rs, and to return
to India, to aid the nephew, he might assist in robbing Valerie's child
of this mountain of miserably gotten wealth.

"Thank God, I can make her rich. But Captain Anstruther will know the
Viceroy's whole mind, and I can trust to him." But her cheeks were rosy
red and her dancing dark eyes dropped in a sudden confusion, as the
handsome aid-de-camp leaped aboard the steamer at Dover Pier.

"I did not expect you!" she murmured.

"I knew, of course, from your dispatch when you would arrive, and so
I came down to further the Viceroy's business!" the soldier said in a
sudden confusion. In an hour, the two who had met in such strange manner
at Geneva were seated alone in a first-class compartment, and were
merrily whirling on to Lud's town. Captain Anstruther's ten shillings to
the guard secured them from annoying intrusion. In another compartment,
Jules and Marie Victor sagely exchanged their lightning glances of
Parisian acuteness.

"C'est un homme magnifique!" murmured Marie, and Jules gravely nodded,
"Peut-etre, notre maitresse l'a connu longtemps. II est tres tendre!"
The staff-officer "furthered the Viceroy's business" by clasping both
of Alixe Delavigne's prettily-gloved hands. Her bosom heaved in a soft
alarm, but she repulsed him not.

"Why did you deceive me at Geneva?" he eagerly demanded, with a
trembling voice. And Alixe Delavigne's eyes were downcast and dreamy, as
she whispered:

"Because I was only a poor pilgrim of Love--a lonely woman, heart hungry
for the tidings of the girl whom you have brought back to me!" The young
officer gazed out of the window, and in his heart, he already pardoned
her.

"To those who love much, much shall be forgiven!" he reflected, with a
compassion growing momentarily, for he saw the shadow of tears in the
beautiful dark brown eyes. And he forbore to question her as he gazed at
her glowing face.

With a sudden lifting of her stately head, the woman sitting there, her
heart throbbing in a strange unrest, laid her hand lightly upon his arm.

"Listen to the strange story of a woman's life!" she said slowly. "I
promised His Excellency, the Viceroy, that you should know why I left
the defensive lines of my sex at Geneva! For he has trusted to me, and
I wish you to know--to know that--" and the sentence was never finished,
for Captain Anstruther bent over her trembling hands.

"I know that you are what I would have you ever be!" he simply said.
And, with so