ared between herself and the
handsome official visitor.

To her delight and relief she found it an easy task to face Hugh
Johnstone, after that one reassuring glance. Her stern employer failed
to pierce the muslin fortifications of her guilty bosom and discern the
moral turpitude lurking there. She stole a last anxious glance at her
still plump wrist where the diamond bracelet had softly clasped her
flesh, and then softly sighed in relief as the master calmly said:

"Miss Justine, I have a gentleman of some distinction to entertain
to-day at tiffin. An official visitor. I would be thankful if you would
do the honors. Will you kindly join us in the reception room in half
an hour, and I will present Major Hawke, my old friend. He has just
returned from England."

"And Miss Nadine?" meekly demanded the happy woman. The old
Commissioner's brow darkened, as he shortly said: "My daughter will
be served in her rooms, as usual on such formal occasions. These
interlopers are no part of her life. We may soon leave for Europe, and
she is therefore better off to remain a stranger to these merely local
acquaintances. It is very unlikely that we shall ever re-visit India!
Will you see her and say that I purpose driving out with her later?"

No woman in India was as happy, at that particular moment, as the
Genevese, who merely bowed in silence, and glided softly away, having
escaped the levin-bolt of Hugh Johnstone's wrath, ever ready, lurking
under his bushy, white eyebrows. It was the work of a moment for her to
fulfill her simple task as messenger, and this done, she burned to
hide herself in her own coign of vantage, for certain new-born ideas
of personal decoration were crystallizing in her excited brain. For
the first time in her life, she would be fair to man's views; so as to
justify the partner of her momentous secret in the complimentary remarks
which, even now, made her ears tingle in delight.

"Do you know aught of this Major Hawke who comes to-day?" wearily,
said the listless girl. "Some one of these red-faced old relics of my
father's early life, I suppose!" The Rose of Delhi was gazing wistfully
out upon the wilderness of beauty in the tangled gardens, sweeping far
out to where the high stone wall shut off the glare and flying dust of
the Chandnee Chouk.

"Certainly not, Nadine!" softly said the governess. "This is only a
peopled wilderness to me!" Her heart smote her as the girl, with a
sudden lonely sinking of