Major Hardwicke threw himself down in a chair, curtly saying: “You can tell me who effectuated this lightning disappearance act of Madame Delande and young Miss Johnstone.” “You speak in riddles to me, Hardwicke,” coolly said the wary Major. “I’ve just come in from Allahabad with General Abercromby, who is here to settle old Johnstone’s accounts. I know nothing of what you refer to. I expected to meet both the ladies at dinner to-day.” “Then I will not uselessly take up your time, Major Hawke,” gloomily rejoined Hardwicke, as he picked up his sword, and, with a cold formal bow, quitted the room. “I must watch this young fool,” growled Alan Hawke. “Thank my lucky stars, the woman is far away! But, he’s well connected, has a brilliant record, and is a V. C. now for Berthe Louison and the fireworks! But, first, old Ram Lal! They bowled the old boy out! I suppose that he has already told Alixe Delavigne that she has been outwitted. I hold the trump cards now! No single word without its golden price! I must not make one false step! As to the club men, I only join in the general wonder.” He made a careful and very studied toilet and sauntered out of the club en flaneur, and then stealthily betook himself to the pagoda in Ram Lal’s garden, where his innocent dupe had so often waited for him with a softly beating heart. “I’m glad the girl is gone,” mused Alan Hawke. “If she were here, the chorus hymning Hardwicke’s perfections might set her young heart on fire.” He was, as yet, ignorant of the tender bond of gratitude fast ripening into Love. For, Love, that strange plant, rooted in the human heart, thrives in absence, and, watered by the tears of sorrow and adversity, fills the longing and faithful heart, in days of absence, with its flowers of rarest fragrance and blossoms of unfading beauty. Nadine Johnstone, speeding on over sapphire seas, had already conquered the tender secret of the simple Justine Delande’s heart; and in her own loving day-dreams: “Aye she loot the tears down fa’ for Jock o’ Hazeldean!” “I must see him again! I must see him!” she fondly pledged her waiting heart. With the serpent cunning of a loving maiden, she brooded like a dove with tender eyes, and so in her heart of hearts, determined to draw forth from her stalwart cousin, Douglas Fraser, the secret of their future destination. And the honest fellow became even as wax in her hands; while the gloomy Hardwicke, in far-away Delhi, eyed the parchment-faced Hugh Johnstone in mute wonder, at the long official reception in the Marble House. “Will he not vouchsafe to me even one word of thanks?” thought the young man, in an increasing wonder. But, Ram Lal Singh, when Major Alan Hawke drew him into the sanctum behind the shop, showed a dark face, seamed with lines of care. “There will be some terrible happening!” muttered the smooth old Mohammedan.