“Rank rot!” frankly said the butler, “They’re all strangers. The French countess is only sight-seeing here and buying out old Ram Lal’s shop. The old thief! She brought letters to the Guv’nor! That’s all! He’s no special fancy to her, and he set Major Hawke on just to do the amiable. The Guv’nor’s far too old to beau the lady around. Marry?--not him! And Miss Nadine’s just as silent as a flower in one of them gold vases. All she does is to look pretty and keep still, poor lamb. Her music, her books, her flowers, her birds. And as to Major Hawke and this Madame Louison--I’ve the Guv’nor’s own orders they are never to see Miss Nadine. That is, Hawke not at all, and the lady only when Miss Delande is present! Them’s my solid orders, and the old Guv’nor put my eye out with a ten-pound note--the first I ever got from him. No, Captain! You’ve done the handsome by me, and I give you the straight tip--wasn’t I in the old Eighth Hussars with your father when we charged the rebel camp at Lucknow? I’ve got a tulwar yet that I cut out of the hand of a ‘pandy’ who was hacking away at Colonel Hardwicke.” “How did you get it, Simpson?” cried the young Captain. “I got arm and all! Took it off with a right cut! You may know, Cap’n, that we ground our sabers in those old days! No, sir! Miss Nadine’s for none of them people, and Hawke is only in the house for business. He’s a deep one--is that same Hawke,” concluded Simpson, pocketing his note. Captain Hardwicke began to see the light dawning. “Alan Hawke has then some secret business scheme with the old money grubber that’s all,” mused the young engineer officer, happy at heart. “I’ll fight a bit shy of him. His scheme may take the girl in. So, old Johnstone’s away a few days. Perhaps settling his affairs before his departure. I think,” the lover mused, “I will follow them to Europe, if they go, and, if they stay, Willoughby will ask for my retention, and, after all, ‘faint heart never won fair lady.’ Hawke is not an open suitor. If the old man should ever marry this French beauty, I may find the pathway open to Nadine Johnstone’s side!” So, with a “fighting chance,” Captain Hardwicke determined that Miss Nadine should know his heart before long, and have also a chance to know her own mind. “The fact is, the old boy has lived the life of a recluse, that’s all, but I’ll find a way to pierce the shell of his moroseness. There’s one comfort,” he smiled, “No other fellow is making any running.” In these swiftly gliding days of absence, Ram Lal Singh and the watchful Major Alan Hawke conferred at length over narghileh and glass. A sullen discontent had settled down on Hawke’s brow when Berthe Louison publicly departed upon her business trip with not even a fragmentary confidence.