A Fascinating Traitor

C >> Col. Richard Henry Savage >> A Fascinating Traitor

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Alan Hawke was practically received with open arms by the
fluttering-hearted Euphrosyne, who nobly resigned herself to Justine's
victory over Alan Hawke's heart. For the younger sister's letters
had filled the elder's mind with rosy dreams of enhanced family
prosperity.

"Only this telegram. That is all!" murmured the preceptress,
as she handed the Major a dispatch dated at St. Heliers, stating,
"Arrived, well, news of Mr. Johnstone's assassination just received.
Will write!"

"This is all I know of this strange homecoming, as yet!" summed up
the child of Minerva.

Hawke softly delved into Mademoiselle Euphrosyne's inner consciousness
until he knew all the corners of the simple woman's heart.

"I am quite sure that she speaks the simple truth!" he decided,
after he had informed the Swiss woman of his address, "Hotel
Binda, Paris." "I must go on there by the night train," he at once
resolved. "Here is a juncture where all our various interests are
deeply involved. You and Justine may lose the well-earned reward
of years. I must be near Justine, now, to protect you both. I fear
this old mummy Fraser! If he controls the fortune, then he and his
hopeful son will probably steal half of it. Thats a fair allowance
for an ordinary executor! It is all for one, and, one for all, now!
Write under seal to Justine that I am near--only do not mention
names!" With an affected tenderness, Hawke kissed the pallid lips
of the daughter of Minerva, and slipped away to Lausanne, whence
he took the midnight train for Paris.

"I might look around and dispose of my jewels in Paris," he thought
as he neared that "gay and festive city." But his serious business
with the Credit Lyonnais as to the negotiation of the four "raised"
bills of exchange, and his desire to at once come to terms with
Madame Berthe Louison, caused him to postpone the vending of the
jewels so neatly extorted from Ram Lal.

"I have lots of ready money now--too much, even, for safety in
travel, and the jewels will keep." With a strange anxious craving
to see his fair employer he drove directly to No. 9 Rue Berlioz on
his arrival in Paris. The impassive face of Jules Victor met his
gaze at the door.

"Madame, suddenly summoned to Poland, had begged Monsieur le Major
to address her by letter, as telegrams were most unreliable in
Russian Poland. Monsieur would, however, surely find letters at
his London address, and it was true that Madame had not expected
Monsieur's arrival for a fortnight."

"I don't believe a damned word of this fellow's yarn. There is
some sly juggling here!" ejaculated the Major as he drove back to
the Hotel Binda. His brow was black as he descended, and it grew
blacker still when he read a telegram from Euphrosyne Delande. He
studied over the unwelcome news while he made a careful business
toilet to visit the Credit Lyonnais. And a white rage shone out
upon his handsome face as he learned that Justine was useless to him
now. "Discharged without even a reward! Thrust out like a beggar
without a word of warning." "Justine on her way home. Passed through
Paris last night. Can you not return?" The signature "Euphrosyne"
was a guaranty of the unwelcome truth. Major Hawke swore a deep
and bitter oath as he penned a telegram to the Swiss preceptress:
"Coming to-night. Arrive to-morrow at ten o'clock. Keep all secret."
And he boldly signed the name "Alan Hawke" to that and to a message
to Captain Anson Anstruther: "Delayed four days here by private
business."

He raged as he hastily soliloquized: "I will at once present these
drafts regularly through the Credit Lyonnais. I will go and get
the whole story from Justine. I will pay off that tiger cat, Madame
Louison, for her sneaking away. She fancies she has done with me
now! Ah! By God! She thinks so? Wait! And this old Scotch saw-file!
I'll break him up! If I can only trace those stolen jewels to
him, I'll have them or send the old miser off in irons to a life
transportation! I begin to see the whole game at last! And I swear
that I'll get to the girl if I have to carry her off!"

