“Is he better?” demanded Justine, with guilty qualms.
“He is resting now, but he will not be quieted till he sees this strange man,” answered the disconsolate girl.
“How beautiful she is,” mused the Swiss woman, as Nadine Johnstone sat with parted lips relating the excitements of the morning. The wooing Indian climate was fast ripening the exquisite loveliness of eighteen. Her dark eyes gleamed with earnestness, and the rich brown locks crowned her stately head as with a coronal of golden bronze. The roses on her cheeks were not yet faded by the insidious climate of burning India, and a thrilling earnestness accented the music of her voice.
“What can we do, Nadine?” murmured Justine Delande.
“Nothing,” sighed the motherless girl. “But when this Major Hawke comes, you must, for my sake, find out all you can. Ah! To leave India forever!” she sighed. Her marble prison was only a place of sorrow and lamentation.
Major Hawke’s flying steeds reached the marble house, after a circuit to Ram Lal’s jewel mart. Without leaving his carriage, he called out the obsequious old Hindu. The dusk of evening favored Ram Lal in his adroit lying.
He gave a brief account of Hugh Johnstone’s strange morning seizure, forgetting to divulge to Hawke that the old nabob had already bribed him heavily to watch the inmate of the Silver Bungalow, and report to him her every movement. Nor, did the Hindu divulge his secret report to Madame Berthe Louison, after her ostentatious public carriage promenade. He further hid the fact that Madame Louison had deftly pressed a hundred pounds upon him, in return for a daily report of the secret life of the marble house. But he smiled blandly, when Major Hawke hastily said “Will he die?”
“No; he is all right! He was over there with the Mem-Sahib this morning, and something must have happened.”
“What happened?” imperiously demanded Hawke.
“I don’t know,” slowly answered Ram Lal.