Her Majesty's consuls will, in each place, aid you in every way.

Should I decide to drop or quash the whole affair, my young kinsman, Anstruther, represents me, personally as well as officially." And so the gay young bridegroom-to-be sailed from Calcutta light-hearted, while Harry Hardwicke counted each day's reckoning as bringing him, by leaps and bounds, nearer to the dark-eyed girl now left alone in the world.

"There shall nothing come between us now, my darling one!" was the young Major's fond vow confided to the evening star, glowing in its trembling silver radiance over the spicy Indian Ocean.
Alixe Delavigne was still "Madame Berthe Louison" to the glittering circle of passengers who envied her the state in which she traveled, the slavish obeisance of the ship's officers, and the deft ministrations of those admirable servants, Jules Victor and Marie.

"A great personage incognito," was the general verdict, and so the luckless swains hovering around fell off one by one, as the beautiful woman seemed to be always wrapped in an unbroken reverie.

There was an anxious gleam in the lady's eyes, for she felt that she was going home to the sternest battle of her life, and she brooded now only upon the trials of the future.