THE LADY IN BLACK.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8435, 6 May 1907, Page 2

THE LADY IN BLACK.

By FLORENCE WARESN. Author of "An Infamous Fraud/ %t A Terrible Family,* "For Love of Jack," "Jhe House on the Martih," etc., etc.

CHA?r3R VIII.-Continued. He had to admire the courage she showed in undertaking a task which was- as she expressed it, "rather shuddery," but when he left her aj; the gate of "The Towers," she was . still steadfast in her intention. It was not until'after dinner that evening that Mrs Dale introduced , the young girl to the apartment she was to'occupy that night. Mabin was , astonished at it 3 dinginess, its gloominess, contrasting so strongly as they did with the fresh prettiness of the room which had been prepared for herself. ■ It was, a large, square room, with a mouldy,old-faahioned wall-paper, on which unnatural pink roses climbed up a succession of thin hop-poles. The pictures were groups of trees, done with the pencil in the early Victorian manner, and stiff bouquets* in water-colour, of conventional early Victorian flowers. The bed, which wa3 hung with green curtains, occupied an undue space; and Mabin felt > that, in the weird circumstances of hsr tenancy of the room, she would have died rather than sleep in that funeral erection. When Mrs Dale had kissed her and bade her good-night, after receiving Mabin'a assurance that she did not feel in the least nervous, the young girl felt a strong inclination to follow her friend out of the room, and to implore her to find her some other sleeping-place. By a valiant effort, however, she conquered this weakness, and made a careful survey of her surroundings. In the first place, the windows and their fastenings, had to be examined. They were carefully secured, and were both so high above the ground that it would have been impossible for an intruder to reach them without a ladder. There were three doors; and at first Mabin was inclined to regard this as a disquieting circumstance. But on finding that two of them were Unused, locked, and without a key, and that there was a bolt on the door by which she had entered, she began to feel more at ease. : Exchanging her frock for a dress-ing-gown,, and providing herself with a book, she placed herself in an armchair, which stood near the fireplace, which, although shabby, was sufficiently comfortable, and, putting her candles on a small table beside her, settled herself to read. Her book . was a novel of an excellent type* not too clever to be charmnig, not so commonplace as to be dull. Much to her own surprise, she soon becatrie interested, and forgot, or almost forgot, the vague fears which kept her in the armchair, instead cf in bad. She was in the v very heart of the book, and her candles had burned low in their sockets, when a sound, a very slight sound, behind her back, caused the blood almost to freeze in her veins. It was a soft, stealthy tread. ■ Looking round, half-paralyzed with terror, she saw that the door was ajar, and that, creeping softly 1 round toward the inside handle, was the long, thin hand of a man! ■ *> CHAPTER IX. A PICTURE. In the ordinary course of'things, it would have been natural for Mabin to conclude, on seeing a man's hand inside her door in the middle of the , night, that the intruder was a burglar. But her mind had been rendered more clear, her perceptions more acute, by the stimulating mystery which she had been for the past two; days trying to solve. Instead, therefore, of screaming, or stratching out her hand to the oldfashioned bell-rope which hung by the fireside at a little distance from her right hand, she waited, watched and listened. Apparently, she had unconsciously made some slight noise as she turned in her chair to look behind her, for the intruder, whoever he was, instead of entering, waited and listened also. There was a pause and then the hand which had crept so stealthily round the door was slowly and quietly withdrawn. Mabin, fascinated, watched the long, bloodless fingers as they gradually disappeared from her sight; and was sufficiently self-pos-sessed to observe that' the hand was that of a gentleman or , a person unused to rough work. And upon the discovery there sprang up in her mind a strong curiosity to see the face of the intruder. Even while she felt the last remains of fear give place to courage ■ and vivid interest, Mabin, with' her wits all sharpened with excitement, wondered at. the change in herself. She sprang lightly to her feet, and, with the intention of taking him by surprise, ran lightly round on the tips of her toes towards the door. , But the candles flickering in the draft caused by her light hanging sleeves, caused the shadows on the dingy rose-covered wall to dance and • quiver. The mysterious visitor, as much on the alert as the girl was, closed the door softly between her and himself. Mabin, however, sprang forward and seized the door-handle. She heard the sound of rapid footsteps on the other side, and for one moment she hesitated to go in pursuit. With the clearness of intellect, which belongs to the night when there are no sounds of busy life, no distractions of bright light and vivid colour to divert the attention, she saw both the dangers on the one hand, the attractions on the other, of a deeper dive into the mystery which surrounded her. For a few seconds the impulses struggled against each other, and then curiosity and youthful daring carried the day.

