THE ROAD THAT LED HOME

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 130, 23 August 1927, Page 14

THE ROAD THAT LED HOME

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SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS CHAPTERS VIII. to X.—Mrs. Clayton enjoys her new status, but keeps her husband at arm’s length. One Sunday morning Raymond meets Connover and Mrs. Gerald Methune, and these two invite themselves to lunch with the Claytons Informed by ner husband of the two guests Nora becomes excited, dresses with care in order to impress them, but finds that both Connover and Mrs. Methune are quite weight enough for her. Later she takes Connover to her boudoir, and Is once more overcome by the old glamour. She tries to hold her own, but Connover takes the wind out of her sails by telling her that, in the long ago, the curate. James Prester, interfered between them, and took a message to him, Connover. that Nora never wanted to see him again. To Nora’s incredulity he replies, •‘Ask him.” A little later the Vicar of Riffmoor is taken ill and dies. The Claytons go to the funeral, and Nora stays on at the Vicarage to help her sister to straighten things out. Alison intends to carve out her own future. Nora visits James Prester in his little cottage. Jim comes to the door. He invites her in and she challenges him with the statement made to her by Connover. He is silent. CHAPTER XXVI. “Conny!” she exclaimed in dismay. “Yes,” he said, “that’s who it is. You didn’t think I’d have the pluck, did you?” “Conny, I’m sorry, but ” “Well, if you’re really sorry, put on your hat and toddle around here. I’ve got something to say to you that can’t very well be said over the telephone.” “I can’t do that,” Nora protested. “Oh, yes, you can.” His easy assurance feebly enraged her. “I don’t think you realise that Raymond was in earnest the other night,” she said pointedly. “And apparently you don’t realise that I am in earnest now,” Connover replied. “But ” “I’d rather not argue about it.” There was a note of mystery in his voice that filled her with apprehension. Nobody likes a mystery. If anyone had told Nora that morning that later on in the day she would go to Connover’s rooms at his behest, she would have dismissed the statement as summarily as she had dismissed Lutie. There was no reason at all why she should go, unless it was to relieve her curiosity; and there was every other reason in the world why she should not. Yet she went. * To one less credulous than Nora Clayton, it would have been fairly simple to divine the rat-like qualities of Connover’s brain. Smarting, in two senses of the word, he had an imperative need for expressing his revenge. If Nora had come suddenly to loathe and distrust him, it would not be too sweeping to assert that he had come actually to hate her. She had brought the degredation of physical punishment upon him; she had, in addition, cost him the loss of a useful financial prop, for before she had so cleverly contrived to get herself hurled into a ditch and thereby invoked the romantic interest of Raymond Clayton, Connover had enjoyed much largesse at Clayton’s hands. With all the arrogance of his worn-out blood and all the decadence of his vitiated, pleasure-seeking nature Connover despised her for a vaunting little upstart, who had bought her way into his world by bargaining for her body. She was luckier but np better than some other women he could have mentioned. He told himself that she would always bargain, particularly if she found herself in a dangerous situation. He counted upon the cowardice he had observed in her behaviour, the panic into which any prospect of being found out would throw her. He might have taken into account —which he didn’t—that he was judging Nora almost as much upon his own as upon her shortcomings. Undoubtedly he had done some thinking since Clayton’s chastisement of him, and reasoning in his own peculiar way had come to a conclusion. The start was certainly propitious, for less than half an hour alter his telephone conversation with Nora she appeared, like the proverbial and stupid little fly, accepting the spider’s invitation to walk into his parlour. True, she was nervous and apprehensive about it, and wanted him to say at the door what he had to say and let her go again, but Connover appealed to her circumspection. Other bachelors had apartments in the building, and a conversation, however brief, could not be carried on at the door without the chance of someone seeing them. “Oh, well! But I mustn’t stay a minute,” Nora conceded reluctantly. Connover preceded her into his sitting-room, so she did not see the turned-down smile which her concession inspired. He looked very handsome in his dapper, slick way, and picturesque as regarded a velvet house jacket and loosely tied scarf. A little strip of plaster adorned one cheek, which suggested that he might have been the hero of a fencing accident. His face was pale and —as they say—interesting because of it. As Nora entered the sitting-room he moved quietly behind her and locked the door. She turned with a start at the sound of the click. “What did you do that for?” she demanded hotly. “Let me out of here this minute or I’ll —I’ll ” “Well. What precisely will you do?” he asked. All the life went out of her, and she dropped limply into a chair, staring up at him with such an expression of childish bewilderment that he had a savage impurse to laugh aloud. He checked it, however. “You needn’t be frightened. I’m not going to touch you. I simply wanted to make sure that we won’t be disturbed.” “That’s a lie!.. Nora flashed back at him. “Very well. Call it what you like, but for heaven’s sake be reasonable. I haven’t brought you here to quarrel. I take it from the way you spoke over the telephone that you know what happened the other night.” “I know that Raymond came here and gave you a hiding,” Nora said. It filled her with a sense of vuluptuous pleasure to say that. She liked to know that Raymond had taken a whip to Conny. It might be that Conny hadn’t actually deserved a hiding then, but Raymond had been right in principle, and had merely anticipated the necessity. “And I don't suppose it’s occurred to you that somebody is going to pay for your husband’s high-handed action—eh?” Connover said. “What do you mean—pay?” Nora demanded. “Just what I said. I’ve been turning it over in my mind whether or not to take out a warrant against Cl&yton for assault. If the facts of it were made public that would give my wife all the excuse she needs to get rid of me.” “Your wife?” Nora exclaimed faintly. Connover permitted himself a sneering smile of triumph. “Exactly. I happen to be married. I was already married when we played about so cheerily in the old days at Riffmoor, and you somehow got it into your head that I was going to marry you.” “You beast!” Nora exclaimed, between clenched teeth. “No. my dear. You were fair game for a flirtation. You threw yourself at

