For Her Sister's Sake; OR, THE LAVENDEN SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8322, 2 January 1907, Page 2

For Her Sister's Sake; OR, THE LAVENDEN SECRET.

£7' CHAPTER IV. % "That's Boysie," she said; "he always wakes when he hears you. Be quiet, and I'll try and get him asleep again.'' She went out of the kitchen and up a winding flight of stairs. The man at the table looked about for a newspaper, and, tearing bits off, padded the larger ornaments as he rolled up the shining hoard in Tilda's apron. He stopped to pick out a single-stone ring—a broad gold band set with a large sapphire.

"That's a beauty," he exclaimed thoughtfully. "H'm!" said another voice, "and Peter Crimple's not a bad judge, eb ? "

The cab-driver's thick fingers closed over the ring, and, whipping the apron up to hide the rest of the jewels, he turned, with a half-blank, half-insolent expression on his large red face.

At the door of the kitchen stood a man in a derby hat and a dark overcoat. He had his "hands in the pockets of the latter, holding it together, for it was unbuttoned. Yet it gaped sufficiently to show that he wore unexceptionable evening dress. "Oh! it's- you, Jim Garth," remarked the cab-driver sulkily; "and what do you mean by walking into my house without so much as 'By your leave'? There's a front door, I suppose?" "I suppose there is, Crimple," he was told, "but I have a weakness for back doors. They enable one both to observe and to evade observation —an admirable combination of advantages. But, as for Jim Garth, he is. you will have the goodness to recollect, dead, and James Garside has taken his place. Not that you need to make too free with my new name; I desire to 'have exclusively aristocratic connections."

He strolled up to the resentful Crimple and tapped him on the shoulder.

"My dear Crimple," he said, "so this is what your reformation comes to? You had turned over a new leaf, you had bidden farewell to the dangerous profession of a 'fence,' you had settled down to earn an honest living—the shady little pawnbroker had become the honest cabman! Let me see the sparkler."

He held out his hand. With a growl Peter Crimple surrendered the ring. The other inspected it. "Not bad," he decided; "plenty of fire, but a trifle pale." He threw it down and faced his companion. "Now, my friend," he said, "you see the value of a preference for back doors. By my coming round this way unexpectedly, I have placed myself in a position to negotiate with you on a basis of mutual interest. When I reintroduced myself to you the other day, and suggested that you should advance me a sum of money for a little scheme I have in hand —guaranteed interest cent, per cent. —you refused. You will not refuse now, I think." ■ Peter Crimple's deep, unshaven jaw set in an ugly scqwl. "Won't I?" he retorted. "You daren't squeal on me; you're wanted yourself."

James Garth laughed. "I believe I am," he owned; "but that, won't lighten your ten years' imprisonment much. You've slipped through the hands of the police too often not to get that sentence the very first time they do get you fixed up." "You won't squeal on me," insisted Peter Crimple; "it wouldn't pay you, and you know it."°

"Don't be too sure," he was told. "I've a great scheme on, and it will put money enough in my purse some day. But I'm not going to pluck the grapes before they're ripe. I'm not going to pose as a vulgar blackmailer if I can help it. So in the meantime you must find me some cash, Peter. If you arc obdurate, Peter, my scheme may fail, and I should be a very angry man. Don't make me angry, Peter; that was David's mistake, and to-day he is in—" James Garth altered his uncompleted sentence with a quick, questioning glance at Peter Crimple. "You know what happened to him," he said. Peter Crimple's scowl grew, and he raised a clenched list. It dropped again; Tilda was entering the kitchen. In her arms she carried a smiling, night-gowned child of some two years old. "Naughty Boysie," she observed explanatorily; "he won't go to sleep without seeing his grandpa." She stopped, awakening to the presence of the visitor. "Hello! Jim Garth," she said. "Haven't we seen the last of your ugly face?"

"Mr James Garside" gritted his powerful teeth. "Oh! take the brat away," he exclaimed, "and yourself, too. We're talking business, and I'm in a hurry." Matilda Crimple kissed the soft cheek of the child in her arms. He was a bright, bold boy, with short fair curls and starry blue eyes. "Look at your uncle Jim, Boysie," she said; "he's a model for you to copy, I don't think!"

James Garth turned sharply. "What's that you say?" he demanded. Tilda tossed her head. "Take a good look at him, Boysie," she pursued, "so you'll know him again. He sent your dad to Dartmoor prison, and saved his own useless hide by doing it. He's a beauty, isn't he? For two pins I'd inform j_on him myself!"

The visitor, disregarding her stinging sentences, bent to gaze into the child's face.

''David's!" ejaculated James Garth; "so it was to you he brought it." "Aye," said Peter Crimple, "ia was, Jim Garth, and I swore to be t good friend to it. For he was a

By R. Merman Silver, /.i of * S A Double Mask," "A Daughter of Mystery," "Held Apart," "The Golden Dwarf," etc.

["For Her Sister's Sake " was commenced on December 20th.]

brave lad, and an honest one, till you made him a criminal, and pull the chestnuts out of the fire for you. If I'd been him, I'd have split on you instead of holding my tongue. But the child is his, for all it calls me grandpa.'' He took the boy into his own arms and folded him there with a kind of rough tenderness. "Let us be, Jim Garth," he added; "we want nothing to do with you. You're no mascot for anybody, whether they're shady or on the square. And if Ido a bit of unlawful work now and again, it's for a good object. Tilda and I are going to have a little house in the country one of these days, when we've enough put by, and we're going to send Boysie to a good school and make a gentleman of him. Aren't we, Boysie?" The child nodded, and clasped his tiny arms round the elder man's neck.

James Garth grinned unpleasantly. "Very well, Crimple," he remarked; "if I can't hit you one way, I will another. You seem pretty sweet on the kid, since you're laying plans for a blameless future with it and Tilda. Well, I know some one who has a better right to him than you, and that's his mother. You thwart me, and I'll have the kid taken from you." [To be Continued.]