THREE MEN AND A MAID.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9043, 31 January 1908, Page 2

THREE MEN AND A MAID.

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CHAPTER X.—Continued. "As if I could help it," was the indignant reply. "Don't care whether you could help or not-you shouidn't,ycu shouldn't—l'll hate anJ curse you for it as long as ever I live." "Do try to speak more or less decently!" "jtfefoie a lady—-i 3 that it? Ah, we'll see about the lady as we go on. So you've been to the Vicarage? What was that about?" "Really, Hannah " F "About the ring? Was that it.' You are pretty full of that blessed ring. What did the Vicar have to say about it?" "How can you expect me to speak to you, Hannah, after hearing such dreadful words from your mouth?" •"Well, mover-mind.let's be friends, if you like. You should never have dared to touch my pocket, but stillJet's be friends. So what did the Vicar have to say about it?" "1 don't see how it concerns you. You seem to me to be growing more and more gross, though one would :have thought that your friendship with the new Squire would at least -tend to improve your manners." "Well, never mind about that. You ,had better be friendly when one is •willing to meat you half-way. I ■asked vou a question." "T.ie Vicar means to advertise for Mr Warren, since' you wish to iknow," said Marjorie. "Why?" "To find him and give him the "I see. But what good will that do?" ' "You won't understand. Mr War- . ren has certain noMons about the ring you s-3e, and we think that, if he once gets it back, He may be induced to come out of his hiding and tell everything as it happened." "I see," said Hannah; and she sat there museful a minute, two minutes, looking at the carpet. Then she sprang up, saying: "Well, I wish you luck, the whole crew of you," and went out humming. Marjorie hardly met Hannah again that day, except at table. She spent the afternoon writing letters to friends in London to distract the impatient pressure of her thoughts, and, after posting them, went to bed early with a weary brain. At once she fell asleep, and it was perhaps because of her utter exhaustion that at some time in the small hours of die morning she found herself awake. Her last waking thoughts had been about Inspector Winter and the ring, about the likelihood of a letter from the detective in the morning, and its probable contents. Hence, she dreamed of nothing but rings and inspectors, until the Inspector turned into the Squire, and the Squire, a dead man with power of movement, seemed to be tendering the ring to her with pitying looks. The dream was terrifying, nor did ics effect cease when she opened her eyes, for she had the unnerving consciousness of another presence with her in the room, and in the darkness within and without her she thought that this was Robert Cuurthope, who was trying ' his utmost to give her the ring, but for some reason or other lacked the power to do so. " Awake, but with her mind and senses still dominated by the dim emotions of the world of visions, there she lay, afraid of the impalpable, admitting the impossible, until on a sudden she heard a sound, something that itemed to strike against some other object, very faintly—a , thing that the ear would not have detected in the day-time, but in that .kingdom of the night was distinct She sat up in bed electrified, and . sharply cried out: "In any one there?" There was no answer. For a long time she sat listening, but without hearing any other noise than the beating of her hearr. Then she blamed herself for being fanciful, and tried to sleep again, but in vain, and she lay there wide eyed, until the light of dawn invaded the room. Her first hap in the morning was a letter from Inspector Winter, who had written: "Dear Miss Neyland,— "1 was very pleased to receive your note with its news about the finding of the ring, which, of course, is of no great importance in the case in which we are both concerned, and yet is an interesting little discovery in its way, making me feel disposed Xo agree with you that it was 'rather a mercy'you did not go away to London when I suggested, though if you •will now go, take nay word for it, you are likely to find London a more .suitable place than Hudston. But, With regard to this ring, I may confess to you that I am sufficiently interested in it to wish to examine it .at once if you will let me have it for a day or so, and as I have reasons for not wishing to leave Nutworth just at present, and as I do not care that you should send the ring through the post, P.C, Bates of Hudston will call upon you to morrow, at 11 a.m. You may give it to him with confidence, and he will bring it over here to me. Meantime, you are no doubt keeping it jn a psrfectly safe place, since you are aware, probably, that this is advisable. One other point. You like being busy, and there is something which you'ean do better than I or any of the police. I want you to take that soft fellow, Felix, to Lancault with you, and see if you can wake up in him, by association of ideas on the spot, a memory of the very place in which he picked up the ring, l wish to know at once, and P.C. Bates would fail in it by frightening the man out of what littb wit he has. Felix unquestionably found the ring on the morning after the tragedy, before any one else had seen the body, and if you take him there, and ques-

By ROBERT ERASER,

[Published By Special Arrangement.]

tion him gently, reminding him of wha* he saw that morning, perhaps his memory will awake and furnish details. I have to request of you the further favour to destroy this letter by fire, and to consider its contents confidential between you and me. With my best respects, "I am, yours faithfully, "C. E. WINTER." Marjorie thoroughly enjoyed the letter with its sly meanings and half confidences, and duly burned it. Then she sent out a stableman to secure Felix for her, eager to do quickly what lay in her to help on the good cause. But the messenger could not easily set eyes on Felix, and, when he did bring him, Marjorie saw that I she would not have time to go with him to Lancault and be back to give P.C. Bates the ring at eleven. She therefore ran down and told Felix to ' return to her later, since she would j have some money to give him then. Very shortly after this, P.C. Bates I arrived on a bicycle, and Marjorie, who from a window had seen him | coming, ran to get the ring. In her room she took her keys from her pocket, unlocked her work-box, and took out from its under-chamber, the ec-in in which she had placed the ring, stuck in a slit of velvet side by side with another ring of her own. for good company. But now, when she pressed the spring of the ecrin, and the lid flew back, there was her own ring quite safe, but the Warren ring was gone. Her eyes took in the fact, the truth gradually bit its torment into her brain, the tiny case dropped from her hand, and she stood in stone. Somehow she made her way down to the constable. She told him what had happened He spoke some words to her, but she hardly understood him. Several times she said wildly to him, "The ring is gone!" giving him the news afresh. She was conscious that when he could get no answers to the point from her, he leaped on to his bicycle and rode off in the direction of Nutworth. Some time afterwards she found herself sitting liko a diild at her aunt's knees, staring and sobbing. Her sister entered the room, and she sprang to her feet with something of animal quickness and ferocity. "Hannah," she almost screamed, "have you taken the ring?" "What ring are you talking about?" was the flippant answer. "Hannah," cried the half-frantic girl again, "have you stolen my ring?" ■"You had better mind what you are saying, hadn't you?" came the bitter retort. "You must think lam the same as you, going to other people's pockets in the dead of the night." Not another word passed between them. Breaking into a fresh outburst of tears, Marjorie was so overcome, so sunk in dejection, that she could hardly speak or lift her head. But she had work to do for Inspector Winter "at once," and, toward evening, she roused herself, and asked if Felix had come back, in the afternoon to her, as she had bid him. Felix, however, had not come, and she sent out some one !o seek him in the village. It was gettirg dark when her scout came back with the tidings that Felix could not be found, having apparently gone to a sale of farm stock at St. Brevels. Hearing this, she forced herself to rise from the sofa where she lay, and started out wearily on the road to St. Brevels, resolved to put off till to-morrow the duty that lay near her. She walked two miles, halfway to St. Brevels, and then had to sit down to res'; on a seat near a rock which the country people called the Devil's Chair. The high wind which swept over the moor had been blowing straight against her, and had added to her weariness. And there was no sign of the returning Felix. She was a long while sitting there, expecting the appearance of the idiot on the road. Like a deranged mechanism her brain kept on repeating to her a sentence which she seemed to have been hearing for a century: "The ring is gone -for ever this time; and you will never get it again." (To be continued.)