He went down to the Credit Lyonnais in an elegant "mufti" garb,
and depositing a thousand pounds sterling to his credit, left the
four drafts for five thousand pounds each for collection, carelessly
referring to Messrs. Grindlay & Co., of Delhi, London, and many
other places, and mentioning the name of that eminent private native
banker, money-lender, and jeweler, the well-known Ram Lal Singh.
"He shall back his indorsement!" laughed Alan Hawke.

With a lordly insouciance, Major Alan Hawke then strolled out of
the great bank and deliberately arranged his line of future action
while he was taking his ease at his inn.

"First, to pick up all the threads of this queer intrigue through
Justine. I must go back to her at Geneva. Then, to be sure that
Berthe Louison is not repeating her cunning Delhi tricks with the
dead man's brother. She might frighten him. Then, armed at all
points, I must hasten on to report to Anstruther. I must have him
give me a short leave as soon as I can get it, but before I open
my siege trenches I must develop all the enemy's strength. What
the devil is Berthe Louison up to now?"

In the night train, speeding back to Geneva, Major Hawke remembered
some old desperate associates of an enforced "social eclipse" at
Granville-sur-Mer. "With a half a dozen resolute fellows I might
hang around Jersey and, perhaps, force my way into the stronghold.
It depends on where the mansion is located. If the jewels are
there, I will either have them or else bend the old man to my will
by threatened disclosures. But I must first fool Anstruther and
my pretty employer. If Justine had only remained at Jersey I might
have easily won my way to the girl's side. And yet she will be
under a long three years guardianship." Some busy devil at his side
whispered: "She would be helpless if she were carried off." And as
the enraged schemer finished the last of a dozen cigars and took
a pull at his pocket flask, he disposed himself to sleep, grumbling.

"They have upset all the chessmen. Old Fraser and the Louison,
too, are playing at cross purposes--evidently. They have, however,
spoiled my little game. I will spoil theirs!" He grinned as he
decided "I will do a bit of the Romeo act with Justine, and come
back by Granville to Boulogne. If the old gang is to be found there,
I may get one of them to spy the whole thing out. All these Jersey
people are half French in their birth and ways. I can sneak some
fellow in from Granville. There might be a chance. I'll get to the
old fellow, or the girl, or the jewels--by God! I will! For I hold
the trump cards."

And yet his flattering hopes of gaining a permanent rank returned
to affright him in planning such a bold deed. "Ah! I must get some
trusty fellow--perhaps, in London," he muttered as his head dropped,
and the train bore him on to the halls of learning, where poor
Justine was now weeping on her sister's bosom, and unveiling all
the secrets of a hungry heart to the sympathetic Euphrosyne.

But, saddest of all the coterie who had trodden the tessellated
floors of the marble house at Delhi, was a lonely girl sobbing
herself to sleep, that very night, in a gray castellated mansion
house perched upon a sunny cliff of Jersey.

The fair gardens and splendid halls of the luxurious home seemed
but the limits of a cheerless prison to the broken-hearted girl
who had been astounded when her one friend, Douglas Fraser, the
companion of a thirty-five days' journey, left her without a word.
Nadine Johnstone had opened her heart, shyly, to her manly young
kinsman, Douglas Fraser. And yet she guarded, as only a maiden's
heart can, the secret of the blossoming love for Hardwicke--the
man who had saved her life. She asked her hungry heart if he would
follow on her way, led by the appeal of her shining eyes.

Worn, harassed, and wearied out by travel, she had sought a refuge
in Justine Delande's clinging arms, on the night of their arrival
from Boulogne, for the path from India had been but a series
of shadow-dance glimpses of strange scenes. The ashen face of the
tottering old pedant had offered her no welcome to a happy home.

"How hideously like my father, this old bookworm," murmured the
frightened girl in a strange repulsion, as she fled away to her
room. It was a grateful relief when the servant maid announced that
the travelers would be served in their rooms.

