “Go in, Francois, quickly to Miss Justine,” cried Hawke,

thrusting a hundred-franc note in the butler’s open hand. The rattle of

departing wheels was heard as Francois supported the half-fainting woman

to her carriage.

“Now for London,” growled Major Hawke as the train dashed down the Rhone

valley. “I’ve got a clear alibi here. All my letters sent to Justine

will be forwarded to the Delhi Club. One day in London, then to

Granville, and Jack Blunt. They will only get Justine’s story if they

shadow me, and if I can only hit it off right, at Calcutta. Yes! there

is the king luck of all. To give the whole thing away to the baffled

Viceroy. Then denounce Ram Lal to him as the early confederate and later

assassin of Hugh Fraser Johnstone! These jewels that I have ‘innocently

received’ will connect old Ram Lal with Hugh Fraser’s betrayed trust. I

will hold the murder business back at first.

“Ram Lal or his estate will be finally forced to cash my drafts. It

is clear that Johnstone and Ram Lal have either divided or hidden the

jewels. Yes! By God! I have it. If I can wring them out of the old

professor, or find them, I will then hide them away and secretly report

the whole affair to the Viceroy, in my chosen colors as a friend of the

Crown, and they’ll give me a huge reward; my permanent army rank will

soon follow. So, if Justine only holds to my alibi, by God! I will

marry her, for she would be a badge of respectability. I’ll take no more

chances after this--not another single chance! I’ve got money enough to

satisfy Jack Blunt. He shall secretly sell the jewels for me--a small

lot, here and there, a few at a time.”

“There is just one frightful risk to run,” he muttered, as he reached

out for his brandy flask. “Ram Lal might go in to save his twenty-five

thousand pounds, for the Johnstone estate will never pay these disputed

claims which I cannot prove in law. Good in honor, but bad in law! And

if he should denounce me privately to the Viceroy, as the real murderer

of Hugh Fraser? He is there on the ground. I did not denounce him. I did

not produce the dagger. I dare not to explain why I concealed the crime.

An accessory! He might seek to turn Queen’s evidence, and even try to

hang me. He is rich, sly, smart. By God! they may even now be shadowing

me. Once on English soil, I am at Anstruther’s mercy.” He was still

white-faced and unmanned as he took the Boulogne boat the next evening.

“I must face Anstruther, get my money, and then telegraph to Justine my

departure for India from London. I’ll wire the poor woman from here now.

A few loving words will cheer her. Her true heart is the only jewel I

have that I have not stolen. Poor girl! she will miss me sorely!” And

the handsome blackguard sighed over the ruin he had wrought--an honest

woman’s shattered peace of mind. It weighed heavily upon him now.

For there came back to him now strange shadowy glimpses of his own

stormy past! Dashing on, to face unknown dangers, the dauntless

adventurer, with a softened heart, recalled the days when he could gaze,

without a secret shudder, upon the battle-torn colors of the regiment

from which he had been chased by that suddenly discovered sin, once so

sweet!

He “looked along life’s columned years, to see its riven fane--just

where it fell.” And, sadly alone in life now, his heart gnawed with a

growing remorse, he saw in the mirror of memory, once more, the bright

faced boy who had “filled the cup, to toast his flag and land.” Alan

Hawke, in all the bright promise of his youth, the darling of women, the

envy of men!

Under the swiftly gliding current of his tortuous past, he plainly saw

now the fanged reefs which had wrecked him! With a smothered groan, he

recalled all that he had lost, and this bitter introspection brought

up to him, among his deeds of passion, the one needless cruelty of his

reckless life! “Poor Justine! There is such a thing as woman’s love

after all!” he sighed, for he knew that the steadfast woman had poured

out the wine of her life all in vain. “She loves me!” he cried!

Woman, born to be man’s sport and plaything, is doomed to be the

unconscious avenger of her sex in every tragedy of the heart! The

treason of some callous lover is repaid with vengeance meted out to

some defenseless man who comes all unguarded “into the arid desert

of Phryne’s life, where all is parched and hot.” And, Alan Hawke, the

innocent Lancelot, had suffered for some recreant’s past crime!

Among the visions of the burning Lotos Land, the bright phantasmagoria

of his unstained youth, there came back now to Alan Hawke all the

glories of his first Durbar, the unforgotten day when he had fallen

under the spell of the woman whose fatal touch had withered the “very

rose and expectancy” of his brilliant promise. His mind strayed backward

through all the misty years to that gorgeous scene of Oriental pomp. He

closed his eyes and pictured again the brilliant pageant.

The huge masses of serried troops, the lines of stately elephants, the

castled background of the temples of Aurungzebe. The blare of trumpets

smote once more upon his ear, and hordes of jewel-decked Asiatics swept

along before the pompous military representatives of the Empress, who

wears the Crown of the Seas.

