“Yes; but she seems to be a very nice person. I was there to-day at tiffin,” finally said Major Hawke,
“She had very little to say, and cleared out at once. I did not see Miss Johnstone.” They fell into an easy, rattling chronicle of things past and present, and before the two hours’ ride was over, the astute Major felt that he had divined General Willoughby’s object in sending his pet aid-de-camp to reconnoitre Hawke’s lines and pierce the mystery of his rumored employment.
“I suppose that you will come up and duly report to the Chief,” rather uneasily said Captain Hardwicke, as they neared the Club on their return. Hawke cast a glance at the superb domes of the Jumma Musjid towering in the thin air above them, as he slowly answered:
“I am only here on a roving secret commission. I shall call, of course, and pay my personal respects to His Excellency, the General Commanding. I am an official will-o’-the-wisp, just now, but my blushing honors are strictly civil, and, by the way, in expectancy. Where does your promotion carry you?”
“Oh, anywhere—everywhere,” laughed Hardwicke. “I may be sent home. I’m entitled to a long leave—there’s my wound, you know. I’ve only stayed on here to oblige Willoughby.” It was easy to see that the frank, splendid young fellow was but awkwardly filling his role of polite inquisitor, for they talked shop a couple of hours over a bottle at the Club, and Hardwicke at last took his leave, no whit the wiser.
“If he did not post me as to the heiress, at least, old Willoughby gets no valuable information,” laughed the Major, that night. “The boy seems to be ambitious and heart-whole. Old Johnstone will soon clear out to the Highlands, I suppose, with this hidden pearl.” But Major Hawke laughed softly when the morning brought to him a personal invitation to dine “informally” with General Willoughby. “Wants to know, you know,” laughed the Major. “All I have to do is to keep cool and let him drink himself jolly, and so, answer his own questions.”
“That Hardwicke is an uncommonly fine young fellow.” So decided the Major as he splashed into his morning tub. There was one man, however, in Delhi who now viewed Hawke’s presence with a secret alarm, amounting to dismay. It was the stern old miserly Scotsman who had paced his floor half the night in a vain effort to reassure himself. “What does he know? I must have old Ram Lal watch him,” mused Hugh Johnstone. “I was a fool not to have cleared out from here months ago, before these spies were set upon me. First, Anstruther; now this fellow, Hawke, and, perhaps, even Hardwicke. If it were not for the old matter I would go to-morrow, and let the Baronetcy go hang—or find me in the Highlands. But, I must make one last attempt to get them out. I must—” and the old man slept the weary sleep of utter exhaustion.
Before the nabob awoke, Captain Henry Hardwicke, swinging away on his morning gallop, had reviewed the strange attitude of Major Hawke. “He is very intimate with Hugh Johnstone, and he is a man of the world, too. I will yet see this charming child, when the ban of her prison seclusion is lifted.” He vaguely remembered the one timid and girlish glance of the beautiful dark eyes, when he had been presented, pro-forma, to the Veiled Rose upon that one memorable state visit. He then rode out of his way to gaze at the exterior of the great marble house, and was rewarded by the sight of a graceful woman walking there under her governess’s escort in the dewy freshness of the early morn.
He doffed his helmet as Miss Justine paused among the flowers, and then Miss Nadine Johnstone looked up to see the graceful rider disappear behind the fringing trees.
“That was Captain Hardwicke, was it not?” asked the lonely girl. Miss Justine was busied in dreaming of her meeting of the morrow.