"THE WEB."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8861, 22 October 1907, Page 2

"THE WEB."

CHAPTER Xll.—Continued. Tin porter, ticket collector and pointsman, all of which harmless necessary functionaries were incorporated in one broad-ftced son of the moor with a perfect knowledge of every detail concerning the movements and family history of every resident in the locality, clearly remembered issuing a ticket to on*; of the visitors at "The Gappe," who had caught the early morning train to the junction just in' time to get-the | London express. There could be no doubt about the identity of the lady. She was the good man's only passenger. They seldom had a passenger there so early, and the train stopped on purpose. She wanted to know all about when the train arrive 1 in town: he remembered "what a time she hat' of it wi' this gentleman on 't day o't accident." . Beeton blushed at the ingenious reference to himself, and was about to put some further question? when Strangways, in a tone of satisfaction, cut in—"Well, that's all right, Hobbs. We were afraid she might have missed it."

"You see, Miss Rentoul was right," he added, turning to Beeton and speaking in the same easy tone. "1 am rather glad now that I did not insist on having one of the motors out, for now I shall have the satisfaction of seeing you pay that bet when we all-meet in town again." Theodore Beeton was a candid man with his heart on his sleeve, but he was net born yesterday, and he realized at once what John'Strangways was after.

"Well, I suppose I shall have to admit," he said, "that the young lady had a better estimate of hdr own speed that I had, and I don't know whether we have quite played the game fairly by motoring up here for evidence. You remember it was distinctly understood that nobody was to come with her or follow her, and we really ought to have taken her word for it when she wired us from London, as she doubtless will on her arrival."

"Oh well, there's no harm done," replied his host; "besides you know the real point was that she must waken of her own accord, and set out in time to catch that particular train at this particular station without rousing the household. . She might have overslept herself, and got a conveyance from one of the farms on the way." "She arrived on' foot, I presume, Hobbs?" he added, turning to the railway official as though the conversation up to now had not been intended for him.

"Yes, sir, she walked right up to the path to the station, and she was walking all the way before she got here. I watched her myself o'er a mile away,"—"and a gran* high steppin' lass she -is," he added, half to himself, as he fumbled a halfcrown awkwardly from Beeton's outstretched fingers into his own pocket. "Well, you bucolic Britishers are not quite so simple as you look," said Beeton, as the motor car drew off a few hundred yards down the straight towards the moor, "and it seems to me that you have about struck the right course, though I

am afraid it's a bit too late, now that the whole household has been set off on another tack."

"Oh, never fear. We have planted a grain of mustarc 1 seed at the station that will grow into a tree huge enough to overshadow the four ridings of Yorkshire. The genial Hobbs will be at the first country inn the moment he is relieved of duty, and wherever our servants, send forth their version of the affair, there will be the counter story of the conversation overheard by the station porter between the two gentlemen when they were talking to one another; and our friend Hobbs will be the hero of the countryside when he mysteriously adds that 'they didnt'"know he were listening, but he couldn't, help hearing what they said, although he did step away a bit, so as not to be pushing his nose into other people's business." "Yes, that's all very well up to a point, but it doesn't carry us a great deal further. What do you think of i\V "Well, I don't' know what to think." , Beeton looked round swiftly at his companion, whose eyes were fixed on the road before him. The tone in which he made this commonplace remark was not to the American's liking. Strangways had brought his lips together with a tightness that indicated a desire to drop the subject. He held firmly on to the guiding wheel of the motor car, and stfll ■looked stra ; ght ahead. Beeton drew in a short breath, and was about to say something hastily, but he pulled his overcoat around him and settled himself back in the seat, while his companion still leaning forward look; -\ intently and obsti/iately before hin . The two men sat in gloomy silei.j; as the car whirled along the rougii road. Not till they were within a few hundred yards of the house did either of them speak.

"Are we to try the bet story on the Duchess," asked Beeton abruptly. "We shall have to tel! it broadcast, if only for the servants," replied Strangways; "whether everybody will believe it or not, I can't undertake to say." ;: Throwing aside the motor apron, they both laughed boisterou-ly at the anxious group assembled in the hall. "It was really too bad to carry it so far, Beeton. You must give me permission to tell them," said Strangways. Beeton made a pretence of protestnig, but Strangways shook his head.

