“THE WAY OUT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 491, 22 October 1928, Page 5

“THE WAY OUT”

Or “HEMING’S PROBLEM.”

By

H. Maxwell.

CHAPTER 1. —HUSBAND AND WIFE. The summer was dying: a summer which had been remarkable for its perfect apportionment of rain and shine. A continuous succession of genial summer days, followed by a regular and sufficient rainfall during the night, had gladdened the hearts of the holi-day-makers, filled the purses of those who catered for their annual discomfort. relieved the local authorities everywhere of anxiety in regard to the national water-supply, and robbed the farmers of every genuine grievance. But if the warm rays of summer still lingered it was nevertheless the time of year when a fire makes agreeable company toward sunset, and Lady Elizabeth Conway-Heming, who was seated before the wide, open hearth in the old-fashioned hall of her pleasant country home, stirred the glowing logs into a blaze, and with a feeling of being at peace with all the world, remarked to her husband in a placid, musing tone: "How the days are drawing in, Edward! ” No doubt this is a remark, inevitably made by millions of persons in the course of a waning summer, which irritates in certain moods as much as any other that is obviously trite and banal: but it was no excuse for Conway Heming’s churlish and illnatured reply: “Upon my word, Elizabeth, if you develop your powers of observation at this rate" I shan’t be able to keep pace with you.” Then, as though to verify her statement, he took the trouble to turn in his chair, and after a prolonged stare through the window at the lengthening shadows on the lawn, murmured with an air of surprise and

admiration: “Wonderful! You're right! It actuallv is so! Now you point it out to me, I perceive it isn't nearly as light at 6 o’clock as it was a month ago. How on earth do you notice these things?” His natural gift of irony, sedulouslv cultivated, had done him yeoman service at the Bar in confounding perfectly truthful witnesses under cross-examination, and he - largely owed to it his present pre-eminence as a K.C. and his certain prospect of succeeding to the next acant judgeship, if he cared to accept it when the time came. But his gift had been rather overdeveloped and was in danger of becoming a disease. Lady Elizabeth refused to be provoked and ignored his testy petulance. “What is worrying you, Edward? Is it anything you can tell me?” She had been married to him for five-and-twenty years, and for four-and-twenty of them had deliberately i shut her eyes to his faults. Wasn't I he the father of her children? Hadn't he given her material prosperity and ! rescued her from the obscurity that is so often the lot of a plain and portionless daughter of an impoverished

Earl? Wasn’t he not only distinguished in his profession and widely respected as a public man, hut also blameless in his private life, a pattern of self-discipline and continence, a fine example to his son, a worthy object of filial devotion to his daughter? These things which count with intelligent wives and cover a multitude of disillusionments, counted so much with Lady Elizabeth that she persistently endeavoured to shut her eyes to those qualities and characteristics in him which she would rather not see. “Yes,” he answered curtly, “I am worried —I am worried about this visit of Roger Temple’s.” “But why, Edward? I am sure there will be no difficulty in amusing him, and the extra household expense his visit entails will only he trifling.” One of the failings she was especially desirous not to see was his disposition toward niggardliness and meanness in money matters. “I am not thinking about the difficulty of amusing him or the extra cost of entertaining him, though both will be considerable,” he retorted irritably. “I am worried about his wanting to come.” “But you invited him,” she answered tranquilly. “I did not invite him, Elizabeth — he invited himself.” “Oh,” she said, “isn’t he ” and paused, momentarily at a loss how to frame her question. “Isn’t he quite good form?” Another of his peculiarities was a tendency toward snobbish exclusiveness, a continual fear of losing social caste, an extraordinary inclination to regard the average person as unfitted to know the Conway-Hemings; and she supposed his annoyance at Roger Temple's visit to be due to some such feeling as that.

“How should I know anything about his being good or bad form when I haven’t seen him for ten years or so? I know his reputation, though,” be added, with a kind of grim and forceful relish, which yet held a vague, underlying suggestion of nervousness and apprehension. “What is his reputation?" she asked quickly and patiently. “He is a bad hat,” he replied concisely, and then at once qualified the assertion. “I don’t mean he is better or worse than dozens of other men who have knocked about the world.” She fixed him with a perplexed and puzzled look. His stern ar.d rigid and narrow morality, queer in a man of his wide experience of men and affairs, often made him a harsh- critic of other people's shortcomings, and she won dared what particular weakness in Roger Temple he was hinting at. She had long since learnt to discount his moral judgments. “I wish you would speak plainly Edward, if there is anything I ought tc know,” she said a little stiffly. “Haven’t I spoken plainly enougf when I say he’s a bad hat?” he re