"The Master lives entirely alone," the girl said shortly. Late
that first night the lonely girl sat gazing at the windows rattling
under the flying wrack, while Douglas Fraser and his father communed
below her until the midnight hour. Suddenly Justine Delande was
summoned to join them "on urgent business," and the heiress of a
million sat with clasped hands, murmuring:

"Will he ever find me out here? This is only a cheerless prison. I
am, forever, lost to the world." There was that in Justine Delande's
face on her return which startled the heart-sick wanderer.

"Ask me nothing--nothing to-night. Only sleep, my darling," murmured
the devoted Swiss. The shadows deepened over Nadine Johnstone as
she fell asleep dreaming of her mother, the gentle vision, and,
the absent lover of her girlish heart.

Sunny gleams came with the dawn, and Nadine was already wandering
in the beautiful gardens of "The Banker's Folly," as the home perched
on the hill was termed. It was there that Douglas Fraser suddenly
came upon her, walking with the white-faced Justine. Both women
could see that he bore tidings of grave import, and another shadow
settled on Nadine's heart, as she clasped Justine's hand.

Her cousin's face was grave as he said, in a broken voice: "I
must hasten away instantly to catch the boat, and I have to return
immediately to India. There's no time for a word. My father will
tell you all! It is a matter of life and death to our whole family
interests. May God keep you, Nadine!" the young man kindly said,
as he bent and kissed her hand. "I have tried to make your long
journey bearable!" And then, a wrinkled face at a window appeared
to end the coming disclosure, for Douglas was softening. A harsh
voice rose up in a half shriek:

"Douglas! Douglas!" and the young man turned back, without another
word, springing away, over the graveled walks. Nadine's face grew
ashen white, as the presage of coming disaster chilled her heart.

Without a word, Justine Delande led the startled girl into the
house. "You are to see your uncle at once! After our breakfast!
And I will be with you." faltered Justine, with an averted face.

The orphaned girl was now dimly conscious of some impending blow.
She had been frightened at the solemnity of Douglas Fraser's hasty
farewell, and, while Justine Delande affected to touch the breakfast
spread in their rooms by the Swiss lady's maid, now gloomy in an
attack of heimweh, Nadine saw a four-wheeler rattle away over the
lawn, while old Andrew Fraser grimly watched it until the gates
clanged behind the departing Anglo-Indian. Over the low wall,
on the road, Douglas Fraser caught a last glimpse of the graceful
girl standing there. He sadly waved an adieu, and Nadine Johnstone
was left with but one friend in the world, save the silent Swiss
governess. Though the two women were sumptuously lodged "in fair
upper chambers," opening east and south, with their maid near at
hand, the gloomy chill of the silent household had already penetrated
the lonely girl's heart. No single sign of the warmer amenities.
Only books, books, dusty books, by the thousand, piled helter-skelter
in every available nook and cranny.

The servants were slouching and sullen, and they moved about their
duties with gloomy brows. Even the gardener and his two stout boys
struck sadly away with mattock and spade as if digging graves. No
chirp of bird, no baying of a friendly dog, no burst of childish
merriment broke the droning silence. And this was the home to which
a father had doomed his only child.

When the frightened maid tapped at the door to summon her mistress,
her feeble rapping sounded like a hammer falling sadly on the
hollow coffin lid. The girl stammered, "The master would like to
see you both in the library." And with a sinking heart Nadine Fraser
Johnstone descended the stair.

She had only cast a frightened glimpse at the yellowed, bony face,
the cavernous eye sockets, the bushy eyebrows, beneath which a cold
intellectual gleam still feebly flickered. Andrew Fraser had bent
his tall form over her, and peering down at her had whispered after
their few words of greeting:

"Did ye gain aught in knowledge of Thibet in your Indian life? My
life work lies there, and Hugh has sorely disappointed me. He was
to send me books and maps and papers for my 'History of Thibet and
the Wanderings of the Ten Tribes.'" With a confused negation the
girl had fled away to the cheerless shelter of the great rooms whose
drab and gray arrangements bespoke the Reformatory or a Refuge for
the Friendless.

