All this and more soon reached the ears of Capt. Harry Hardwicke, whose fever of gnawing curiosity and romantically born love was now strong upon him. A second conference with his old friend Simpson enlightened the engineer officer upon many things, as yet “seen in a glass darkly.” He began to fear that Alan Hawke was growing dangerous as the secret juggler in the strange social situation at the marble house. With the vise-like memory of an old soldier, Simpson had retained various anecdotes not entirely to the credit of the self-promoted Major Alan Hawke, and had partly supplied the hiatus between the sudden disappearance of the desperate lieutenant, a rake gambler and profligate, and the return of the prosperous and debonnaire Major en retraite. “Don’t let him work too long around Miss Nadine, Major Hardwicke,” said the wary Simpson. “Sly and quiet as he seems, he’s surely here for no good. I know him of old. He’s forgotten me, though.” That night, the night when Berthe Louison, in her special car was nearing Calcutta, at last, Captain Hardwicke was haunted in his dreams by the sweet apparition of Nadine Johnstone, and her lovely arms were stretched appealingly to him. It was the early dawn when he awoke, and sprang blithely from his couch. “If that graceful shade crosses my path to-day, I’ll speak to it in the flesh--though a dozen Hawkes and a hundred crusty fathers forbid,” he gayly cried, for his entrancing dream had given him a strangely prophetic courage. In the ambrosial freshness of the morning, a long gallop upon his pet charger, “Garibaldi,” restored the equilibrium of the young officer’s nerves. He had neatly taken the strong-limbed cross-country horse over a dozen of the old walls out by the Kootab Minar, and with the reins lying loosely on Garibaldi’s neck, he rode back to the live city by the side of its two dead progenitors. The bustle and hum of awaking Delhi interested him not, for a fond unrest led him down to the great walled inclosure of the marble house. “Shall I see her to-day? Will she be in the garden?” he murmured in his loving day-dream. The springy feet of the charger dropped noiselessly on the lonely avenue and already the double carriage gate was in sight. An instinct of martial coquetry caused Harry Hardwicke to gather up his reins and straighten lightly into the military position of eyes right. He was watching the gate of Paradise, a Paradise as yet forbidden to him. Yes. There was the gleam of white robes shining out across the friendly gate.