"Be cheerful--silent--watchful! I must be near you, I must see you, face to face, to tell you all the story of the past! I will then tell you, my own darling child, of the mother whom you have never known.

But, first, Major Hardwicke must open a way to your side! Beware of the schemes of Alan Hawke! He will be here to-morrow, and he may steal over to Jersey, though his duty takes him for a month to the Continent! You will surely see Major Hardwicke before you see me for Andrew Fraser might take alarm at a sight of my face and so hide you away from us all!" Miss Mildred Anstruther was a delicate symphony in gray, as she gracefully presided the next evening over the dinner table at which Alixe Delavigne, Captain Anstruther, Major Hardwicke, and Captain Murray merrily discussed the sudden hastening of Captain Eric Murray's nuptials.

Hardwicke's duty as "best man" was now the only bar to the beginning of a campaign destined to foil Andrew Fraser's Loch Leven tactics of imprisoning his niece and ward.
"You will have but a brief honeymoon, Eric!" laughed Hardwicke.
"You have promised to stand by me, Harry," replied his friend.

"See me married to-morrow, then a week's honeymoon at Jersey is all that I ask! I can bestow my wife there with a dear friend, who has the prettiest old Norman chateau-maison on the island, and after that be near you there at Rozel Bay to work up the final discomfiture of this old vampire.

I only claim the attendance of the whole party at my wedding, then I will disappear and spy out the ground for you long before you are ready to astonish the dreamy old bookworm.