There was the sudden excited clamour of many voices and the boat-train, late and overcrowded, had come in!
Cleek switched on his heel, forged a way through the waiting crowd, and betook himself to the gates. For a moment only a flow of passengers met his gaze, when suddenly the sight of a slenderly knit figure made his heart leap to his mouth. A mist swam in front of his eyes, blurring their vision momentarily, and he took an exultant step forward. For it was Ailsa Lorne herself. She gazed at him with a look of glad surprise, and a swift rush of colour came to the pure oval face which set his pulses hammering.
"Ailsa——!"
Hand met hand in the warm clasp which there is no mistaking and then Cleek realized that she was not alone. By her side stood a young girl not more than eighteen, if looks counted for anything, evidently so tired and worn with the rigours of the journey that she seemed too dazed to notice anything or anybody.
Ailsa, thrusting a friendly arm through hers, drew her forward.
"Lady Margaret, this is a very dear friend of mine," she said in her fresh young voice, "Lieutenant Deland, dear."
No need to tell Cleek that there was some special reason for this meeting and introduction, for he knew only too well how quick Ailsa Lorne was to lend a helping hand to any one in trouble, and he registered a silent vow to do all he could, should occasion demand, for this tired-looking child.
Then Ailsa spoke again, looking significantly at Cleek.
"We have both been victims of a terrible crossing, and Lady Margaret has found no one to meet her. She has come from the convent of Notre Dame in Paris, and has to go all the way to Hampton now."
"Hampton?" Cleek echoed, raising his eyebrows involuntarily, for he knew Ailsa would go direct to the riverside cottage in that place which she had made her home.
"Yes, I tell her we are to be near neighbors. So, dear," she turned again to her companion, who was staring round the station in evident search of some friendly face, "supposing you let Lieutenant Deland drive us both together? He will drop me at my home, and put you down at Cheyne Court."
The girl's eyes lit up with something akin to real pleasure.
"Oh, indeed I will, if you—he—will not mind; I am so worried. I felt sure Auntie would have come to meet me. It is all so strange——" Her voice died away as if she were too tired to resist, and the eyes of Cleek and Ailsa met in significant understanding.
"The limousine is outside," he murmured in a low voice, "and I will run you down myself if that will suit you."
"Indeed it will," said Ailsa, gratefully, "and I shall just tuck that poor child into the car, then come and sit in front with you so that we can talk."
A sudden light came into Cleek's eyes, a sudden smile curved the corners of his mouth at this proof of Ailsa's trust in him, and he led the way out of the station.
Outside, Dollops was speedily dismissed to get a long-wished-for meal. Realizing that his beloved master was happy in his self-appointed task, he relinquished his place at the wheel, and was speedily lost to sight in the ever-moving kaleidoscope of the Strand.
Meanwhile, Ailsa, having snugly tucked in her travelling companion on the seat of the limousine, and seen that she was half asleep, betook herself to the front seat beside Cleek. And they started on the road which was to carry him once more nearer crime and disaster than any man would care to go.
"That poor child!" she said, when the car was humming softly along, and whisking them out of London. "I watched her have such a pitiful parting with the nuns at Calais, and afterward, when she was so ill and lonely on board. I tried to cheer her up. It seems that she has been at Notre Dame Convent in Paris all her life, except for one stray holiday with a friend, and now she comes of age next week, and has got to live with a sour old aunt, an eccentric being who I think must be jealous of the child's youth and beauty. She will be shut up in Cheyne Court. It's a dreadful spot, too. I know it well. I have often passed it. I don't wonder she is dreading it. All the jewels in the world are not worth imprisonment in such a dreary dungeon as Cheyne Court must be!"
Cleek twitched up an enquiring eyebrow.
"Jewels?" he questioned, musingly. "Hm! Wait one moment. Lady Margaret Cheyne did you say? Let me see. I don't profess to be a walking Debrett, but I fancy the name recalls some strange memory. Lord Cheyne now—didn't he marry Miss Peggy Wynne, known over London as 'the beautiful Irish girl'? Yes, and she died, too, at the child's birth I remember. Hm! a heavy inheritance that, a thousand pities she wasn't a boy—— What's that, dear? Why? Why, the title dies out with her, and she comes into all the family jewels. I don't wonder you think one can pay too high a price for jewels, priceless though they be, for if my memory serves me rightly, these include that ill-fated stone, the Purple Emperor——" His voice trailed into silence, he sat a moment staring ahead, and Ailsa forbore to question him.
Then he threw back his shoulders as if thrusting away the sorrow of the world, and with a tilt of the head, turned again to Ailsa.
"Ah, well, it's so far back that perhaps the fates will be kind," he said, musingly. "Perhaps you'd like to hear something of the story. We'll drive slower then. 'The Purple Emperor,' or to give its right name, the 'Eye of Shiva,' is, as you can guess, an Indian stone, and was looted from a temple at Benares in the days of the ill-fated Indian Mutiny. It was brought to England by a member of the Cheyne family—'Mad Cheyne' I think they called him—and there is a special police chronicle of the crimes committed by, and at the instigation of, the priests of the temple in their efforts to get it back into their possession again. I expect they have given it up now, for last thing I heard of that historic stone was that it was embedded in a concrete safe in the Bank of England."
Ailsa's face had become very pale while he was speaking, and as he paused she gave a little shiver.
"Poor child!" she murmured. "I don't believe the priests have forgotten. At least, two Hindoos were on board the boat, and both tried to scrape acquaintance with her. And I never knew! I never thought. As a matter of fact, I am not sure that one did not achieve his object, for at night while I was resting one of them approached her and won her confidence by telling her that he knew her father, an old friend——"
"An old trick rather," interposed Cleek quietly, "and one that has opened the door to wiser heads than that tired child's. If the wind sits in that quarter she will have a hard struggle, and will be well advised to leave the 'Purple Emperor' in its stony bed. Still, I suppose her aunt will see to that, as well as look after her better than she has done to-day."
"Oh, I expect so," replied Ailsa in her soft voice, as the car whizzed its way out into the open country.
"She seems to be very eccentric from what I have heard of her from Lady Brenton, a near neighbour of us both. Strangely enough, there is a little romance here, for Lady Brenton's husband was once engaged to Miss Cheyne, and I believe jilted her for his wife, so that a feud exists between the two families. But I believe it will be another case of Romeo and Juliet, for Lady Margaret is deeply in love with Sir Edgar, the only son of the squire, and there is no doubt that they will get married soon and then——"
"They will live happily ever afterward," flung back Cleek, laughing softly. "Ah, youth, youth!" His words died away on his lips, and a look of indescribable pain, amounting almost to despair, crossed his features, and for a time only the soft whirr of the car was heard as it plowed along the deserted country lane.
For some time a silence held, a silence which was poignant with memories. The country cottage was
