ftly shining eyes, she told the soldier of her strange life
path.

It was strange that they had neared London before the whole story was
concluded, and their voices had sunk into softened whispers. "You may
rely upon me to the death! You may depend upon me whenever you may
wish to call upon me!" he said, as the train rolled into Charing Cross
station. "Major Hardwicke, of the Engineers, will be my chosen ally, and
I alone am to trace out this mystery of the vanished jewels. You shall
conquer! I will aid you! Amor omnia vincit! You are the only heart in
the world now throbbing for that sweet girl."

But when they drove to Morley's Hotel, far away on the sea, Harry
Hardwicke's heart was beating fondly in all a lover's expectancy for the
same friendless Rose of Delhi, and the debonnair Alan Hawke, in sight of
Brindisi, mused in his deck-pacings: "I will placate Euphrosyne Delande.
Justine, too, shall do my bidding, and my employer shall give me the key
to this girl's heart. For I will marry Nadme Johnstone! I am a devil for
luck."

CHAPTER XII. ON THE CLIFFS OF JERSEY.

Captain Anson Anstruther, A. D. C., was the very happiest of men three
days later, when he watched Madame Alixe Delavigne gracefully presiding
over a pretty tea table, a la fusse, in the quaint old mansion, bowered
in a garden sloping down to the Thames, where Miss Mildred Anstruther, a
venerable maiden aunt, had her "local habitation and, a name!" A lonely
woman of colossal wealth and blue blood, high in rank, and decidedly of
riper years.

"By Jove! Dear old Aunt Mildred is a tower of strength to me, just now,"
reflected the gallant Captain, when, as the soft shadows deepened
on lawn and river, he lingered tenderly there in explanation of his
official business. It was hardly "official" that Anson Anstruther had
fallen into the habit of furtively addressing the now unveiled Madame
Berthe Louison, as "Alixe", but it was even so. Acquaintance can ripen
as rapidly on the Thames as by the Arno, given a certain impetus. And
the Pilgrim of Love, though still Madame Berthe Louison in France, was
Alixe Delavigne in the retreat chosen by the Viceroy.

"Pazienza! Pazienza!" smiled the young soldier, as the impassioned Alixe
eagerly demanded to be allowed to approach the orphaned Nadine, at
St. Heliers. "You have been so noble, so untiring, do not ruin all by
precipitancy now! You see I am already secretly watching over her. I now
represent the whole