A Fascinating Traitor Part 29

"Listen to the strange story of a woman's life!" she said slowly. "I promised His Excellency, the Viceroy, that you should know why I left the defensive lines of my s.e.x at Geneva! For he has trusted to me, and I wish you to know--to know that--" and the sentence was never finished, for Captain Anstruther bent over her trembling hands.

"I know that you are what I would have you ever be!" he simply said.

And, with softly shining eyes, she told the soldier of her strange life path.

It was strange that they had neared London before the whole story was concluded, and their voices had sunk into softened whispers. "You may rely upon me to the death! You may depend upon me whenever you may wish to call upon me!" he said, as the train rolled into Charing Cross station. "Major Hardwicke, of the Engineers, will be my chosen ally, and I alone am to trace out this mystery of the vanished jewels. You shall conquer! I will aid you! Amor omnia vincit! You are the only heart in the world now throbbing for that sweet girl."

But when they drove to Morley's Hotel, far away on the sea, Harry Hardwicke's heart was beating fondly in all a lover's expectancy for the same friendless Rose of Delhi, and the debonnair Alan Hawke, in sight of Brindisi, mused in his deck-pacings: "I will placate Euphrosyne Delande.

Justine, too, shall do my bidding, and my employer shall give me the key to this girl's heart. For I will marry Nadme Johnstone! I am a devil for luck."

CHAPTER XII. ON THE CLIFFS OF JERSEY.

Captain Anson Anstruther, A. D. C., was the very happiest of men three days later, when he watched Madame Alixe Delavigne gracefully presiding over a pretty tea table, a la fusse, in the quaint old mansion, bowered in a garden sloping down to the Thames, where Miss Mildred Anstruther, a venerable maiden aunt, had her "local habitation and, a name!" A lonely woman of colossal wealth and blue blood, high in rank, and decidedly of riper years.

"By Jove! Dear old Aunt Mildred is a tower of strength to me, just now,"

reflected the gallant Captain, when, as the soft shadows deepened on lawn and river, he lingered tenderly there in explanation of his official business. It was hardly "official" that Anson Anstruther had fallen into the habit of furtively addressing the now unveiled Madame Berthe Louison, as "Alixe", but it was even so. Acquaintance can ripen as rapidly on the Thames as by the Arno, given a certain impetus. And the Pilgrim of Love, though still Madame Berthe Louison in France, was Alixe Delavigne in the retreat chosen by the Viceroy.

"Pazienza! Pazienza!" smiled the young soldier, as the impa.s.sioned Alixe eagerly demanded to be allowed to approach the orphaned Nadine, at St. Heliers. "You have been so n.o.ble, so untiring, do not ruin all by precipitancy now! You see I am already secretly watching over her. I now represent the whole interests of Her Majesty's Service! And you--only your own loving heart! I must first meet Major Alan Hawke, and send him away to be busied on some apparently important duty, which will keep him away from old Andrew Fraser. We know the old professor's cunning character. Miser and pedant, he is but a shriveled parchment edition of his heartless, dead brother. We must not alarm him. We have already traced the insured packet to his hands. Now, he properly has the custody of the dead nabob's will. He may soon have to bring the girl on to London, for the legal formalities of proving it. We do not wish him to send the stolen jewels away in a sudden fright, and so hide them from us forever. If he qualifies duly as executor, and then files the will, then the estate is responsible, through him.

"We will soon know who controls your niece for the three years of her long minority. Hawke must be got out of the way. I will hoodwink him, and every British Consul in the continental towns which he visits will secretly watch him for me. Besides, Major Hardwicke and Murray will be here very scon, to aid me, and to watch Hawke. I wish Alan Hawke to blunder around, hunting for Major Hardwicke, and so give me an opportunity to do my duty secretly, and to aid you in your own labor of love. In the mean time--you must be content to rest tranquilly here; cultivate my dear old aunt, and I will come to you daily so that your quiet life in this 'moated grange' will be brightened up a bit. You see," thoughtfully said Anstruther, "whoever sent old Johnstone to his grave, he had previously spirited the heiress away--all his plans for the future were perfectly matured with all the craft of a man well versed in intrigue for forty years. His bitter hatred of you did not die with him. You may be a.s.sured that he has laid out a plan, both in his private letters and in the will to fence you forever out of this girl's life. So your work must be done in secret. If I can ever effectively help you, I must work on Andrew Fraser and not needlessly alarm both his greed and fear. As soon as it is safe, you shall take up your post near to her; but Hawke must come and go first. He must find no sign of your presence here." There was cogency in the sentimental soldier's reasoning.

"He will surely come to my Paris home at No. 9 Rue Berlioz. He knows that address!" murmured Alixe Delavigne, her eyes dropping in a sudden confusion, as a flame of jealousy lit up the young soldier's fiery glances. For Anson Anstruther had posted there on his first voyage from Geneva to find the bird flown.

"Then you may keep Marie, your maid, here," slowly replied Anstruther, "and send Jules over to Paris. Alan Hawke will surely seek for you there. Let Jules inform him that you have gone to Jitomir to attend to your Russian interests."