There was a quickening of “Love’s extinguished embers” as he lived over

again the moment, when “side by side, with England’s pride,” he rode

with his sword lowered in knightly salute before the clustered banners

of the Imperial military throne. And the hour of his fate sounded when

the eyes of a woman rested upon him in a mute appeal! Their glances told

him all.

For, then and there, the young officer had seen the wonderful beauty

of the woman who had lured him on and then, in after days, sold his

unstained soul to shame! A fair-faced Lilith, her glowing beauty

enshrined in all the borrowed splendor of majesty, a woman of gleaming

golden hair, a later, all too willing, Guenevere! The soft subtle

invitation of her eyes of sapphire blue had called him to her side, in

that unspoken pact which needs no words! He was her slave from the first

moment! With a last pang of his quivering heart, Hawke recalled the sly

skill of the faithless wife who had drawn the young officer into her

net, for the passing amusement of her idle hours! Too late he knew all

the artful craft of his being bidden to the Grand Ball, of the

“veiled interest” which had “detailed him, for special duty,” of the

self-protecting maneuvers which had placed him on the staff of the faded

valetudinarian general who had given his spotless name to the woman

whose lava heart glowed under a snowy bosom. It was the wreck of a soul!

And then, with a gasp, he recalled his mad fever to win every honor

under her glowing eyes. The forgotten deeds of desperate valor--all

useless now, and stained forever with the bar sinister of his treason.

He shuddered at the unforgotten delights of the hour when they had met

in her seraglio bower of shaded luxury, and “the fairest of Laocoons”

had answered his passionate whisper, “Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere

I die,” with the faltered words: “Alan, you are all the world to me!”

Fondly blind, he had drifted along in a Fool’s Paradise, at her bidding,

until the crash came! He never knew the military Sir Modred, who had

betrayed the open secret, but his blood boiled when he recalled the

cruel abandonment to the rage of a jealous and awakened spouse!

All in vain had been his manly sacrifice to save the woman whom he had

loved more than life. He had cast away every protection for himself.

Duped and tricked, he had remained mute before the storm of abuse heaped

on him by the General, and his papers sent in, at a momentary summons,

had carried him in dishonor out of the band of laureled soldier knights,

to dream no more “the dream that martial music weaves!” And the smiling

woman Judas tricked him to the very last!

How hollow her faith, how lying the mute pleading of her eyes, he knew

now, for had he not paused at the door for one despairing glance of

farewell, to hear her murmur to her placated lord: “After all your

goodness to him, to dare to offer me insult! You have punished him

rightly, but, he is a fascinating traitor, after all!” Deprived of his

sword, shunned by his associates, and lingering near her in hopes of

the last interview pledged him by her lying eyes, he had only been

undeceived when he vainly tried to reach her carriage for a last

farewell on a star-lit lonely drive.

The cold cutting accent of her voice smote him as the edge of a sword.

“Drive on, Johnson!” she sharply cried. “These vagabond people must

face the General himself.” Then came the insane self-sacrifice of his

reckless downfall, but he had spared her to the very last.

He bowed his head in his hands, and a storm of agony swept over him

as he recalled the word “traitor,” branded upon his brow as a badge of

shame, and again he wandered along that devious path which had led him

year by year downward. Too bitterly self-accusing to palliate his past,

he only knew that in all the long years of social pariahhood he had

learned to despise all men and to trust no woman! For had not Friendship

been a lie to him, Love only a hollow cheat, and woman’s vows of

deathless loyalty but writ in sand to be washed out by the next wave of

passion?

And yet, stained with crime, there was one breath of truth which swept

over his soul as fresh as the voice of the “pines of Ramoth Hill!”

His eyes were misty and his breath choked in a sorrowing gasp of manly

remorse, as the winsome face of the true-hearted Justine rose up before

him in this hour of lonely agony! Her devotion had touched the wayworn

wanderer, and, pure and unselfish, her love had been the one bright star

of all these darkened years!

“By Jove! She is a royal soul! If I could only save her the shock of the

awakening,” he murmured. His heart beat generously in a thrill of pride

recalling Justine’s steadfast devotion to the motherless girl whom he

had sought to entangle. “Far above rubies!” he cried, and the memory

of the fond woman who was watching for him at Lausanne, swept over his

stormy soul to bring unbidden tears to eyes which had never flinched

before the red flash of the grim cannon.

“There are still good women in the world!” he muttered, “and, God bless

you, you have taught me this, Justine!” Drawing her picture from his

bosom, he gazed fondly at the face of the gentle-hearted daughter of the

Alps. A vain and passionate regret racked his bosom--the last struggle

of his wavering soul! “Shall I turn back?” he doubtfully cried. And then

in the rush of his onward course, a dull hopeless feeling came over him.

“Kismet!” he cried. “It is too late now. If they had only trusted me! If

they had told me all and given my fighting soul a chance to redeem the

lost promise once written on my brow. I have played a man’s part before!

