When your father returns I shall do myself the honor to
ask his formal permission to visit you later." There was a sigh
and a sob as Nadine Johnstone took her silent lover's hands and
pressed them in her own, bursting into happy tears.
"I owe you my life--my father shall speak, but in my own heart I
shall treasure your splendid bravery forever!" Her tall young knight
stooped over the little hands, kissed them, and was turning to go,
when the maiden slipped off a sparkling ring. "Wear this always for
my sake; I can say no more till we meet again!" And, bending low,
Captain Hardwicke stepped backward, as from a queen's presence,
leaving her there, weak, loving, and trembling in a strange delight.
As he rode slowly homeward in the evening's glow, he passed Major
Alan Hawke dashing away to the railway station in a carriage.
Traveling luggage told the story of a sudden jaunt. A wave of the
hand and the secret-service man was gone. Hawke growled: "Damned
young jackanapes, I'll fool you, too; but what does old Johnstone
want?" He was reading a telegram just received: "Come to meet me
at Allahabad. Have brought the drafts. Want you for a few days down
here."
At ten o'clock next morning, Simpson, his voice all broken, his
old eyes filled with tears, dashed into Captain Hardwicke's office.
"Dead?" cried the young soldier, springing up in a sudden horror.
"No. Gone over night--both the women--God knows where, but they
left secretly, by the Master's orders!" And then Hardwicke sank
back into his chair with a groan.
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