Alixe Delavigne bowed her head in a mute a.s.sent. Day by day the proud self-reliant woman was yielding to the imperious will of the young soldier. It was a soft, self-deception that rea.s.sured her on the very evening when he left her.

But there was one now weaving his webs at Lausanne whose fertile brain was busied with sly schemes of his own. Alan Hawke always first considered "his duty to himself" and so the acute Major decided to spy out the land before he precipitately appeared at London, or dared to risk himself at St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers.

"It is just as well to know all that Justine can tell me before I see this young dandy Anstruther, and to find out what Euphrosyne knows before I interrogate her sister," he murmured; "I must make no mistake with the Viceroy's kinsman!"

With much prevision he had telegraphed the date of his probable arrival in London to Captain Anstruther from Munich, adding that convenient fairy tale, "Delayed by illness" and he had also left this telegram behind, so as to be sent on to allow him four days leeway near Geneva.

The signature bore also an injunction to answer to Hotel Binda, Paris.

"This is no little card game," muttered Hawke. "It is for rank, wealth, and the hand of Miss Million, the rose of Delhi."

Alan Hawke was practically received with open arms by the fluttering-hearted Euphrosyne, who n.o.bly resigned herself to Justine's victory over Alan Hawke's heart. For the younger sister's letters had filled the elder's mind with rosy dreams of enhanced family prosperity.

"Only this telegram. That is all!" murmured the preceptress, as she handed the Major a dispatch dated at St. Heliers, stating, "Arrived, well, news of Mr. Johnstone's a.s.sa.s.sination just received. Will write!"

"This is all I know of this strange homecoming, as yet!" summed up the child of Minerva.

Hawke softly delved into Mademoiselle Euphrosyne's inner consciousness until he knew all the corners of the simple woman's heart.

"I am quite sure that she speaks the simple truth!" he decided, after he had informed the Swiss woman of his address, "Hotel Binda, Paris."

"I must go on there by the night train," he at once resolved. "Here is a juncture where all our various interests are deeply involved. You and Justine may lose the well-earned reward of years. I must be near Justine, now, to protect you both. I fear this old mummy Fraser! If he controls the fortune, then he and his hopeful son will probably steal half of it. Thats a fair allowance for an ordinary executor! It is all for one, and, one for all, now! Write under seal to Justine that I am near--only do not mention names!" With an affected tenderness, Hawke kissed the pallid lips of the daughter of Minerva, and slipped away to Lausanne, whence he took the midnight train for Paris.

"I might look around and dispose of my jewels in Paris," he thought as he neared that "gay and festive city." But his serious business with the Credit Lyonnais as to the negotiation of the four "raised" bills of exchange, and his desire to at once come to terms with Madame Berthe Louison, caused him to postpone the vending of the jewels so neatly extorted from Ram Lal.

"I have lots of ready money now--too much, even, for safety in travel, and the jewels will keep." With a strange anxious craving to see his fair employer he drove directly to No. 9 Rue Berlioz on his arrival in Paris. The impa.s.sive face of Jules Victor met his gaze at the door.

"Madame, suddenly summoned to Poland, had begged Monsieur le Major to address her by letter, as telegrams were most unreliable in Russian Poland. Monsieur would, however, surely find letters at his London address, and it was true that Madame had not expected Monsieur's arrival for a fortnight."

"I don't believe a d.a.m.ned word of this fellow's yarn. There is some sly juggling here!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Major as he drove back to the Hotel Binda. His brow was black as he descended, and it grew blacker still when he read a telegram from Euphrosyne Delande. He studied over the unwelcome news while he made a careful business toilet to visit the Credit Lyonnais. And a white rage shone out upon his handsome face as he learned that Justine was useless to him now. "Discharged without even a reward! Thrust out like a beggar without a word of warning." "Justine on her way home. Pa.s.sed through Paris last night. Can you not return?"

The signature "Euphrosyne" was a guaranty of the unwelcome truth. Major Hawke swore a deep and bitter oath as he penned a telegram to the Swiss preceptress: "Coming to-night. Arrive to-morrow at ten o'clock. Keep all secret." And he boldly signed the name "Alan Hawke" to that and to a message to Captain Anson Anstruther: "Delayed four days here by private business."

He raged as he hastily soliloquized: "I will at once present these drafts regularly through the Credit Lyonnais. I will go and get the whole story from Justine. I will pay off that tiger cat, Madame Louison, for her sneaking away. She fancies she has done with me now! Ah! By G.o.d!

She thinks so? Wait! And this old Scotch saw-file! I'll break him up! If I can only trace those stolen jewels to him, I'll have them or send the old miser off in irons to a life transportation! I begin to see the whole game at last! And I swear that I'll get to the girl if I have to carry her off!"

He went down to the Credit Lyonnais in an elegant "mufti" garb, and depositing a thousand pounds sterling to his credit, left the four drafts for five thousand pounds each for collection, carelessly referring to Messrs. Grindlay & Co., of Delhi, London, and many other places, and mentioning the name of that eminent private native banker, money-lender, and jeweler, the well-known Ram Lal Singh. "He shall back his indors.e.m.e.nt!" laughed Alan Hawke.