And the stern old scholar waited for the fluttering bird whom
adverse Fate had driven into his dismal lair with all the pompous
severity of a guardian and trustee.

Seated at a long desk littered with a multitude of papers, Professor
Andrew Fraser coldly bowed the two women to convenient seats.
The parvenu banker who had fled away after a bankruptcy due to the
erection and embellishment of "The Folly," had approved a semi-medieval
plan of construction which suggested a Norman stronghold or a
Corsican mansion arranged for a stubborn defense. Books, globes,
maps, and papers littered the floors, and were piled nearby
in convenient heaps with tell-tale flying signals of copious note
taking. It was a bristling Redoubt of Learning.

But on this sunny morning the retired Professor of Edinburg University
held sundry letters, dispatches, and legal papers clutched in his
claw-like hands. His eye rested upon Justine Delande, in a semi-hostile
glare, as he slowly said:

"I've sent for ye, as in the place of your father's daughter, ye
must know of the changes that come to us, with the chances of Life
and the sair ways o' the world." He was nervously fumbling with a
selection of the papers and he paused and coughed ominously. "There
has come to us news which has posted my son Douglas hastily back
to India, to do your father's last bidding."

Nadine Johnstone's trembling hand clutched Justine Delande's still
rounded arm.

"Her father the double of this grim ogre?" There was horror
in her conjecture, but no pang of affection at the easily divined
disclosure. "The news came to us suddenly, yesterday, and Douglas
and I are left now to screen ye from the robbers and cormorants
of the world! Ye're one of the richest women in Britain now--Hugh
Fraser's daughter--for yere guid father is no more! A sudden death--a
sudden death! and his will leaves you to me as a legal charge, for
yere body and yere estate, till ye come o' the legal age. T'hafs
the next three years!"

With a single glance of stern deprecation, Andrew Fraser saw the
girl totter and her head fall upon the bosom of the woman who had
"sorrowed of her sorrows" in all the years of the lonely colorless
infancy, childhood, and budding womanhood! The old bookworm clung
to the papers as if that "documentary evidence" was an absolute
guaranty, and he held it ready to proffer in support of his theorem.
His toughened heart-strings were silent at natural affection's
touch, and only twanged to the never-dying greed for gold--useless
gold!

In an unmoved wonder, the senile scholar listened to the broken
sobs of the child of Valerie Delavigne. He was astounded at her
financial carelessness, when she moaned:

"Let me go away! Let me go!" and then she cried, "What care I for
all this money--this useless wealth. He is gone! I am now alone in
the world! And--and, now I never will know the story of the past!"
There was a stony gleam on the old Scotchman's face as the girl
sobbed, "Mother! Mother! Lost to me forever, now." The cunning old
Scotchman's face darkened at the mention of that long-forbidden
name. The woman who had deserted the rich nabob.

With uneasy, tottering steps the old scholar paced the room,
watching the two women in a grim silence, until Justine Delande,
with a woman's questioning eyes, pointed to the rooms above.

"Before ye go, and I'll now give ye these whole papers and documents,
I would say that my dead brother Hugh has here in his will laid
out yere whole life for the three years of the minority. He has
put on me the thankless labor and care of watching over yere worldly
gear, and of keeping ye safely to the lines of prudence and of
a just economy. And my duty to my dead brother, I will do just as
his own words and hand and seal lay it down! To-morrow I will have
much to say to you. If ye will come back to me here, Madame Delande,
when my ward goes to her own room, I'll see ye at once on a brief
matter o' business. And now I'll wait till ye take her away!" It
was a half hour before Justine Delande descended to the rooms where
the old egoist chafed at the loss of time stolen from the maundering
researches on Thibet and the Ten Tribes.

"Woman! woman! I sent up for ye twice!" he barked, as the half-defiant
Swiss governess at length joined him.

