"
Alan Hawke's brow was gloomy when he read the last letter, which
was a brief note from Captain Anstruther, informing him that his
final instructions would be forwarded "in a week." The ominous
silence of "Madame Berthe Louison," the living lie of her pretended
visit to Russia, the trick of the letters sent on from Jitomir to
his Parisian address, now only confirmed his jealous rage.
"They are living in a fool's paradise together, this dapper aide
and the wily woman, hiding in England! One has betrayed me, and the
other will now coldly abandon me! I'll soon raise a hornets' nest
about their ears!" So, with a simple telegraphed word "coming,"
dispatched to "Joseph Smith," he sped on to Geneva from his "Leipsic
defeat" at Berlin, but only to meet a ghastly "Waterloo" at the
Grand Hotel National. He had ordered the letters from the Hotel
Faucon to be sent on there to Miss Justine, and when he had freed
himself from her clasping arms he read a curt official note from
the Viceroy's aid-de-camp which left him livid in a paroxysm of
fury. On his way from the station he had only stopped long enough
at the Agence du Credit Lyonnais to receive an official-looking
document. "My accounts, I presume," he had muttered, thrusting them
in his pocket. But, when he had read Captain Anstruther's formal
note, he tore open the letter of the great French Banking Company.
The two letters curtly illustrated the old saw, that "it never
rains, but it pours!" With a fluttering heart poor Justine Delande
watched her undeclared lover's blackening face.
Pages:
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396