torted, and frowned at her moodily. “Are you afraid for Cicely?” she ventured. Cicely was their only child, a girl in her twentieth year, and inexpressibly dear to both her parents. “Well, perhaps I am,” he answered grudgingly, and naturally enough she did not believe him, for another of his idiosyncracies was never to tell the naked, unvarnished, straightforward truth, but only such portion of it as he judged expedient for her to know Still, she let it pass. “I will be careful about Cicely, and keep her as much as possible out of his way,” she said. “All right,” he said. “Yes, and it will only be for a day or two.” “He goes on Monday, I suppose?” Her allusion to the departure cf their guest who had not yet arrived seemed to cheer him. “Of course, of course, the first thing ou Monday—at least—well, oh,. of course, of course, the first thing on Monday. And hadn’t you better go and dres-s? He’s timed to arrive at seven.” She rose at once, and he proceeded her to the door and held it open with ceremonious politeness. “And don’t,” he called after her, “let anything I have said prejudice you against him. I want you to be especi ally nice to him, and make him feel lie’s -welcome.” She looked back at him and nodded, then went slowly and heavily upstairs, as if suddenly realising she was not as young and active as she used to be. Indeed, she had much to think about. Her husband had displayed every one of his worst failings during this brief dialogue—he had been in turn cheaply sarcastic, per;iriously thrifty, snobbish, and untruthful, and all within the space of ten minutes. And when that occurred she knew

by experience it was wise to prepare for a shock. CHAPTER lI.—THE SHOCK. Roger Temple arrived from London in his car shortly after seven, and responded to the superficially hearty welcome of his host and hostsesw ith the polite commonplaces appropriate to the occasion. He said how glad he w’as to be able to come, how pleased to met his friend Heming again after so many years, how charmed to make the acquaintance of Lady Elizabeth, and then he went to his room to prepare for dinner. He was a man of medium height, with a slim, wiry figure, and complexion remarkably clear and -white, and his age was somewhere in the early thirties. Without being handsome, he was good-looking in a rather distinguished way, his black hair enhancing very strikingfy extreme pallor of his countenance. He was clean-shaven, his mouth, nose, and chin being firm and fine. His eyes were a deep shade of brown, with exceptionally large and lustrous pupils, but in talking he had the trick of letting the lids droop so that their brilliancy was veiled, which misled those who did not know him well into thinking him dull, indolent, and lethargic, a natural mistake slowly but surely rectified when they got to know him better. His bearing was easy and un-self-conscious, his breeding undoubted, his manner at once friendly, quiet, and gay; yet the chief impression he made was one of mystery. His appearance intrigued you. You could not Recall ever having met a man of quite the same type. You wondered about him, and you were interested, but in no sinister sense. The mysterious element in him, whatever it was, you felt would prove to be eminently lovable if you should happen to discover it. “And where have you last come

from?” Lady Elizabeth asked him at the first pause in the conversation at dinner. ‘‘My husband tells me you are a great traveller.” She had taken to hi* almost at once. She liked his pleasant courtesy to herself, and his frankly eager interest in her husband and his career. Her foreboding in regard to a shook had passed. She was enjoying her dinner and the air of cheerful intimacy pervading the table. They were dining alone, she and he and her husband, and it happened just then that there were no servants | in the room. | “From Devonshire,” he answered. | and his eyelids drooped. She smiled at the unexpectedness ! of the reply, for she had been prepared for Tibet or Siam, or the Caucasus, the Albanian highlands or the Brazilian wilderness at least, but not for familiar, homely Devon. “What part of Devon?” she went on, pursuing her inquiries with zest. “I think I know every part. I was born

and bred and spent my girlhood in the county.” “Do you know Dartmoor, Lady Elizabeth?” "Oh, quite well. I have ridden all over it. The stag-hunting used to be excellent.” “I believe it is still very good," he said. “Were you there long?” “Very long,” he replied in the ordi- j nary intonation of his pleasantly modulated voice. “I came out of Dartmoor prison exactly a month ago. I having earned by exemplary behaviour a large reduction of my original sentence of ten years’ penal servi- S tude.” And Edward Conway-Heming just \ had time to gasp: “Good God! you’re joking,” when j the entrance of two servants compelled silence. “The ticket-of-leave system,” Temple continued casually, when the servants had again departed, “is one of the most humane provisions of our criminal code. It encourages a cheerful acceptance of one’s lot, it enables one to hope. I was always looking forward to the day of release and determined to win the fullest possible remission of my term. By keeping my mind fixed on what I would do when I was free to make up for the wasted years. I easily preserved my sanity. I should add,” he said, bending politely in the direction of his hostess, “I was falsely accused and wrongly condemned.” And then her sympathy went out to him; the tension of nerve and oppression of heart under which she had laboured since the shock of his confession relaxed.

“You poor man,” she murmured, “you poor man.” The bizarreness of his disclosure and his doubtful taste in making it were swept from her recollection, while his matter-of-fact assertion of innocence carried instant conviction to her mind. She was overwhelmed with pity for the long years of torment inflicted on the victim of a gross miscarriage of justice. “Oh, Edward,” she exclaimed involuntarily, “fancy if it had been you!” “My God! Roger,” he gasped. “I had no idea—” “No,” Roger Temple said iu his easy, unselfconscious way. “I took care that my misfortune should not be public property: I was tried and sentenced under an assumed name at the Assizes held in a little dead and alive I county town, where London reporters ; do not come, so that concealment was ; not very difficult.” “For what crime” she asked. "Murder,” he replied without a'ves- | tige of hesitation. “Murder,” she echoed lalntly, and i again the conversation was interrupted while the servants deftly went | about their work. (To be Continued)