“What’s the wrong—to tell her?” he had mused, under the spell of the loving eyes. “We go straight through, and I am in charge till my father takes her out of my hands! Poor girl, it will be a grim enough life with him. Not a man will ever set eyes on her face without old Hugh’s written order!” And it was thus that Justine was enabled to warn her own lover when she had slipped away and cabled by her mistress’s orders to the young Lochinvar at Delhi:
“Captain Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, Delhi: Letters for you at Andrew Fraser’s, St Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey. Come.”
The Swiss woman shuddered as she boldly signed Nadine! And this same dispatch when received by the young officer, now busied with the Viceroy’s mandate, brought the sunlight of Love back into his darkened soul! The minutes seemed to lengthen into hours until the special train was ready. At the risk of his military future, the Major gave to the faithful Simpson his London Club address. “If anything happens here, you must go to General Willoughby. Tell him what you want me to know. He will send it on, and give you a five-pound note. Remember! Simpson, you’ll die in my service if you stand true!”
“That I will, for your brave father’s sake, and for the young lady’s bright eyes! Bless her dear, sunny face! Tell her that I will work for her in life and death!” And when, in a few days the lengthened absence of Major Harry Hardwicke and Red Eric Murray was noted, the groups only conjectured a little junket to some near-by station, or a long shikaree trip. But Simpson and General Willoughby knew better. Simpson was a “lord” in these days, in the quarter, for Hardwicke had not left Delhi with a closed hand.
And old Hugh Johnstone, greatly relieved at heart, was now busied in secretly arranging for his own flitting. “I’ll run down to Calcutta, see the Viceroy, give Abercromby a splendid dinner, and then slip off home, on the quiet, via Ceylon. I’ll send Douglas back when I get to Jersey, and then I can put those jewels where no human being can ever trace them! Once that brother Andrew has my full orders as to Nadine, I will bar this she-devil forever from her side! On the excuse of a leisurely contemplated tour, I can have the rich Jew brokers of Amsterdam and Frankfort, with their agents in Cairo and Constantinople, divide up the jewels among the foreign crown-heads. I am then safe! safe! No human hand can ever touch me now,” he gloated.
There was a clattering of aides-de-camp and great official bustle at the Government House in Calcutta when General Abercromby reported to the great statesman Viceroy, dwelling in the vast palace, builded by the Marquis of Wellesley.
General Abercromby, marveling at the abruptness of the Viceroy, was relieved to know that his “secret service” had been transferred to Major Hardwicke under the orders of Major-General Willoughby. His mind was intently occupied with the promised introduction to Madame Berthe Louison—“that little party”—and so he failed not to refer to the future value to the crown of Alan Hawke’s services.
“He is here with me, Your Excellency!” respectfully said Abercromby, who had already posted off his leporello to call in due form at the banker’s mansion, where the disguised Alixe Delavigne had taken refuge. “Send him to me at once, General. I need him! I will give him the local staff rank of Major and immediate employment. Willoughby has also written to me especially about his wonderful knowledge of our northern lines. Stay! Bring him yourself, to-morrow, at ten o’clock.”
“Splendid! Splendid!” cried the love-lorn General, rubbing his hands, as he hastened away in his carriage to meet Alan Hawke! “I am ready for him, if he is ready for me! I wish she were at some one of the great hotels instead of being buried in the silver-gray respectability of the Manager’s family circle. But—but—I will take her to the Viceroy. The bird shall then learn to test its wings. I will bring her out as a social star!”
Major Alan Hawke, with a beating heart, recounted to Madame Berthe Louison all the occurrences in Delhi, when they were left alone in the great banker’s vast parlors. “She is a puzzle, this strange woman!” mused Hawke, for a serene and stately triumph shone in her splendid eyes.