To her delight and relief she found it an easy task to face Hugh Johnstone, after that one reassuring glance. Her stern employer failed to pierce the muslin fortifications of her guilty bosom and discern the moral turpitude lurking there. She stole a last anxious glance at her still plump wrist where the diamond bracelet had softly clasped her flesh, and then softly sighed in relief as the master calmly said:
“Miss Justine, I have a gentleman of some distinction to entertain to-day at tiffin. An official visitor. I would be thankful if you would do the honors. Will you kindly join us in the reception room in half an hour, and I will present Major Hawke, my old friend. He has just returned from England.”
“And Miss Nadine?” meekly demanded the happy woman. The old Commissioner’s brow darkened, as he shortly said: “My daughter will be served in her rooms, as usual on such formal occasions. These interlopers are no part of her life. We may soon leave for Europe, and she is therefore better off to remain a stranger to these merely local acquaintances. It is very unlikely that we shall ever re-visit India! Will you see her and say that I purpose driving out with her later?”
No woman in India was as happy, at that particular moment, as the Genevese, who merely bowed in silence, and glided softly away, having escaped the levin-bolt of Hugh Johnstone’s wrath, ever ready, lurking under his bushy, white eyebrows. It was the work of a moment for her to fulfill her simple task as messenger, and this done, she burned to hide herself in her own coign of vantage, for certain new-born ideas of personal decoration were crystallizing in her excited brain. For the first time in her life, she would be fair to man’s views; so as to justify the partner of her momentous secret in the complimentary remarks which, even now, made her ears tingle in delight.
“Do you know aught of this Major Hawke who comes to-day?” wearily, said the listless girl. “Some one of these red-faced old relics of my father’s early life, I suppose!” The Rose of Delhi was gazing wistfully out upon the wilderness of beauty in the tangled gardens, sweeping far out to where the high stone wall shut off the glare and flying dust of the Chandnee Chouk.
“Certainly not, Nadine!” softly said the governess. “This is only a peopled wilderness to me!” Her heart smote her as the girl, with a sudden lonely sinking of the heart, threw her arms around the neck of her startled companion.
“I am so unhappy here—so wretched, this is but a gleaning white stone prison, Justine! I stifle in this wretched land! Why did my father bring me here to die by inches?” There was no pretense in her stormy sobs.
“We are soon going home, Darling!” cried the affrighted Swiss. “Just now your father told me that we were all to leave India forever, and at once.” And so, gently soothing the unhappy girl, orphaned in her heart, Justine Delande escaped to the first essay of her life in high decorative art. “There is some strange mystery of the past in all this! He has a heart of flint, this old tyrant!” murmured Justine, as with fingers trembling in haste she completed a toilet, which later caused even old Hugh Johnstone to growl “By Gad! This Swiss woman’s not half bad looking!” A last pang, caused by the keen secret sorrow of not daring to wear her diamond bracelet, was effaced by the rising tide of indignation in Justine Delande’s awakened heart. There were strange emotional currents fitfully thrilling through her usually placid veins as she stole a last glance at herself in the mirror. “A tyrant to the daughter. I warrant that in the old days he broke the mother’s heart! He never mentions her! Not a picture is here—nothing—not even a memento, not a reference to the woman who gave him this lovely child! Her life, her death, even her resting place, are all wrapped in the selfish and brutal silence of a selfish tyrant! He should have been only a drill sergeant to knock about the half-crazed brutes who stagger under a soldier’s pack over these burning plains!” It suddenly occurred to her that in some mysterious way Major Alan Hawke’s coming would contribute to the rescue of the captive Princess.
Justine Delande really loved her beautiful charge with all the fond attachment of a mature woman for the one rose blossoming in her lonely heart. Their gray passionless lives had run on together since Nadine’s childhood, as brooks quietly mingle, seeking the unknown sea! She now felt the wine of life stirring within her, and, seizing upon another justification for her dangerous secret association with Alan Hawke, she murmured: “I will tell him of all this. He has high influence with the Home Government. This Captain Anstruther on the Viceroy’s staff is certainly his firm friend. We must leave here and return to dear old Switzerland. Perhaps the Major himself knows the secret of the family history!”
And there was a meaning light in her eyes as she stole back to Nadine’s room when the silver gong sounded, and throwing her arms around the girl, whispered: “We are going home soon, darling! Be brave and trust to me! I will find out the story of the past and tell you all, my darling!” Justine Delande unwound the girl’s arms from round her neck, while honest tears trembled in her eyes.