A Wife for a Day; Or, THE FINGER OF FATE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 38, 14 February 1905, Page 6

A Wife for a Day; Or, THE FINGER OF FATE.

CHAPTER VI. 808 WONDERS. ■When he fouad that she was gone, the £irl whom he had been trying to serve ■with a fidelity better suited to the good old days of chivalry than this prosaic twentieth century, Annedeigh called to her, and searched about hopelessly for a moment or two before it dawned upon him that the girl had taken the opportunity to deliberately slip away, anii a sudden irritation came over him. It was exceedingly annoying for her to run away like tliis, when his only thought had been to serve her. It was a queer ending to a queer adventure. A thought struck Aunesleigh; that packet she had given to him in the old house. "Don't open it till you are alone," she had said. ''And remember that what it contains is yours by every right. , He put his hand into his breast pocket and drew it out—a little, squat, square package, addressed to him. There wore stamps on the cover, as though she had intended mailing it to his address. How strange it was that he should, have run up against this unknown ■woman who had some business with him! What could the parcel contain? Under the feeble Hght of a street lamp he opened it, and drew out the contentsJn his hand was a little bundle of bank notes of large denominations. For a second or t\ro he stared at them in sheer amazement; then mechanically he counted them. They represented a sum of nearly twenty thousand dollars! One curious fact was that the notes were carefully divided into little bundles, pinned together with a slip of paper, on which a date appeared, and sometimes a line or two in writing that he recognised as Ames'. By the light of s, match Anncsleigh read one of these pencilled notes, and a slow, grim smile came to his face. How typical of Ames, •with his sense of caustic humour! "A few feathers from the pigeon—a souvenir of March IS." Yes. he had, he remembered, lost rather heavily at cards on March 18th. In the light of his detection of Gregory and Elliott's methods of card playing, this little note was hardly needed to tell him that. Ames had obtained the "souvenir" b.Wcheuting. 'Still, it was an added confirmation that helped to remove his scruples about accepting the money thus strangely restored to him. He had lost it unfairly; practically, he had been as much robl>ed of it as though Ames had put his hand into his friend's pocket. Why should lie hesitate to take back his own? He lighted a cigar. ■■'Nothing like a smoke to help a man straighten out a problem/ he said to himself, as he walked forward. Plainly, Ames' wife—his wife of a day —had discovered her husband's mode of life, and had determined to make what restitution she could to the pigeon that had been so mercilessly plucked. Had that been the reason why she had fled from the man she 3iad married —the discovery that lie was a professional sharper? Yes, the money was rightly his, and he would accept it. Twenty thousand dollars! It was but a tithe of what he had squandered so recklessly; but to a man who a few minates ago had been contemplating pawning his watch, it iwas a fortune. Annesleigh was conscious of a sudden feeling of deep relief. ' *■ "it was amusing for an hour or so to find myself a beggar—to have the other side of life to explore," he said to himself; "but I fancy the novelty would have worn thin before daybreak." 'His desire for adventure had already evaporated. Perhaps the supply had largely exceeded the demand. He discovered that he was exhausted, footsore, cold; that a comfortable bed was infinitely more pleasurable than being out in the foggy streets between one and two in the morning. Confound this fog! Where was he ■wandering? He must have covered a good deal of ground since he lost his companion of the night's attyeuture, hv± he found himself no nearer any recognisable land mark. There seemed no one in the streets to ask the •way. Perhaps, if he could get out of this labyrinth of by-streets, and strike some main thoroughfare, he might meet someone able to direct him. The wish was in his mind when he almost collided with a tall figure. The man proved to be a policeman, and involuntarily Annesleigh gave a guilty start as he discerned the uniform. Then he laughed. He had not been long, he told himself gaily, in developing the sensations of a. full-fledged criminal in the presence of vhe law. "Pretty thick fog, officer," he said. He noticed that the man was looking in the direction from which he had come. There was a curious, misty glare in one part of the sky that faintly reddened the opaque pea-green of the atmosphere, like an angry sunset seen through a screen. "Xothing to sonle I've been out in— ■nothing at all! Now, some of the black fogs Ah, you should be out at sea on a pilot boat in one o' them!" said the officer, sententiously. "No wish to, I assure you/ said Annesleigh, lightly. "I'm trying to find my way to Broadway, and don't even know if I'm going in the right direction. Can you set mc right?' , "About five blocks to the eas, sir," replied the civil guardian of the night. "No chance of a cab, 1 suppose?" "Afraid not, sir." Well, he must walk. He felt that, even in the fog, it would not be hard to find his way once he had turned into the aide street that led to Broadway. He had only to keep in a straight line to reach familiar scenes. At length he spied a cab, and with a shout hailed the night hawk, arriving at the Fifth Avenue Hotel in fair-

By EMMA G. WELDON, 2S*r of "l,ove and Diplomacy," " Genevieve's Triumph," "A Strange Bridal," "Friends and Rivals," "Cupid's Dilemma, ,, etc., etc.

