few hours he must say good-bye to her for ever. Yes,
he was thankful that Aunt Sarah's quips and cranks, and Travers Nugent's
scintillating small-talk rattled like musketry fire to the exclusion of
all else.

Once or twice he stole a look at the man to whom Bhagwan Singh had
accredited him--natty in his grey summer tweeds, perfectly
self-possessed and brimming over with tit-bits of harmless society
gossip. Nugent's eyes were not prone to laughter, but his lips were, and
they were laughing almost unceasingly now. Leslie Chermside wondered if
this was altogether natural, or was it a pose designed to cover deeper
emotions? The man had undoubtedly received a set-back in the last
half-hour in the displacement of a programme that must have cost him
much intricate scheming. The chartering of that steamer lying at
Portland ready for her prey, and the engagement of a crew sufficiently
unscrupulous, could have been no light work. How was it, then, that
Nugent could accept with complacency the overthrow of the plan? Had he
still hopes of success by some devious method at present carefully
concealed?

Leslie comforted himself that that could not be. The steamer might rot
at her moorings and the crew mutiny before any signal for her movement
should come from him, and he would take good care before he vanished
into the unknown that the same game should not be played with some pawn
less susceptible than himself. He would anonymously warn Mr. Maynard of
the Maharajah's design to kidnap his daughter, doing it in such a way
that he should not be identified with the first abortive attempt. He
clung desperately to the hope that he might remain a congenial memory to
the unsuspecting girl at his side.

As soon as the butler and his satellites had served coffee and retired,
Miss Sarah Dymmock straightened herself in her chair, and, with a
bird-like glance and a shake of her grey curls, prodded her finger at
Nugent.

"Now, you high priest of intrigue, I will consult your judgment," was
her startling commencement. "The question is, was I right or wrong to
eject from the grounds of this mansion an unwashed foreigner whom I
caught using violent and insulting language to the French maid whose
services I share with my great-niece?"

"When I came upon the scene it was Auntie who was using violent and
insulting language to the unwashed foreigner," Violet remarked demurely.

"Silence, minx," the old lady retorted. "I found the maid, Louise Aub