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

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8324, 4 January 1907, Page 2

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

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

CHAPTER IV. An abyss of horror swallowed up Winifred Lavenden. She could not think, yet she knew herself innocent in intent of the man's death, She had not meant to fire, only to overawe him, to get the certificate and aid Julia.

A bit of the certificate was in her hand, retained by the clut>ph of her unconscious fingers. She looked at it; it was the part that contained the names —"Julia Lavenden and David Garth." She crumpled it up in her palm —and shuddered at the noise it made in the silent place. The revolver lay at her feet; she picked it up and rose totteringly. An instinct of self-preservation was asserting itself in her. She staggered to the electric lights and extinguished them. A gleam from the exterior light on the staircase came under the door of the flat, showing her its whereabouts. She stood awhile by it; trying to steady her nerves. Finally she put out her hand towards the door-knob. Even as she did so the light under the door was obscured and the bell rang. Some one was seeking admission.

Winifred Lavenden reeled back from the door, shrinking into the darkest corner of the little central passage of the, flat. Another gleam of light attracted her attention. It came from a small glazed slit in the wall next to the staircase. It was a spy-hofe by which to observe callers—through it she could see the doorway of the flat.

Winifred looked, then stood trembling. At the entrance of the flat stood a figure in the blue coat and trim bonnet of a hospital nurse —a figure muffled in a fleecy woollen wrap. For a moment Winnie cowered in the little, dark corridor, straining her eyes to see through the narrow peephole. She could not move, she could scarcely think. Both body and soul seemed paralyzed. The subdued murmur of midnight London caine to her from below. The rattle of omnibuses, the roll of carriage wheels, the beat of swift hoofs, spoke to her of its restless toilers and still more restless pleasure-seekers. And clear against that far-off' murmur she could hear the pulsing of her own heart; she felt that its corivulsive throbbing would even reach the ears of that cloaked figure on the dimly lighted landing outside the closed door of the flat. Suddenly the figure moved again, and another summons from the electric bell sounded imperiously in the darkness. Winifred Lavenden shrank from it, as one shrinks from a blow. What was she to do? That door alone stood between her and discovery—discovery of the awful tragedy which fate had brought about with such terrible completeness. Only its wooden frame separated James Garth from his belated visitor. And James Garth, alias James Garside, lay still and straight in that inner room, his evil career ended, the craftiest scheme of his crafty life brought to naught at its most promising'juncture. Once more the muffled figure rang, loudly, persistently. Winnie started back from the peep-hole, fearful lest some chance ray stealing through the narrow pane from the single light should reveal her to the caller's gaze. In moving she gained the extremity of the passage; her hand fell upon a knob, and she was conscious that a cool current of air fanned her burning cheeks. Her heart leaped. Was there, then, a second entrance to the fiat? She groped about with trembling fingers. It was, indeed, a door by which slie had paused, a door in- • tended, no doubt, for the convenience of the staff of servants usually attached to a collection of smart bachelor flats, and having a springlock high up on the frame. Winnie tried the lock; it yielded noiselessly. She drew it ajar the merest fraction and peered out. All beyond was dark., Pulling about her the long tailor-made coat with which she had covered her evening gown, she picked up her skirts under it, that they might not rustle, and glided away down the dusky upon which she had opened. , At a sharp turn in it she recoiled. It led to. the small landing where stoofl the impatient figure in the nurse's uniform. Unwittingly she had come within a few feet of it. She crept back, following the passage in the reverse direction. It brought her ( to another corridor, by which, gliding past door after door of other flats, she gained the main staircase of the building and descended it to the hall. There had been a porter there ' when she entered, but he ,was gone, and the great hall doors were closed. Winnie opened them hastily and slipped through. A moment more and she had escaped from the St. James quarter, and, crossing Piccadilly, plunged into the quiet of Mayfair. Shunning the principal thoroughfares, she took a j series of short cuts through almost ( deserted by-ways that led her nearer i and nearer to Park Lane.- | When she reached her destination, | the neighbourhood of the low door at ( the rear of Lavenden 4 House, her | pulses were beating less feverishly. | But a curious dizziness hung about, her, the remains of the profound swoon which had overtaken her in the flat, and from which she had awak-; ened to find her own and her sister's ■ enemy dead at her feet. I The gallery of Lavenden House I was still illuminated, and a carriage i or two waited outside the porticoed j doorway in Audley Street. The last

[To be Continued.]

By R. Norman Silver, J . of "A Double Mask," "A Daughter of Mystery "Held Apart," "The Golden Diuarf," etc.

of her"chaperon's guests had not yet departed. Winnie lingered in a friendly patch of shadow until, for an instant, Park Lane seemed empty save for herself. Then she darted in at the small door whence, earlier in the evening, she had emerged. Picking her way through the paved courtyard, among the clipped laurels and box-trees that screened the French windows of the library, she felt for the one that she had left undone. A hinge scraped slightly, and Winifred Lavenden was back again in Lavenden House. 1

As she entered, she took off her long coat, and hat, and stood a minute, a tall, white-robed figure, pale to the lips, her gray eyes set strangely under the raven tresses that had fallen over her brow and temples. In the vague glimmer of the street lamp that lit the panes of the window by which she had gained admission she looked as if she were walking in her sleep. Prom the library door she reconnoitered the stately staircase beyond. It proved to be deserted and she fled up it, carrying the coat and hat that she had worn. Unobserved, she reached her own room, and, without touching the electric switches near the door, hastened in the darkness to restore her outdoor garments to their place. Then, and not till then, did she turn on the lights. Something dropped from her hand as she did so —something that she had held clutched tightly in one soft palm since the moment she had attempted to achieve the purpose of her visit to James Garth's rooms.

It was a torn and crumpled piece of paper—part of the marriage certificate that had given him his power over Julia and her. The other part must be in his hand, that hand which by now had closed upon it with the indomitable cluth of the dead.

The portion in her own hand set forth the date of the marriage between David Garth and Julia Lavenden, their ages, their and that they were respectively bachelor and maid.

Their addresses followed, and the torn certificate ended in a ragged edge, that cut transversely through that of Julia Lavenden, leaving it incomplete. Apparently about a third of the document was missing.

Winnie shuddered as she realized its whereabouts, and the dread thought that it might serve as a clue to link the dead man to the living Lavendens made her turn sick and faint.

She tried to remember what would be on the missing portion of the certificate, but her efforts were in vain. So violently had she begun to tremble that she could not stand. She sank unsteadily into a chair. The grimmest shadow the law can cast had fallen across her young life. The torn marriage certificate shook in her fingers; they had become cold and nerveless.