ly decent shape, considering all he had gone through. He had a fire lighted in the bedroom, ajid ordered a whisky-and-soda and cigarettes to be brought up to him. He threw himself into an easy-chair in front of the fire. How cozy a fire looked after the damp rawness of, the streets! He had the feeling that once he was in bed he would not want to get u.p for a week; yet. for all that, he seemed in no hurry to get between the sheets. The activity of his brain banished the inclination for sleep. The \ pleasant crackling- of the fire, the. obsequious attendant who had brought the whisky-and-soda, the luxuriously furnished room, with its shaded electric lamps —all served to make his re-; : cent thrilling adventure seem strangely unreal. But it must have been the genuine article. He took out the packet of bank notes again, tangible enough i proof that he had not been dreaming at all. "It is nice of you, little girl, to do this, and I like you for it—quite apart from the fact that I never wanted the money so much as now," Annesleigh said, musingly. "But. with such a face you couldn't'be anything but upright: and, though a thick-skulled jury might think differently, I don't believe that when I found you in that old house, like the Sleeping Princess in her castle, you were any less innocent than I, though the man lay dead, with only a flight of stairs between you. I won't believe that you knew, little princess; only it was ungrateful of you to slip away in the fog, and I -wonder why you did?" He smoked his cigarette and stared into the fire. . It was like reading an absorbingly interesting chapter, and unexpectedly coming to a gap where the leaves were torn out. Who was this girl with the beautiftil face and sad eyes, and wonderful auburn tresses, who for a moment had flashed across his life out of the dark, and had been swallowed up by the gloom again? What was the explanation of this queer adventure? Would he ever know? Annesleigh sat a long time in the low, i padded chair in front of the fire, thinking. He felt so tired that the mere exertion of undressing was a weariness, and his brain was too excited by the events of the night for sleep. He sat smoking and thinking—always of the strange girl. Where had she gone? Was she safely housed? Was she in danger of arrest by the police? At last he threw the end of his cigarette into the fire, and pulled himself with an effort out of the chair. "I hope that girl, whoever she may be, is safely under shelter, too," he said, as he slipped between the sheets, with a sigh of content. "Poor little princess!" In a few moments he was asleep. Bob Annesleigh did not s!eep,.a week, as he had promised himself; but it was eleven o'clock before he thought of getting up. As he sa:t down to a dainty breakfast, such as he had never expected ■to eat again, in his gloom of the previous night, he remembered that the early editions of the evening papers would be out by now. His eagerness to see if any reference to the Tragedy of laSt night had found its way into their columns caused him to send out for all the various newspapers procurable. He , skimmed them at breakfast, but they contained no hint of the murder; only, in a column ou the first page, he came across this paragraph: "At the moment of going to press, we ; hear that a large, unoccupied house near Morningside Park, which is said to have a strange history, was destroyed by tire , at an early hour this morning." •' Bob Annesleigh could not have explained why he should immediately associate the scene of the fire in question with the house whore he had been last night; yet t*o conviction that it was the same haunted him. He waited, with an almost feverish eagerness, for the later editions to tell him further. The one oclock editions of one of the yellow papers contained a much more detailed account, and confirmed Annesleigh's conviction. The sceue of last night's tragedy had been destroyed by fire! This was the newspaper account: "The Cedars, • a large, old-fashioned mansion of colonial times, bhat has stood unoccupied for many years, adjoining Morningside Park, was almost totally destroyed by fire in the early hours of this morning. The fog which prevailed no doubt prevented the fire being observed until it had gained a fierce headway, and considerably hampered the firemen, who. considering the atmospherical conditions, reached the scene with wonderful promptitude when the Alarm was given. Their efforts, however, could not save the house, which was completely gutted. "How the* conflagration originated remains at present a mystery, but a curious incident has come to light- A gentleman living at a house near has reported to the police that, returning home between one and two this morning, he observed a female figure enter the gate and walk towards the house. At the time he thought that it was doubtless the caretaker; but it has since been ascertained that the caretaker of the Cedars had met with a serious accident on the previous day, and had been removed to the hospital. The police are making every effort to discover the woman." There was not a hint in the report about the crime. Had all traces of it been destroyed by the fire? But a woman had been seen entering between the hours of one and two. Annesleigh read the few lines with breathless interest. There had been time* enough, after slip-, ping away from him, for the woman, Mrs Ames, to go back to the house. In spite of his old belief, a doubt crept into his mind now. If she had been guilty of that crime, a desperate woman might have nerved herself to go back to destroy the traces of it effectually. Yet, could a guilty woman have acted the innocent so well? And, surely, she must bo honourable to have made voluntary restitution to him of what her husband had robbed himStill, it was odd the way she had slipped away from him so furtively, when she I had every reason to trust him, unless she 'had soma strong ulterior motive. The memory of her eyes, of her sad, pleading face, seemed to rise up before Bob Aiinesloigh—seemed to meet Iris eyes, as if in reproach. "No, I ean T t believe you were acting a part," he said to himself. "I won't.

believe anything but tie beat of you, little princess! And, by Jove; th&t'e ft thought 'worthy of consideration," he suddenly exclaimed, as another thought flawed into his mind: "Could the person who watched them through the keyhole have been a woman?" It aroused a new train of ideas, and gave him food for much speculation. (To be continued daily.)