PAUL URQUHART.

[Published B\* Special Arrangement.] [All Rights Reserved.]

"I really cannot allow our friends to be kept in suspense any longer. I should not be doing my duty to them if'l did. And now that you have lost your bet, you may as well oAfn up. Hds any telegram arrived for me vet?" He turned to one of the servants as he asked this question, and Beeton cut in—"No, it would be too early alto gether. She cannot have arrived by this time, and you know the understanding was that she was to go to London without let or hindrance. You are quite right, I may as well own up. I didn't think she could get out so quietly, and I didn't think she could wake up early enough without being called. Although I ■ quite agreed with her that your phlegmatic retainers would be I frightened out of their wits." "You must admit you incited them with your pretence of sound and fury. Your career certainly ought to have been on the stage. You musn't spoil the thing, however, by overdoing it. Miss Rentoul has crossed the moor by herself caught the train, and gone to London, and there's an end to the matter; and now let me get away and have a wash; I am dying for some lunch." j "1 see it all now. These two have been accepting 'a challenge of Miss Rentoul's that she could walk over the moor by herself, find her way to the station, and get to London without anybody here being the wiser. What an original girl she is!" Esther Elcters said this with such a ring of sincerity that Lady Violet readily acquiesced. "It is really very funny that we should all havs been thrown into such consternaton. It is one of the quaintest jokes I have heard for a long time. Don't you think it is simply splendid, 'mother?" The Duchess arched her brows and moved away without a word. She had been examining the two men care- I fully through her lorgnettes. In his own room, Theodore Beeton sat on a corner of the bed in blank despair. The evidence of the porter had disposed of the theory of violence. Wherever she had gone she had gone willingly, and fiat was the maddening part of it. She had left "The Gappe" to escape him. ; Their quarrel had deepened until it had killed all her love for him. ' Either she had simply <?rown tired ' of him, or it was quite possible she 1 had, grown to hate him. He knew her strong will, her passionate enthu--1 siasm in everything. There was no middle course with her; she-either loved him with her whole soul, or 1 she loathed him unutterably and remorselessly. With a lover's natural conceited selfishness he only thought of the incident in so far as it might affect himself. It did not occur to him that there could be any other reason for her sudden flight. And as he brooded, another tormenting thought suggested itself. Strangways had shown an uncommonly keen desire to excuse her. Doubtless he connived at her hasty departure in order to get her away from his influence. It ! was a wicked, low-down plot. He 1 remembered now that the fellow had not been in the slightest degree alarmed from the very first, and had drawn him cunningly into those white lies about the bet. What a fool he had been to have anything to do with the deception. He wqulo go downstairs and have it out with Strangways at once. Full of this idea, he rushed to the I door in his shirt sleeves, and suddenly remembered that he might just as well face his rival with the dust washed out of his eyes. The cold water had a soothing effect, and he sat down again to think before setting out to unmask the villainy of his host. Thought led to reason, and reason to altered determination. He would not go. Ho would stand by and watch. Where others were so cunning, he must be cute also. When the two men met at an early lunch, therefore, they were in a state of armed peace, with the I Duchess narrowly watching every I movement of both of them.

Strangways did his best-to avoid the Duchess, and to his satisfaction he found she was in no mood to ac • company him in a short stroll through his famous rose garden. His satisfaction, however, was very considerably qualified when she also insisted that Violet should stop at home with her. Miss Elders'volunteered to come with him, and, as he expected, Beeton declined, although the latter half wished afterwards that he had not decided to stop at home. The Duchess commandeered his services, and he found himself unable even to brood in delicious misery over his base betrayal b> Strangways and the unspeakable cruelty of Miss Rentoul. He exhausted every other topic his aching brain could create in * fruitless effort to keep the Duchess fiom chattering about the incident of the early morning, but as he found his ideas growing fewer and fewer and his capacity for inventing small talk becoming less and less, he at length settled himself down in despair as he saw the Shrewd matron preparing herself for a searching cross-examin-ation, conducted with such refined taste that he was drawn into a virtual confession that the manner and method of Miss Rentoul's departrre were "suspicious." (To be Continued).