I might, perhaps, have won this girl’s gratitude and earned Justine’s

love to be a shield and a buckler to me. But--” his head, overweaned

with care, drooped down, and in the company of strange visions and and

dreams of ominous import, the hunted soldier of fortune forgot alike the

echoing voice of his better angel, and lost from view, the shadowy

faces of both the woman who had lured him to a living death, and the

tender-hearted one whose heart was glowing at Lausanne in all the fervor

of her unrequited devotion. Over Alan Hawke, sleeping there, as he

was swiftly borne away, hovered, in sad regret, his good angel, with

sorrowing eyes, for the stern, self-accusing man had not sought, in the

last hours of this sorrow, even the poor consolation that his life had

been wrecked to feed the fires of vanity burning in the jaded heart

of the beautiful Faustine, whose cold desertion had sold his youth to

shame!

Twenty-four hours later Major Alan Hawke was again a stormy petrel on

Life’s trackless ocean. The cold politeness of Captain Anson Anstruther

at the brief interview at the Junior United Service Club in London at

once decided the wanderer to make for India as soon as his “pressing

engagements” would allow. There was no seeming menace, however, in

Anstruther’s wearied air of perfunctory courtesy.

“The whole affair being officially dropped, Major Hawke,” said

Anstruther, “I only ask for your personal receipt for my individual

check. You will observe that this eleven hundred pounds is not in any

way government funds. And, on behalf of the Viceroy himself, I thank

you for your energy shown in the inquiry, which is now permanently

abandoned.” To Major Hawke’s murmured request, Anstruther replied:

“Certainly! Drive around to Grindlay’s in Parliament Street with me and

they will at once give you notes or their own circular check for this

money.” In ten minutes, when Hawke had lightly announced his intention

to return to India, the Captain observed: “I may not meet you for some

years. If the Viceroy returns to England, my promotion will probably

carry me with his Embassy to Paris as Major and Military Attache.” And

then they parted as mere casual acquaintances.

“Damn his cool impertinence,” mused Alan Hawke, as he caught a passing

cab, after telegraphing his greetings and intended departure to Justine

Delande.

“Write one letter to Hotel Binda, Paris, then all to the P. & O. Agency,

Brindisi; after that, to Delhi,” were the lying words which reached

the Swiss woman, whose loving breast was now given over to a tumult of

sighs.

Major Hawke was not free from secret apprehensions until he landed at

Calais, upon the next morning. “Now for a last ‘throw off’ at Paris!”

he exclaimed. “Damn England! I hope I shall never see it again!” he

growled, unmindful of the pitiless Fates ever spinning the mysterious

web of Destiny. “I’ll first show up at Berthe Louison’s, at No. 9 Rue

Berlioz. They shall have my next address given to them as Delhi. The

real Major Hawke dives under the troubled sea of Life at Paris, only to

emerge at Calcutta! Ram Lal is like all his kind, a coward at heart!

He has not denounced me, for, if he had, Captain Anstruther would have

nabbed me in England. He acts by the Viceroy’s private cabled orders.

No! The coast is all clear for my dash at the enemy’s works!”

Before the morning dawned on the sea-girt coast of La Manche, Marie

Victor had duly telegraphed Major Hawke’s impending departure for

India to the beautiful recluse who now cheered the lonely bride of “the

Moonshee,” at the old Norman chateau, embowered in its splendid gardens,

within a league of the Banker’s Folly.

Alan Hawke, closely shaven, and masquerading in a French

commis-voyageur’s modest garb, was seated at ease in Etienne Garcin’s

death-trap at the Cor d’Abundance, in foggy Granville. His darkened

locks and nondescript garb thoroughly effaced the “officer and

gentleman.” One of the old French villain’s wickedest and prettiest

woman decoys was coquettishly serving Hawke’s breakfast as he read the

burning words of Justine Delande’s message from the heart. The last

greeting, tear-blotted, and promptly sent to the Hotel Binda.

“It’s a wild day, a wild-looking place, and a wild enough sea,” grumbled

Major Hawke, gazing out of the grimy window at the rolling green surges

breaking, white-capped, far out beyond the new pier, where the black

cannon were drenched and crusted with the salty flying scud. Far away,

a little side-wheel steamer was laboring along over the strait from

the blue island of Jersey, rising and dipping half out of sight, with a

trail of intermittent puffs of dense black smoke.

“There is the enemy’s stronghold, and now for Jack Blunt’s plan of

campaign! I wonder if he’ll come over to-day, or to-morrow? He must have

had my telegram last night!” Alan Hawke amused himself with the bold,

black-eyed French girl’s vicious stories of olden deeds done there

in Etienne Garcin’s gloomy spider’s den. He even laughed when

the red-bodiced she-devil laughingly pointed down at the loosened

floor-planks in the back room, underneath which mantrap the swish of the

throbbing waves could be heard.