With a lordly insouciance, Major Alan Hawke then strolled out of the great bank and deliberately arranged his line of future action while he was taking his ease at his inn.

"First, to pick up all the threads of this queer intrigue through Justine. I must go back to her at Geneva. Then, to be sure that Berthe Louison is not repeating her cunning Delhi tricks with the dead man's brother. She might frighten him. Then, armed at all points, I must hasten on to report to Anstruther. I must have him give me a short leave as soon as I can get it, but before I open my siege trenches I must develop all the enemy's strength. What the devil is Berthe Louison up to now?"

In the night train, speeding back to Geneva, Major Hawke remembered some old desperate a.s.sociates of an enforced "social eclipse" at Granville-sur-Mer. "With a half a dozen resolute fellows I might hang around Jersey and, perhaps, force my way into the stronghold. It depends on where the mansion is located. If the jewels are there, I will either have them or else bend the old man to my will by threatened disclosures.

But I must first fool Anstruther and my pretty employer. If Justine had only remained at Jersey I might have easily won my way to the girl's side. And yet she will be under a long three years guardianship." Some busy devil at his side whispered: "She would be helpless if she were carried off." And as the enraged schemer finished the last of a dozen cigars and took a pull at his pocket flask, he disposed himself to sleep, grumbling.

"They have upset all the chessmen. Old Fraser and the Louison, too, are playing at cross purposes--evidently. They have, however, spoiled my little game. I will spoil theirs!" He grinned as he decided "I will do a bit of the Romeo act with Justine, and come back by Granville to Boulogne. If the old gang is to be found there, I may get one of them to spy the whole thing out. All these Jersey people are half French in their birth and ways. I can sneak some fellow in from Granville. There might be a chance. I'll get to the old fellow, or the girl, or the jewels--by G.o.d! I will! For I hold the trump cards."

And yet his flattering hopes of gaining a permanent rank returned to affright him in planning such a bold deed. "Ah! I must get some trusty fellow--perhaps, in London," he muttered as his head dropped, and the train bore him on to the halls of learning, where poor Justine was now weeping on her sister's bosom, and unveiling all the secrets of a hungry heart to the sympathetic Euphrosyne.

But, saddest of all the coterie who had trodden the tessellated floors of the marble house at Delhi, was a lonely girl sobbing herself to sleep, that very night, in a gray castellated mansion house perched upon a sunny cliff of Jersey.

The fair gardens and splendid halls of the luxurious home seemed but the limits of a cheerless prison to the broken-hearted girl who had been astounded when her one friend, Douglas Fraser, the companion of a thirty-five days' journey, left her without a word. Nadine Johnstone had opened her heart, shyly, to her manly young kinsman, Douglas Fraser.

And yet she guarded, as only a maiden's heart can, the secret of the blossoming love for Hardwicke--the man who had saved her life. She asked her hungry heart if he would follow on her way, led by the appeal of her shining eyes.

Worn, hara.s.sed, and wearied out by travel, she had sought a refuge in Justine Delande's clinging arms, on the night of their arrival from Boulogne, for the path from India had been but a series of shadow-dance glimpses of strange scenes. The ashen face of the tottering old pedant had offered her no welcome to a happy home.

"How hideously like my father, this old bookworm," murmured the frightened girl in a strange repulsion, as she fled away to her room. It was a grateful relief when the servant maid announced that the travelers would be served in their rooms.

"The Master lives entirely alone," the girl said shortly. Late that first night the lonely girl sat gazing at the windows rattling under the flying wrack, while Douglas Fraser and his father communed below her until the midnight hour. Suddenly Justine Delande was summoned to join them "on urgent business," and the heiress of a million sat with clasped hands, murmuring:

"Will he ever find me out here? This is only a cheerless prison. I am, forever, lost to the world." There was that in Justine Delande's face on her return which startled the heart-sick wanderer.

"Ask me nothing--nothing to-night. Only sleep, my darling," murmured the devoted Swiss. The shadows deepened over Nadine Johnstone as she fell asleep dreaming of her mother, the gentle vision, and, the absent lover of her girlish heart.

Sunny gleams came with the dawn, and Nadine was already wandering in the beautiful gardens of "The Banker's Folly," as the home perched on the hill was termed. It was there that Douglas Fraser suddenly came upon her, walking with the white-faced Justine. Both women could see that he bore tidings of grave import, and another shadow settled on Nadine's heart, as she clasped Justine's hand.

Her cousin's face was grave as he said, in a broken voice: "I must hasten away instantly to catch the boat, and I have to return immediately to India. There's no time for a word. My father will tell you all! It is a matter of life and death to our whole family interests.

May G.o.d keep you, Nadine!" the young man kindly said, as he bent and kissed her hand. "I have tried to make your long journey bearable!" And then, a wrinkled face at a window appeared to end the coming disclosure, for Douglas was softening. A harsh voice rose up in a half shriek:

"Douglas! Douglas!" and the young man turned back, without another word, springing away, over the graveled walks. Nadine's face grew ashen white, as the presage of coming disaster chilled her heart.