LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1308, 29 May 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

CAUGHT IN A SNARE. [By Mrs. Francis G. F. Faithful.] ( Concluded.) 4 The game is up, you see. It has been a good game, but two can play at it, and I fiattir myself I’ve checkmated you rather neatly.’ Annette laughed a short odd laugh ; but the colour had come back to her face, and she was herself again.

‘Perhaps you’ll explain,’ she said composedly ; ‘ perhaps you’ll favour me with your name, because, you see, this is rather a surprise, and I don’t think I’ve the pleasure of knowing you. ’ ‘No; that is a pleasure to come. I’m Inspector Webb from Scotland Yard, at your service. But I’ll do something more to oblige you. I’ll remind you of your name, Miss Agatha Minton, in case you chance to have forgotten it. ’ Bah! the game is up, th n n ;’ and Annette glanced hastily round, as if for some way of escape.

‘ Ay, but we’ll play it out if you please,’ returned the detective, stepping promptly forward and linking his arm in his prisoner’s. ‘ Mary, my good girl, when you’ve taken that box up-stairs, please to call the boy whom I saw working in the garden just now. You’re too slippery a customer, Miss Minton, for one pair of hands, especially when they’ve other work to do. And I must just overhaul that box of yours. 1 fancy, if I only look close enough, I may find a document that would prove useful to a gentleman over the water. ’ The girl regarded him boldly. ‘ Find what you can,’ she said. ‘ I’m sure you’re welcome to turn over everything there.’ ‘ Ah, you think it won’t strike me to look between the boards of your French dictionary. Well, and I daresay it wouldn’t if I hadn’t watched you split the cover and then gum it together again. It’s astonishing how much one can see through a hole a quarter of an inch square in a wcoden partition.’ Annette, or Agatha, as I ought to call her, shrugged her shoulders. ‘ I’m trapped i Well, I took my chance,’ she muttered. ‘ Yes, I thought you’d rise to those keys,’ pursued the detective, with evident enjoyment, as he led her towards the stairs ; ‘and you see how kindly anxious I was to smooth all difficulties away for you. No one at home but. an old lady ; despatch-box ready to hand. All fair sailing. And it worked out so beautifully too. You’d no notion when you planned to go off in a huff that you wore playing right into my hands.’

1 heard no more. Sick and stunned I crept into the schoolroom, dreading I knew not what. But I could not stay there, it was too desolate, and 1 stole out again across the now deserted hall to the drawing-room. There, crouching over the fire and shivering as if in an ague fit, I found Mrs Fraut. She lifted her heud in affright, but bowed it again when she saw that it was only me. ‘Child, child,’ she said feebly, ‘you ought not to be hero. I had forgotten you. I thought you had gone. You ought not to have seen.’

‘ Toll me,’ I entreated, creeping up to her, and slipping my hand in hers h\ a nervous longing for protection. ‘ What does it mean ? I can’t understand \t.’

She was silent j. but 1, rendered bold by very terror, repeated, ‘ Tell me, do tell me.’ ‘ ± had better tell you, perhaps,’ she murmured, * since you were here and saw. And yet I don’t know,’ and she pressed her hand wearily to her brow. Just then the streetdoor bell rang again. I listened and heard a voice—a dear familiar voice—and in an instant I was in the hall and in my mother’s arms.

‘ 0 mother, come in here ? ’ and, almost dragging her into the schoolroom, I poured out my story. She heard it with a grave and pitying face. ‘ Let us go in to poor Mrs Frant,’ she said, when I had done ; and together we went across to the other room. Mrs Frant still sat as I had left her, but her sad eyes brightened a little when she saw my mother. She knew her well, and knew how gentle and, kind she was.

My mother eat down beside her and took her trembling hand. ‘ Dq you care to tell us anything P ’ she said softly. ‘ Jenny is to be- trusted, but don’t speak if it is painfu.l to you.’ ‘ Yes, I will tell you ; it will be a comfort to speak. And you know something ; you know about him—my husband —and how cruetly he used me.’ ‘ indeed I do !. ’ my mother nmdo answer. ‘ When. I got away from him and took shelter with my aunt in Paris he followed me tbe-re, and threatened to drag me back to him. He could hare done it too. I could not prove his i'l-usage ; he had been too crafty for that. But there was a letter ; he had written it in our early married days. He didn’t know I bad kept it, but he knew that, and I knew, if it were produced, it would send himfo prison, and I told him that if ho meddled with me 1 would produce it I had never turned on him before. I had been like a whipped hound under his hand ; but now I was desperate, arid I frightened him. He made me promise solemnly never to use that letter ns long as he did not molest mo j and then lie left mo. He knew he coupl trust my word. And then I came to England, and, ill and broken as I wan, I tried to begin a new life.’ ‘And you did,’ said my mother tenderly. ‘ You, have done bravely.’ ‘ I thought it was all past, that dreadful’ time, and that some day I might almost forget

it. It was twelve years ago, you know. But he—my husband—must have heard about the money my cousin left me last year, and he wanted to get a hold on me again. You see, if he had once got the letter I and my money would have been at his mercy.’ ‘ I see,’ said my mother. ‘ Yes, now I begin to understand.’

‘And so he sent this girl—his niece—to steal it quietly. I had never seen or heard of her. I thought it was only a chance likeness I saw until I met the detective at Hatherfield.’

* And he told you ? ’ ‘ He told me her real name, and that was enough. He said he had been looking for a girl -Agatha Minton—who had been mixed up in a Rotterdam fraud, and that, after a deal of trouble, he had tracked her down into our neighbourhood ; had lighted on her photograph in a Hatherfield shop window, and found that she was a governess here. And then I had something to tell him. My husband’s sister had married a nan named Minton, and I guessed at once that this girl had not come to my house only to hide. I used not to be suspicious, but ray husband had taught me to suspect him.’j She paused and sighed heavily. ‘ And what did you do ? ’ my mother asked, stroking the hand that clung to hers. ‘ I did not know what to do ; I could hardly even think. I wanted Mr Webb to come back with me and take her away at once; but he would not do that. He said his other case against her wasn’t as clear as it might be, and that if this business were properly handled it might help him a good deal. I must let him manage it his own way. And then he considered a little, and asked me if I had any elderly relations who were not known in our village ; and when I told him of my aunt he laughed and explained his plan. It was a dreadful plan to me. I did not know how to bear the waiting and the risk. It made mo shudder to think of letting her—that girl—get hold of the paper on which all my peace depended. I knew it was safe so far ; I had seen it in my strong box that morning. But Mr Webb would not listen to me ; he said he’d warrant it not to leave my house, and I was in his hands. I was forced to let him have his own way.’ ‘And it was a very good way,’ my mother put in cheerfully. ‘Do you think so P Oh, if only I could be sure; but I have suffered so much it seems now as if I hadn’t strength to believe or to bear.’

As she spoke the door opened again, and Mr Webb came in, habited now in a blue frock-coat. Walking up to her he put a folded letter into her outstretched hand.

‘ You see I have kept my word,’ he said, with a grim smile ; ‘ there it is. Won’t you own that it is safer than it has ever been ? And now I must go and see my bird safe in her cage.’ As he turned away Mrs Frant hid her face upon my mother’s shoulder and broke into a passion of tears, the first she had shed. She tried to speak, but her sobs choked her. The strain had been too great, and she was past feeling the relief. My mother saw how it was. She did not attempt to calmn her. She only said,

Come home with us. You are not fit to stay alone in this gloomy empty house. Come home with us.’ And we took her home.