Throwing open the door, which had not been relocked, and in which there was no key, Mabin, considering this circumstance as she went, dashed through in pursuit. It was indeed a daring thing to do, for she was not even mistress of the topography of the house. The room in which she now found herself she had never been in before, and the inly light to guide her footsteps came through the window and was obscuredjjby a yellow-white blind. It was by this light that Mabin knew that the dawn had come, and the knowledge gave her more courage. She could follow the intruder with greater security now that she knew that, if she chased him to the place where he had entered the house, she would see his face in the daylight. ~ , As she entered the room the man was in the act of opening a door on the left which led into the corridor, Mabin saw him for a moment against the brighter light, which came through the windows on the east side of the house; and then this door closed between her and him as the other had done. i By the time she had got into the corridor in her turn she saw the man disapppear down the stairs at the end. . She followed still. He reached the hall; he went down the four steps to the drawing-room, through the doorway of which he again passed out of her sight. In the midst of the excitement which hurried her on to the drawingroom door the young girl felt a chill in her blood as she remembered Mrs Dale's description of the gloom of the deserted apartment. She had described it as "a damp and mouldy mausoleum." Mabin would have avoided the room if she could. The meeting with her mysterious visitor would be more uncanny there than in the warmer,|more habitable parts of the house. But she went on. Dashing into the room with impetuousity all the greater for her vague fears, Mabin. found herself in a very long, ;-wide, low-ceilinged room, the roof of which was supported by two rows of pillars, and the air of which struck a chill into her. There were three large windows, two on the right hand, and one at the end of the room, in front of her. Above the shutters' of those on her •right the gray rays of the morning were-creeping, making the marble of the heavy old mantel look livid, and showing the stains of damp on the white-and-gold, wall-paper. This,was all that the girl had time to notice when suddenly the shutters of the window at the end of the room were thrown back with a clatter of wood and a clang of iron, and she saw the green of the trees outside and the man of whom she was in pursuit | standing 1 in the opening he had made. And then she saw that the French window was open, and knew that this was the way by which he had entered the house. The word "Stop!" was on her lips when, suddenly, he seemed to stagger, and she heard him gasp and j struggle for his breach. Surely this was no burglar, this man with the thin whitei hands, who could not run a distance of a hundred yards without inconvenience. She tumbled over a footstool, and as she drew herself up again, she saw that she was alone in the room. .. Running lightly and.quickly to the window, she looked out; into the garden; The fresh morning breoze blew the open window against the wooden shutter with a loud crash. At the .same moment she caught sight of the | figure of which she 'had been in pur- I suit so long under the trees, to the right. At the noise of the crashing window the man turned [quickly round, and in he pale light of the dawn Mabin saw his face distinctly. In a moment the last trace of fear of him which had lingered in her heart disappeared. Almost as pale as a mask of the dead, the face she saw was that of a .man on whom every form of suffering seemed to have left its mark. The hollow eyes were full of unspeakable sadness; the deep lines about the mouth were those of illness and sorrow rather, than of age; while even the thick sprinkling of gray hairs among the brown which Mabin detected in the cold light of the morning told the same tale of weight of grief rather than of years. All these things the girl's quick young eyes saw in one „ brief look. Then, instinctively, she took a step forward into the garden, with some vague intention of asking him a question. But thefmoment she moved he turned; and, disappearing from her sight behind the trees and shrubs which grew between the lawn and the spot where she stood, he left her in a state of surprise and bewilderment, from which it took her some to recover. (To be Continued.)