“Dear, simple soul!” contentedly reflected Major Hawke, as he busied himself with the important letter to the staid Euphrosyne. “She has given me her heart, in her loving eagerness to defend that child, and the key to the whole situation. It would be just like this old brute to spirit the girl away to baffle Madame Berthe Louison. That is, if he dare not kill or intimidate her. And that I must look to. I think that I see my way to that girl’s side now. God, what a pot of money she will have!”
When Alan Hawke had finished his boldly warm letter to Euphrosyne, he sealed it and sent it to the post by Ram Lal’s footman. The world looked very bright to him as, enjoying a capital cheroot, he studied for a half hour a wall map of India. “There’s a half dozen ways to spirit her out of the Land of the Pagoda Tree. I must watch and trust to Justine. To-night I may or may not know what this devil of a Berthe Louison is up to. Will she try to take the girl away? That would be fatal.”
“Hardly—hardly,” he decided, as he mixed a brandy pawnee. He gazed around at Ram Lal’s sanctum, in which the old usurer received the Europeans whom he fleeced in his nipoy-lending operations. “A pretty snug joint. Many a hundred pounds have I dropped here.” It was neatly furnished forth with service magazines, London papers, army lists, and all the accessories of a London money-lender’s den. When the receipt for his registered letter was laid away in his pocket-book, Alan Hawke calmly ordered his carriage. “I’ll take a brush around town and show them that I am out of all these intrigues,” he decided. It was six hours later when he drew up at the Club, having passed Madame Berthe Louison’s splendid turnout swinging down the Chandnee Chouk. On the box the alert Jules, in a yager’s uniform, sat beside the dusky driver, and, even in the dusk, he could see the neat French maid seated, facing her mistress. “By God! She has the nerve of a Field Marshal! She will never hide her light under a bushel!” he had gasped when Madame Louison, at ten feet distant, gazed at him impassively through her longue vue, and then calmly cut him. He was soon besieged by a crowd of gay gossips at the Club upon dismounting from his trap.
“Tell us, Hawke, who is the wonderful beauty who has taken the Silver Bungalow,” was the excited chorus.
“How the devil should I know, when you fellows do not,” good-humoredly cried Alan Hawke, as the Club steward edged his way through the throng.
“There’s a message for you, Major,” said the functionary. “Mr. Hugh Johnstone is quite ill at his house, and has been sending all over for you.”
“Ah! This is grave news” ostentatiously cried Hawke. “I’ll drive over at once.” And then he fled away, leaving the gay loiterers still discussing the lovely anonyma whose advent was now the one sensation of the hour. “Who the devil can her friends be?”
“She plays a bold game,” mused the startled Major.
On her return to the marble house, Justine Delande had been welcomed by the anxious-eyed apparition of Nadine Johnstone, who burst into her room in a storm of tears. “I have been so frightened,” she cried as she clasped her returning governess in her trembling grasp.
“My father has just had a terrible seizure—an attack while riding out on business. He will see no one but Doctor McMorris, and besides, he has the old jewel merchant searching all over Delhi for Major Hawke. You must not leave me a moment, Justine.”