THE LADY IN BLACK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8431, 1 May 1907, Page 2

THE LADY IN BLACK.

By FLORENCE WARDEN. Author of "An Infamous Fraud," "A Terrible Family,'* (t For Love of Jack," "The Home on the Marsh," etc., etc.

CHAPTER Vl.—Continued.

"A rilation of Mrs Dale's, I suppose ?" "tfe-e-s, I suppose so, from the thi auc said. But, oh! has 19/er done anything to deserve such a J • L 'on u« that!" "Poor thing! No. But one can't help feeling curious." "1 can help it," cried Mabin stoutly. "I know these spiteful old women make mountains out of mole-hills, and I will never believe that it isn't a mole-hill in this case, after all." Rudolph looked at her curiously. "Do you know who it is that has taken your father's house?" he asked in a dry tone. "Yes, aMr Banks. He came this morning, as soon as papa and mama were out of the house." "And do you know anything about him? Is he a friend of your father's?" "No. He was looking for a furnished house down here, and heard that we wanted to let ours. It was all arranged through his lawyer and papa's. He is an invalid, I believe, come here for change of air. Why do you ask?" "Because I was in the lane between your garden and this just before I came hare, and I saw a man walking along the grass path, and recognized him as the man I found watching Mrs Dale a fortnight ago. There's a secret for you in return for yours." Mabin looked frightened. She remembered her own suspicions that the man who had presented himself as Mr Banks wag an imposter. "What was he like?" she asked. , "He was very thin and pale, and he looked like a gentleman. I could hardly tell whether he was old or young." "Perhaps," she faltered, "he isn't Mr Banks at all" Rudolph did not'answer immediately. Then he said slowly: "I wonder what he has come for?" Mabin stared at him stupidly. As they stood silent in the quiet garden, they both heard a slight rustling of the leaves, a cracking of the branched, near the wall which divided the garden from the lane.

CHAPTER VII. A STRANGE FANCY. "What was that?" asked Mabin, with a shiver. She and Rudolph had both 4 turned instinctively toward the spot from which the rustling noise had come. "A cat, most likely," answered Rudolph. But Mabin shook her head. . "I saw something," whispered she. "It was not a cat, it was not an animal at all; it was a man I" Perhaps Rudolph had his suspicions, for he expressed no surprise. Before he could answer her, they heard the crackling and rustling again, but at a little distance. The intruder was making his way through the shrubbery./ "Won't you find out who it is?" whispered the girl again. Rudolph hesitated. "Perhaps I know," said he shortly. "But if you wish, of course, I can make sure." Then, with evident reluctance, and taking no pains to go noiselessly, he followed the intruder through the bushes, and wa3 in time to catch a glimpse of him as he disappeared Oveif a part 6f the fence that was in ;a broken-down condition. Rudolph ,did not attempt to continue his pursuit, but contented himself with waiting until he heard the side gate in the garden wall of "Stone House*' / swing back into its place with a loud, creaking: noise. Then he went back to Mabin. She was standing where he had left her, on the broad gravel path under the faded laburnum. The shadows were very deep under the. trees by this time, and in the half-light her young face with its small delicate features, its dreamy, thoughtful . eyes, full of the wonder expressed by the very young, looked so pretty that for the moment Rudolph forgot the errand on which he had been sent, and approached her with no thought of anything but the .beauty and the sweetness of her face. She, all unconscious of this, woke him into recollection with one abrupt word: "Well?" "Oh!" almost stammered he, "it was as I thought, the same . person that I saw watching before." "And he went into our garden. I heard the gate," said Mabin, with excitement. "It must be this Mr Banks. Oh, who do you think he is? What do you think he has come for?" Rudolph was silent. Even to the least curious mind, the circumstances surrounding both him and Mrs Dale could not seem other than mysterious. If he were a detective, and he certainly did not look like one, surely not go to work in this extravagant manner,, by renting a large ' and expensive house merely for the purpose of watching his next-door neighbour. Neither, it might be supposed, would he set to work in such a clumsy fashion as to be caught making his investigations at the very outset. Rudolph felt that the whole ' affair was a mystery to which he could not pretend to have the shadow of a clue. He confessed this to Mabin. "I wish," he went on in a gentle tone, "that I had known something of this before your father went away." "Why?" asked Mabin, in surprise, and with something like revolt in her tone. "Because I should have told him something, just enough, at any rate, to have made him take you away with him."' ~

