But when they drove to Morley’s Hotel, far away on the sea, Harry Hardwicke’s heart was beating fondly in all a lover’s expectancy for the same friendless Rose of Delhi, and the debonnair Alan Hawke, in sight of Brindisi, mused in his deck-pacings: “I will placate Euphrosyne Delande. Justine, too, shall do my bidding, and my employer shall give me the key to this girl’s heart. For I will marry Nadme Johnstone! I am a devil for luck.”
CHAPTER XII. ON THE CLIFFS OF JERSEY.
Captain Anson Anstruther, A. D. C., was the very happiest of men three days later, when he watched Madame Alixe Delavigne gracefully presiding over a pretty tea table, a la russe, in the quaint old mansion, bowered in a garden sloping down to the Thames, where Miss Mildred Anstruther, a venerable maiden aunt, had her “local habitation and, a name!” A lonely woman of colossal wealth and blue blood, high in rank, and decidedly of riper years.
“By Jove! Dear old Aunt Mildred is a tower of strength to me, just now,” reflected the gallant Captain, when, as the soft shadows deepened on lawn and river, he lingered tenderly there in explanation of his official business. It was hardly “official” that Anson Anstruther had fallen into the habit of furtively addressing the now unveiled Madame Berthe Louison, as “Alixe”, but it was even so. Acquaintance can ripen as rapidly on the Thames as by the Arno, given a certain impetus. And the Pilgrim of Love, though still Madame Berthe Louison in France, was Alixe Delavigne in the retreat chosen by the Viceroy.
“Pazienza! Pazienza!” smiled the young soldier, as the impassioned Alixe eagerly demanded to be allowed to approach the orphaned Nadine, at St. Heliers. “You have been so noble, so untiring, do not ruin all by precipitancy now! You see I am already secretly watching over her. I now represent the whole interests of Her Majesty’s Service! And you—only your own loving heart! I must first meet Major Alan Hawke, and send him away to be busied on some apparently important duty, which will keep him away from old Andrew Fraser. We know the old professor’s cunning character. Miser and pedant, he is but a shriveled parchment edition of his heartless, dead brother. We must not alarm him. We have already traced the insured packet to his hands. Now, he properly has the custody of the dead nabob’s will. He may soon have to bring the girl on to London, for the legal formalities of proving it. We do not wish him to send the stolen jewels away in a sudden fright, and so hide them from us forever. If he qualifies duly as executor, and then files the will, then the estate is responsible, through him.
“We will soon know who controls your niece for the three years of her long minority. Hawke must be got out of the way. I will hoodwink him, and every British Consul in the continental towns which he visits will secretly watch him for me. Besides, Major Hardwicke and Murray will be here very soon, to aid me, and to watch Hawke. I wish Alan Hawke to blunder around, hunting for Major Hardwicke, and so give me an opportunity to do my duty secretly, and to aid you in your own labor of love. In the mean time—you must be content to rest tranquilly here; cultivate my dear old aunt, and I will come to you daily so that your quiet life in this ‘moated grange’ will be brightened up a bit. You see,” thoughtfully said Anstruther, “whoever sent old Johnstone to his grave, he had previously spirited the heiress away—all his plans for the future were perfectly matured with all the craft of a man well versed in intrigue for forty years. His bitter hatred of you did not die with him. You may be assured that he has laid out a plan, both in his private letters and in the will to fence you forever out of this girl’s life. So your work must be done in secret. If I can ever effectively help you, I must work on Andrew Fraser and not needlessly alarm both his greed and fear. As soon as it is safe, you shall take up your post near to her; but Hawke must come and go first. He must find no sign of your presence here.” There was cogency in the sentimental soldier’s reasoning.
“He will surely come to my Paris home at No. 9 Rue Berlioz. He knows that address!” murmured Alixe Delavigne, her eyes dropping in a sudden confusion, as a flame of jealousy lit up the young soldier’s fiery glances. For Anson Anstruther had posted there on his first voyage from Geneva to find the bird flown.
“Then you may keep Marie, your maid, here,” slowly replied Anstruther, “and send Jules over to Paris. Alan Hawke will surely seek for you there. Let Jules inform him that you have gone to Jitomir to attend to your Russian interests.”