the fact that Madame was still absent, "traveling around the world," and
had not visited her Volhynian estate for a year, proved to him now that
he had been doubly tricked. "Ah! By God! I have it!" he cried, as he set
his teeth in a white rage. "That fool, Anstruther, is bewitched by her
Polish wiles, the mongrel inheritance of La Grande Armee's visit to
Russia!" Straight as the crow flies, Alan Hawke then pressed on to
Lemberg, and hastened to Berlin, having sent on his last official report
to Captain Anstruther, at London. In Berlin, a letter from Jack Blunt
decided his whole career. There was news of moment, which set his hot
blood boiling in his veins.

"Simpson, the old body servant, has arrived from India," wrote the
disguised ex-convict. "And he's mighty thick with your shy bird, too.
There is some strange game going on here, which I can't make out. The
cute Yankee professor is furious, for old Fraser has temporarily given
him the 'dead cut.' The American is totally neglected, for the old idiot
spends half his time, now, shut up in his study with a visiting nigger
prince from India, and the yellow fellow's half-breed interpreter. I
send you a dozen cuttings from the papers. The Prince, however, seems
to be all O. K. He never even notices the shy bird. He probably buys his
women at home. How could he, for he does not speak a single damned word
of English. But I've caught sight of this Moonshee fellow trying to do
the polite to the heiress. Old Simpson keenly watches the whole goings
on, and I've tried to pull him on! No go! But he sneaks off himself,
gets roaring full, down at Rozel Pier, with a little French peddler
fellow, that he has picked up. And, I don't like this French chap's
looks. Too fly, and far too free with his money. There's no one else
who has, as yet, showed up here. Not a woman, no other human being but
a London lawyer. And I'm told now the guardian and niece are soon going
over to London to deposit all the papers that Simpson brought home and
to do 'a turn' at Doctor's Commons. Now's your very time--the dark of
the moon. Better cut your job and come over to me at Granville; and why
can we not turn the place up-while they are away? To do that, we must do
Simpson 'for fair,' and I now know his nightly trail. Send money, plenty
of it, and come on. I am 'on the beachcomber's lay,' now, down at
the Jersey Arms, Rozel Pier. Write or telegraph me a line, and I'll
instantly meet you at Granville, at the