CHAPTER XXXI.

Marlborough Express, Volume L, Issue 81, 5 April 1916, Page 3

CHAPTER XXXI.

TRAMPLED CANONS

If Mrs Otis had expected to inflict a .-hock, she triumphed amply. If she h:id hoped to witness its manifestation -he was woefully disappointed. The crash struck its victim as a thunderbolt; but beyond a sudden tension that gripped every muscle of him, he betrayed never a sign of the impact. Outwardly he was almost if not quite as self-possessed as when he entered the house. "Miss Otis—does she know of this?'; •'What a question!" she gasped. "Why, it is she who ■ " 'Don't!" He started forward impulsively, the blood mounting hotly to bis iace. But ere bis composure departed irretrievably—-"I beg your pardon, May [ know the reason?" "The reason,'' she said icily, wishing his discomfiture were, more pronounced, "is disgraceful Most disgraceful'—lungina; with the superlative. "To-day—this very afternoon, in fact—your— l —l -" She floundered helplessly in a muddle of words. The starched formality she had deemed sufficient to crush the presumption of any man wilted before his steady gaze, his calm sternness. She turned appealing' lo her husband, who, ha\ rin gheld y very unwilling silence at her prior behest, came gladly to th<> rescue.

"I hart host dnal with this man plrmo. ißlizahetli." Ho wnitod until slie left tL'.£ aiooiai; then blaxcd ut

Fitzhugh. -'Your wife, whom you deserted, was here to-day." Fitzhugh nodded. His teeth were set, his eyes glittering. His fists were clenched like balls of steel. He was not surprised. It was exactl'v what he had expected. Yet ail his strength was needed to Keep in subjection his anger; the same overpowering anger which twice that day had risen in its might and mastered him.

"Have you anything at all to say?"

"The woman is not my- wife." "Not your legal wife, you mean.'' "Nor any other kind." Scarcely had Fitzhugh uttered the words, advancing with he knew noc what rash design, then he stopped, turned back, and stood listening intently. Otis, thoroughly alarmed, rang frantically for a servant. Fitzhugh crossed to the hall-door nnd listened. )

From somewhere above, unbridled and spasmodic, tibpugh faint by thy distance, came the hysterical sobbing of a girl. Kathleen ! With an imprecation on his tongue, lie bounded up tho staircase—just ar> Noonan appeared in answer to the summons. His coat clutched from behind, Fitzhugh turned, jerked free, and with a single push of his flat hand sent the butler reeling backward to the hall below. He leapt up the few remaining steps to the second floor, strode to a door standing ajar and knocked. Tlio girlish weeping in the room beyond' was muffled. He knocked again. _ The sobbing abated, stopped. A third time he "knockedj

and, receiving no response save silence, thrust the door open, entered, closed the door behind him.

It was Kathleen's boudoir. She was seated in a chair, weeping, with her bands hysterically covering her face; but immediately, on seeing him, she jumped up and started for an adjoining room, calling hastily to her maid.

And the next instant she was held, struggling, palpitating, in the hot embrace of fiis arms, and his kisses, showered upon her lips with a delirious passion that seared as heated metal. "Kathleen—sweetheart, you don't believe You don't want me to bo " She squirmed in his arms, striking at nim with her fists, uttering incoherent words, her face scarlet with shame. The note of hate in her voice cooled his madness. He released her.

"So you do believe it." And he became aware that her father, at his wits' end how to handle the outrage, was pelting him with blows and kicks. He shook off the man as a Newfoundland would a Pomeranian.

She had rushed to the adjacent room. The door slammed. The key turned in the lock. He stared at the barrier. • When he spoke to Otis, who had renewed his attack, with redoubled frenzy and threats of legal punishment, he was markedly calm. "£ will go quietly now"—putting his antagonist aside. "I apologise for what I've done."

As he descended the staircase, leaving Otis with his daughter, the bevy of servants in the hall ceased their excited whispering, and rendered! him silent awe.

, Mrs Otis, poor lady, had quite succumbed. She reclined on a divan m the drawing-room, administered to by her woman, qgainst the arrival of the family physician. Accustomed all her iife to Conformity, and to its jogtrot of things as they go, she, had gone clown before the "Unusual, and its consequent train of abnormalities. As he was being driven home Fitzhugh's mind was a blank'until the oar was turning in and out through ihe mesh of traffic in State Street. The newsboys, ever vociferous at the day's end, seemed to have an un-'-vonted note of excitement in their hoarse cries of "Extra !" Delayed at Monroe Street by a policeman at the crossing, lie tossodl the newsvendor on the" corner a quarter-dollar and ordered all th^ papers. The first one bo opened was a pink-and-black sheet, damp from the press, and blazoning on its first page this: —