I think I
will just have a good old-fashioned talk with Ram Lal Singh. I need
his evidence to hoodwink this old cask of grog, Abercromby. I must
blow off' his vanity in great style."
While Berthe Louison slept, while old Hugh Johnstone plotted,
while Ram Lal Singh fumed at Delhi, and Harry Hardwicke "mourned
the hopes that left him," Major Alan Hawke retired to the Nirvana
of a long afternoon siesta. There was a little departing detachment on
this golden afternoon at Madras--two frightened women, now gladly
seeking the shelter of their cabins, as the fleet steamer Coomassie
Castle turned her prow toward Palk Strait. The terrible ordeal
of "passing the surf" had appalled them, and the exhausted Nadine
Johnstone at last fell asleep with her arms clasped around her
sad-hearted governess. A hundred times had they read over together
the old nabob's telegram: "Going home from Calcutta to settle the
Baronetcy appointment. Will meet you in Europe." Nadine's letter
from her stern father bade her implicitly trust to her new-found
kinsman, Douglas Fraser. The old nabob's judiciously private letter
had filled Justine Delande's sad heart with one twilight glow of
happiness. A comforting cheque for one thousand pounds was contained
therein.
The words: "Your salary and expenses will be paid by me in Europe.
This is only a little present. Another may await you and your
sister, if you fulfill your trust, that no man, not even Douglas
Fraser, meets my daughter alone until you give her back to me.
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