“No, a she-devil!” almost shouted old Hugh. “Now, I want you to watch her and find out who her backers are. She is trying to annoy me. Be prudent, and I’ll make it a year’s pay to you.” Hawke’s greedy eyes lightened as he bowed. “But never mention my name. Come here as often as you will. Go now and look up what you can. I’ll see you to-morrow, in the afternoon. Don’t scrape acquaintance with her. Just watch her. I’m going there to-morrow morning myself.”
“You?” said Hawke.
“Yes,” half groaned the old man, turning his face to the wall. “Come to-morrow afternoon. Spare no money. I’ll make it right. Don’t linger a minute now.”
Major Alan Hawke was gayly buoyant as the horses trotted back to Ram Lal Singh’s, where he proposed to await the hour of ten o’clock. “I fancy, my lady, that you, too, will pay toll, as well as Hugh Johnstone,” he murmured. “You shall pay for all you get, and pay as you go.” He cheerfully dined alone in Ram Lal’s little business sanctum, and listened to the measured disclosures of the Hindu in return for the fifty-pound note.
“It’s to-morrow’s interview that I want to know about,” quietly directed the major, whereat Ram Lal modestly said:
“I’ll find a way to let you know all.”
“That’s more than she will, the sly devil,” said Hawke, in his heart, as he leaned back in the consciousness of “duty well done.”
In the Silver Bungalow, Alixe Delavigne sat in her splendid dining-room, under the ministrations of her Gallic body-guard. Her eyes were very dreamy as she recalled all the fearful incidents of the annee terrible. The flight from Paris after their father’s death, the escape to England, the refuge at a Brighton hotel—the sudden projecture of Hugh Fraser athwart their humble lives. When the returned Indian functionary abandoned all other pursuits and plainly showed his mad craving to follow Valerie Delavigne everywhere, then the younger sister had learned of his rank, of his long leave and wealth and future prospects. The man was most personable then. He was of a solid rank and a brilliant civil position, and the penniless daughters of the dead Colonel Delavigne were now reduced to a few hundred francs. The hand of Misery was upon them, poor and friendless. Alixe, with a shudder, recalled the two years of silence, since the ardent Pierre Troubetskoi had whispered to beautiful Valerie Delavigne in Paris: “I go to Russia, but I will soon return and you must wait for me!”
Day by day, when the skies grew darker, Valerie Delavigne had gazed with a haunting sorrow in her eyes, at her helpless sister. Some strange possessing desire had urged Hugh Fraser on to woo and win the helpless French beauty, whom an adverse fate had stranded in England. The mute sacrifice of the wedding was followed by the two years of Valerie’s loveless marriage. It was an existence for the two sisters, bought by the sacrifice of one and Troubetskoi never had written!
Sitting alone, waiting for the morrow, to face Hugh Fraser once more, Alixe Delavigne recalled, with a vow of vengeance, that sad past, the slow breaking of the butterfly, the revelation of all Hugh Fraser’s cold-hearted tyranny, the sway of his demoniac jealousy—jealous, even, of a sister’s innocent love. And that last miserable scene, on the eve of their projected voyage to India, when the maddened tyrant discovered Pierre Troubetskoi’s long-belated letter, returned once more to madden her. Fraser had simply raged in a demoniac passion.