"I know my duty to my dear child, Nadine!" said the stout-hearted
governess, with a crimsoning cheek. The old man opened a check-book,
and sternly said:

"Sit ye there! I'll arrange yere business in a few minutes! And,
then, ye can find other duties, and know them as ye care to. I'll
have none of yere hoity-toity airs here!" Regardless of the look
of horror stealing over the face of Justine, the old man coldly
proceeded as if receding from the pulpit. "My late brother, Hugh
Fraser Johnstone, of Delhi and Calcutta, has sent me his own last
instructions and orders. I have here the last receipt for the
stipend which ye have been allowed--and, I'm duly following his
orders, when I give ye this check for the six months that has yet
too to run.

"And-look ye here! A twenty-pound note to take ye back to Geneva!
When ye sign this receipt for the stipend, ye are free to leave my
house at once. There's some letters and a couple of telegrams for
ye! Bring me the maid, now, and I'll pay her in the same way; and,
moreover, I will give her ten pounds to take her home. Then, ye'll
both remember ye are not to sleep another night here! I'll give
ye the whole day to say good-bye and to make up yere boxes. There
will be two four-wheelers here after yere dinner, and ye'll find
the Royal Victoria Hotel suited to ye both, at St. Heliers. If ye
choose to go, the morning boat takes ye to Granville. Bring the
maid here now! Do you linger, woman? I'll be obeyed and forthwith!"

With flashing eyes, Justine Delande sprang up, facing the
flinty-hearted old Scotsman. "I will never abandon Nadine here! She
will die in your cheerless prison!" she cried. But the old pedant
glowered pitilessly at the startled woman, who cried: "To turn me
away like a dog--after these many years!" And her sobs woke the
echoes of the vaulted room.

"Hearken, my leddy!" barked old Fraser, "One more word, and I'll
have the gardener put ye off the premises! The girl ye speak of is
young and strong. She'll have just what the Court gives her, and
what her father laid out for her, and I'll work my will, and I'll
do his will. Ye're speaking to no fule, here now! Take yere money
and yere letters, and bring me the maid, or I'll bundle ye both
in a jiffey into the Queen's highway. I'll have none but my own
servants here--now!"

Then Justine Delande, without another word, stepped forward, and,
seizing the pen, signed her receipt for wages due, in silence. She
defiantly gathered up her withheld letters and papers. She returned
in a few moments with the maid, whose ox-like eyes glowed in the
sudden joy of a return to Switzerland. For the ranz des vaches was
now ringing in the stout peasant girl's ears. "There, that's all,
now!" rasped the old man, when the maid had gathered up her dole.
"The butler will go down to town with ye and see ye safe, and he
will leave word at the bank to pay yere checks. I keep no siller
here. It's a lonely house." And the dead tyrant worked his will
through the living one, as his stony heart had laid out the future.

Justine Delande faced the old miser pedant as she indignantly
cried: "God protect and keep the poor orphan who has drifted out of
one hell on earth into another! Your dead brother robbed her of a
mother's love, and you--you old vampire--you would bury her alive!
She shall know yet her dead mother's love, and--her brutal father's
shame!"

Before the excited woman could select another period of flowing
invective from her thronging emotions, the gaunt old scholar had
pushed her out into the hall and slid a bolt upon his door, with a
vicious click. There were certain qualms of fear already unsettling
his triumphant calmness.

While Justine Delande, with flaming cheeks, sprang up the stair, and
barricaded herself with the sobbing heiress, the old man, his eyes
gleaming with all the conscious pride of tyranny, seated himself
and indited a note directed to

PROFESSOR ALARIC HOBBS, (of Waukesha University, U. S. A.), ROYAL
VICTORIA HOTEL, ST. HELIERS, JERSEY.