Mabin was for a moment dumb witn surprise. "What," she stammered at last, "after all your talk about my being right to stand by my friend:" "Even after all that," assented Rudolph, with decision. "The matter is getting too serious." he went on gravely. "I am afraid myself of What may be gjing to hippen." "Then," retorted the girl, "for all your talk about meanness being excusable in a girl, I can be a better friend than you." Rudolph smiled. "Ah," said he, "you forget that with you it is only a question of your friendship for Mrs Dale. Now, I have to think of both of you." "You need not trouble yourself about me, I assure you." "But that is just what I must do, madam, even at the risk of your eternal displeasure,", said Rudolph, with a mock-heroic air which concealed real anxiety. '"You are not only daring enough, -you are too daring where your heart is concerned, and it is the business of your friends to see that you do not suffer for your generosity." He spoke with so much quiet decision that Mabin was impressed and rather frightened, and it was with a sudden drop from haughtiness to meekness that she then asked: "What are you going to do, then?" Rudolph hesitated. "What I should like to do," said he, "is to take you to my mother's "

k Mabin almost screamed. "You won't do that," she said quietly, with her lips tightly closed. "She would be very kind to you." suggested Rudolph gently, pleadingl 2 He knew the prospect was not an enticing one, but he was not so quick as the girl to see all its disadvantages. "And don't you see that it would set them all sa> ing the most dreadful things about poor Mrs Dale, if I were to leave her suddenly, like that? I shouldn't .think of such a thing. It would be cruel as well as cowardly. She would never be able to stay in Stone after that." "I don't think she will be able to stay, in any case," said Rudolph gloomily. "If she is persecuted by this spy, on the one hand, and by the old woman, on the other, it isn't likely that she will be able to stay here long." A new idea flashed suddenly into, Mabin's mind, and then quickly found expression :■ "Do you suppose," she asked, "that this man, this Mr Banks, is paid by the old lady to spy upon Mrs Dale? The old lady must be very rich, I think, and she is evidently eccentric."

But Rudolph was inclined to think this idea far-fetched. From what he had seen of the mysterious spy, he had come to quite another conclusion, one that at present he did not care to communicate to Mabin, for fear of alarming her unneccessarily. "Of course, ; it.is' possible that the man may be a paid detective," admitted he doubtfully, "but there was nothing of the cut of the ex-detective about your Mr Banks. And now," went on Rudolph, who found Mabin herself a more interesting mystery than the unknown man, "let us forget all about him for a little while, and go up to the old seat where the trees leave off, before it gets too, dark for us to sea. You remember the old seat, and how we used to trespass to get at it, don't you?" Mabin blushed a little. She remembered i the old seat very well; an old, broken-down bench, supported on the stumps of a couple of felled trees, just on the edge of the plantation belonging to The Towers. Being conveniently near both to "Stone House," and the vicarage the children of both houses had established, in those faroff years which Rudolph was recalling, a right to tread down the old fence at that particular point, and to hold wonderful picnics, the edibles of which were butter-scotch and sour apples. "We won't go up there now," said she, with a sudden demureness which contrasted strongly with the eagerness she had shown while discussing I the persecution of Mrs Dale. "It's getting dark, and rather cold, I think; besides, I hope by this time that Mrs Dale may be ready to see us again." Rudolph felt snubbed. .The girl's manner was so precise, so stiff, that it was impossible for him to understand that her sudden primness was only a relapse into her ferocious girlish modesty. He followed her without a word toward the house, and there, just inside the portico, they saw the slight figure in black looking like a pathetic vision in the gloaming, with its white, tearstained face and slender little jewelled hands. } (To be Continued.)