“Some one must break the line of the enemy,” darkly mused Alan Hawke, as in the unrestrained intimacy of their long, morning rides, he influenced the Swiss woman’s heart, love-tortured, to a greater passionate surrender.
“It maybe all in all to me, in my secret career, your future fidelity,” he pleaded. ‘“It will be all in all to you, and to your sister. There will be your home, the friendship of an enormously rich woman! The girl will have a million pounds! And you and I, Justine, shall not be cast off, as one throws away an old sandal.” The cowering woman clung closer daily to the man who now molded her will to his own.
The absence of Johnstone and Madame Louison seemed confirmation of the rumors of coming bridals.
“They will come back, as man and wife!” growled old Verner, to Captain Hardwicke, “and then, look out for a second bridal! Hawke and the heiress!” But Harry Hardwicke only smiled and bided his time. His daily morning ride led him to the double gateway, to at least nearby the isolation of the lovely Rose who was filling his heart with all beauty and brightness.
Major Alan Hawke had withdrawn himself into a stately solitude at the Club. His evenings were spent with Ram Lal, and his mornings with the deluded Justine, who dared not now write to the calm-faced preceptress in Geneva how far the tide of love had swept her on. In the long afternoons, Major Hawke was apparently busied with the “dispatches” which duly mystified the Club quid mines, as they were ostentatiously displayed in the letter-box. No one but Ram Lal knew of the abstraction from the mail, and destruction of these carefully sealed envelopes of blank paper. But the thieving mail clerk in their secret pay, laughed as he consigned them later to the flames.
The astute Major was not aware that he was being daily watched by secret agents representing both the absent ones whom he desired to dupe. But a daily letter was dispatched by a local banker to a well-known Calcutta firm, which reached Madame Louison, and old Hugh Johnstone, busied at his lawyers, or sitting alone at night with Douglas Fraser in Calcutta, smiled grimly, when he, too, received his data as to Hawke’s progress. A growing coldness which had cut off Hardwicke’s friendship seemed to interest Hugh Johnstone. “I suppose that old Willonghby thinks Hawke is spying upon him. Just as well!”
There had been a lightning activity in the old man’s movements before Madame Louison arrived in Calcutta. He was fighting for his future peace and his coveted honors. The lawyer with whom he spent his first day was astounded at the peculiar nature of the last will and testament which the old nabob ordered him to draft at once. “The steamer, Lord Roberts, goes to-morrow, and I wish a duplicate to be deposited here in the bank, under your care, as I shall write to my senior executor regarding it.”
The nabob’s remark, “Make your fees what you will. I give you carte blanche!” had silenced the remonstrances which rose to the lawyer’s lips. “I know what I am doing, Hodgkinson,” said Hugh Johnstone. “Blood is thicker than water! I can trust nothing else. These two men as executors will exactly carry out my wishes. In naming a guardian by will, for my daughter, I do not forget that she is yet a child at eighteen, and, at twenty-one, she may be the destined prey of many a fortune hunter! As for my directions and restrictions, I know my own mind!”
When Hugh Johnstone, Esq., of Delhi and Calcutta, had seen the fleet steamer, Lord Roberts, sail away for London, bearing a carefully registered document addressed to “Professor Andrew Fraser, St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey, Channel Islands, England,” he could not remember a detail forgotten in the voluminous letters of positive orders now also on their way to his distant brother. He smiled grimly as he entered the P. and O. office, and, after a private interview with the manager, called his nephew, Douglas Fraser, away to a private luncheon. They had first visited the one bank, which Johnstone trusted, and there deposited a sealed document to the order of “Douglas Fraser, executor.” The young man had been alarmed at his stern old uncle’s curtness, on the return trip from Allahabad, his strange manner and his grim silence. But he was simply astounded when his nabob relative quietly said:
“I have obtained a six months’ leave of absence for you! Let no one know of your movements. Leave your rooms and baggage just as they are. I will now move in there, and put one of my servants in charge while you are gone. I have made my will and named your father as my executor and the guardian of my daughter, and you are to succeed, in case of his death! There will be a small fortune for you both in the fees, and neither of you are forgotten in the will! I have drawn two thousand pounds in notes for you, and here is a bank draft on London for three thousand more!” The young man was sitting in open-mouthed wonder, when the nabob sharply said: “Now! Have your wits about you! I bear all the expenses here, and your office pay goes on. You will be promoted on your return. The manager of the P. and O. is my lifelong friend.”