He had already dismissed from his mind the sorrows of the orphaned
niece--he cared not for the spirited onslaught of the Swiss woman--and
he rejoiced in his heart at the fact of Douglas Fraser's departure
to gather up the loose ends of his dead brother's great fortune.
"It's a vixenish baggage--this Swiss teacher! Hugh was right to
bid me cut those cords at once and forever between them! The girl
shall have discipline, and, that baggage, her mother, is well out
of the world! I'll work Hugh's will! She shall come under!" With a
secret glee he ran over a schedule of chapter headings upon Thibet,
Tibet, Tubet--the land of Bod--Bodyul or Alassa. He was drifting
back into the dreamland of the pedant, but a few hours deserted.

"This Yankee fellow has a keen wit! His ideas on the Ten Tribes
are wonderful! His life has been a study of the Mongolians, the
Tartars, and the history of the American Indians! I will be a bit
decent to the fellow, and I'll get at the meat of his knowledge!
He's young and a great chatterer, maybe, but a help to me. Body o'
me! But to get there myself--to Thibet.

"Ah!" sighed the old misanthrope, "I'm too old now! And Hugh has
failed me! Nothing from him. This sair blow cuts off the last hope!
And no educated men of Thibet ever travel! Blindness--blindness
everywhere!" he babbled on, while above him, two women, in an
agonized leave-taking, were silently sobbing in each other's arms,
while the happy Swiss servant made her boxes. Nadine Johnstone's
utter wretchedness gave her no sense of a loss by the hand of Death.
For a father's love she had never known, and her mother--a mystery!

The two women cowering together above the old pedant's den with
sorrowing hearts communed while Justine Delande directed the packing
of her slender belongings. There was a new spirit of revolt stirring
in Nadine Johnstone's breast, and her face glowed with the resentment
of an outraged heart. When all was ready for Justine's flitting,
the heiress of a million pounds finished a little memorandum,
which she calmly explained to the Swiss preceptress. The sense of
her future rights stirred her like a bugle blast, and with clear
eyes, she looked beyond the three years toward Freedom.

"It rests with you, Justine, as to whether I am left friendless
for three years of a gloomy captivity. First you are to telegraph
to Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, Delhi, and if you receive
no reply, then telegraph to General Willoughby for the Major's
address. When at Granville, and, not before, send this letter to
Major Hardwicke at the 'Junior United Service Club, London'." The
beautiful girl was blushing rosy red as the sympathetic Swiss folded
her to her breast. "Then, when you get to Paris, go to No. 9 Rue
Berlioz, and leave this letter there for Madame Berthe Louison. Go
yourself. Trust no one. When you have conferred with dear Euphrosyne,
you can send all your letters to Madame Louison at Paris under
cover. She will find out a safe way to get them to me--even if she
has to send her man, Jules, over here. He is quick-witted, and he
will find a way to reach me."

There was a dawning wonder in Justine's eyes.

"Who is this strange Madame Louison? Can you trust her?"

"Ah! Justine!" murmured Nadine, "She is only one who loves me, for
love's own sake, but I know I can trust her. She knows something
of my mother's past life--something that I do not know. This old
tyrant will now try to cut me off from all the outside world. He
has had some strange power given to him by the father who was only
my father in name.

"I will obey you. I swear it!" cried Justine. "And old Simpson will
probably be coming on soon. He loves you. He will serve you."

"Yes," joyously exclaimed Nadine, with a glowing face. "And he
adores Major Hardwicke, whose father saved his life at Lucknow.
There is one dawning hope. You are not to write one word till you
hear from me. I know that Madame Louison will manage to send Jules
to me in some safe disguise," she proudly cried, "and remember--I
shall not be always a poor prisoner with her hands tied. The day
of my deliverance comes. When I am twenty-one, I can reward both
you and Euphrosyne. She shall have a home to live in ease. And
you,--you shall go out into the world with me, and aid me to find
my mother. Even in the tomb I shall find her. I shall know of her
love. For I shall see her loving face, even only in a picture. The
face that has blessed me in my dreams."

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