Author oj " The House oj the Secret " Conscience " A Cinderella of Mayfair. ' &c . &c

my head, and you were a dashed pretty girl in those days, so ” Anger put strength into Nora, and she jumped to her feet, white-faced and breathless. “Let me out of here this minute! I won’t be so insulted. I —l order you to open that door.” “Presently. But I am going to predict that when I do open it, you won’t go You’ll beg me to keep you here.” “Oh!” She drew in a deep, choking sob, and here eyes sought wildly for some other way of escape than- by means of the door he had locked. It was a big, high-ceilinged room, which had obviously been arranged at one time for an artist’s studio. At the back was a huge north window, curtained with thin, patterned silk, which gave an effect of stained-glass, and at the opposite end was a shallow flight of steps leading to a little gallery, from whence a door opened into what was probably a bedroom. At one side of the balcony an oval window overlooked the outer hall. There was really no other way to get out unless one made a run for the gallery and chanced that the room behind had another exit, which was unlikely. Nora took all this in, and then, with an effort to control herself, turned again to Connover. “What exactly do you want of me?” sho demanded. “That’s better, I want you to make a decision for me. There’s no need for either of us to get spiteful over it, my dear. You see, my wife is annoyed about you. You’ve been rather indiscreet, I fear—made a confidante of her —and naturally, it’s upset her.” Nora had been white of face before, but now she grew deathly pale. “Is Cora Methune your wife?” she asked, incredulously. Connover nodded. “We’ve kept it a secret for a long time, but Cora’s getting a little restive. I fancy that she’s got a soft spot in her heart for Raymond Clayton, so it wouldn’t really matter to her if she were free to marry again—providing that Clayton could get free, too.” Nora stared at him, trying hard to figure out what exactly he was driving at. “Are you trying to tell me,” she said, “that if you prosecute Raymond for beating you, it would furnish Cora with a cause for divorce?” “Considering all the circumstances, it would. Remember that we’ve been meeting each other pretty regularly of late in out-of-the-way places. Your chauffeur knows that, and he happens to be a good friend of mine. Then

he said. “I’ll try to get rid of her as soon as possible.” But Nora now saw that there were such things as traps within traps. She shook her head, and declined to involve herself more deeply. Connover shrugged his shoulders. “Very well, then: I’d better go to the door, although it’ll look rather queer to Cora that she’s been kept waiting so long.” “Conny, how much do you want not to go to the door?” Nora asked. He turned back eagerly, as the bell pealed for the third time. “You mean ?” “How much money?” He smiled genially at the crude question—the old Conny smile this time, the smile that had made women his conquests and men declare him to be a sunny-tempered fellow who was not so bad even if he did sponge outrageously. “Now you’re businesslike, Nora. 1 suppose you’ll take it into considei-i----txon, also, if I don’t have that wan ant served on Raymond?” “As far as I’m able,” Nora replied. “I think I can draw a cheque for about £300.” . . , Good heavens! Ho you imagine such a paltry sum as that is any good to me? Not for a minute, my dear child. Make it three thousand if you like, and we’ll call the matter square. I’m infernally hard up, otherwise I might hold out for a bit more.” As though to give point to his modest request, the bell now- rang for the fourth time. It seemed almost as though Cora Methune was in this mean conspiracy. “I haven’t got so much money, Nora said in a shaking whisper. “You can get it,” Connover replied “So that’s the kind of man you are!” she exclaimed contemptuously. “This isn’t the moment to discuss my virtues. Look here, my dear, I want your 1.0. U. for £3,000, and I want it at once. Otherwise ” He was pushing a letter pad and pencil into her hands, and motioning toward his desk. It seemed to Nora that she was fairly propelled into doing his bidding. She had no time to think, no time at all to bring common sense to bear upon the outrageous situation. ‘“You won’t take my word, 1 suppose?” she asked, her contempt for him reduced by this time to a concentrated essence. “I’d prefer the 1.0. U., thank you,” Connover said coolly. “Just write the letters, and ‘£3,ooo’ after them. Then sign your name. Hate the page at the top.” Nora seated herself at the desk and did as he told her. “You’ve thought this all out very carefully, haven’t you?” she said with deep scorn. “It was in my mind, I confess,” he replied, “but I didn’t know that Cora would arrive so opportunely. Many thanks.” He tore off the sheet, folded and put it into his pocket. “I think she must have gone by now, I’ll just see.” He mounted the stairs again and looked down into the outer hall. “Yes —she’s gone. And you—would you like to go, also? Or would you prefer to wait a little longer? It might be safer to w r ait. Cora’s a clever little devil. It’s probably occurred to her that Tm entertaining a