A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9158, 4 August 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

CHAPTER lll.—Continued

Any one who had overheard this sjeech, and wno had at the same limn been able to Sie the faces of husband and wife, and to note well their appearance and manner, would have thought the poor man hardly used indeed by a cold, unsympathetic wife, who, qow that misfortune had fallen upon her husband, had nothing' but frowns for him and harsh, heartless silence. Even after his pathetic appeal to her feelings, Netelka Dax hesitated some moments before replying. When she spoke, her voice sounded harsh, although at time it was evident that ic was trying harJ to express more kindness than she felt. "I am very sorry for you, Linley," she said. "Very sorry indeed. It—it must have been as dreadful, dreadful time for you, as"- her voice shook —"as it has been forme." At this expression of sympathy, slightly lukewarm as it was, Linley gavi* another sob and, drawing neartr to her, thrust his hand through her arm and laid his head upon her shoulder. | "Oh, oh!" he moaned, "you don't know how dreadful it has been! To begin with, the drains of the place are 'all defective, I'm sure. The stuffiness was something awful. Then there was a rat or a mouse, or some-' thing, scrape, scrape, scraping all night in the wall, so that 1 couldn't get any sleep. And as for the eggs they gave me, why, Netta, they were dfeggreeubly musty, I'm sure! Ugh! It was a hole!" Netelka listened with staring eye 3. She had let Linley take her hand, and he was now occupied in unbuttoning j the long black gloves she wore, so that he might press his lips upon the delicate wrist underneath. | "Oh!" he exclaimed rapturously, not apparently heeding the fact that she was receiving his caress much as , a statue would have done, "you are so nice and warm! And I'm so cold. | Let mo put my hands in your muff, ! dear."

"Oh, ye 3!" ttimmered as she unhooked the thin black cord which held her muff and gave it quicKly to him. As she did s*o, si e glanced at nis face with a frightened expression. "Don't look at me like that, Netta!" cried he, in a gentle but aggrieved tone "What's the matter with you, You are changed; you are unkind to me! One would think you were sorry to have me back again!" "Oh, no, no!" exclaimed Netelka catching her breath. "Give me a Kiss, then, and say v you're sorry for treating me so badly. You seem.quite cold this evening; and you know the reason why I love you is that you are never cold, never in the sulks, like other women." Netelka let him kiss her; but this was not what he had asked for. "Kiss me, kiss me," he said imperiously, putting his arm round her, and drawing her passive form close tu his. "Why are you beha"ing like this, Netta? What have they been aaying to you? Have you lost all feeling for your poor old man jtut because he's down on his luck?" Netleka trembled. Turning sudden- ' ly toward him, transformed in one i moment from an icicle into a living, I breathing woman, palpitating with human passions, with terfuer, womai - ly hopas and fears, she seized his j arms, and holding them firmly, so! that he cuuld not move, she gazed j into his face with burning eyes. j "Linley, Linley," she exclaimed i in a hoarse whisper, "tell me about it. Tell n.e it isn't true. You know what I mean," she went on hurriedly, as ahe saw his lips open to frame the evasive little protest and exclamations with which ha wished to silence her. "Tell me how it happened, and that what they say —the dreadful things they say —are not true, not true!" she ended with a little shriek. Linley shook his head wearily fr» m side to side. j "Really, NeHa, I wish you wouldn't be £0 explosive!" cr.ed he, with a sigh. "What is it you want to Know? Say it right out and ha\e done with it. Did 1 kill the man? Is that what you mean?" I He spoke m a tone of almost chile'- I ish surprise and impatience, which j shocked Netelka and made her shud-1 der. It seemed to throw all the buiden of suspicion upon her own wicked mind. She dropped _his arm, and drew away from him. "Oh, Linley, don't!" si e whispered. But he persisted, bringing his face closd to hers, trying to meet her eyes, and drawing her hands again into his own affectionately. "Don't what? You are a sillv girl! I can't make you out at all. He e I h d been looking forward to meet g yoa again, "aying to myself that u wo ,Id ba til right waen I was om e bac< with you; that I shoulj forge all my troubles aid the down rigLt baastly time I've had. And ins ead ox that, insteaJ of that," repeated he, working himself up to a pitch of great self-pity, "you must g:> and be exolosiv nnd even wlw, ix it were any one but you, I shoul 1 call d wnright hard and unsympathetic." All this time his wife was looking at him fixedly, trying to disentangle* the impressions of sense and reason. She had argued the whole matter out with herself, brooding over it, turning it about in her mind, while he was]in prison. And the same conclusion, no matter from what point of view, she approached the terrible subject, had always forced itself upon her mind. Yet now that her husband was once more beside her, speaking to her in the old affectionate tones, caressing her as before with his effeminately white hands, begging her piteously to be kind to him, she began to believe that all her terrible deductions must/ have been wrong, and that her husband ini.^ht

By FLORENCE WARDEN,

Author of " The Lady in Black," "An Infamous Fraud," "For Love of Jack," "A Terrible Family," "The House on the Marsh," etc. etc.

be indeed the innocent man the law had just pronounced him to be. This view opened out to her so suddenly, so radiantly, that it turned her head and made her delirious with joy. Her husband saw, even while he was speaking in the sweetest tones of a peculiarly sweet voice his worjs of affectionate remonstrance into her ear, the revulsion of feeling that was coming. But even he was scarcely prepared for the absolute violence with which, when he ceased speaking, she flung herself upon him. "Oh, Linley, do forgive me, do forgive me!" she pleaded passionately. "I ought to be ashamed of myself; I am ashamed of myself; but—but it all seemed to fit in so horribly, what I knew and what they said, that—that I began to think began to be afraid " "Well, we won't talk about it!" interrupted Linley abruptly, shivering a little. But his wife's self-abasement was too great for her to be satisfied without some nearer approach than this to a "little scene." She felt that her atonement must equal in intensity the offence which had called it forth. , "Oh, but must tell you, must, and then we'll never speak of it again," she cried, plucking nervously at the sleeve of his coat, so that he presently gently put her hand away and smoothed the cloth to counteract the damage inflicted by her fingers. " Why not skip the stage of telling me, and come to that of never speaking of it again?" he asked with ,a dryness which in the midst of her excitement gave her a sudden chill. It was with a manner the exuberance of which, therefore, was slightly subdued that she said: "You must I know how it was, or else you will ! never be able to understand and forgive me." I "tfes, yes, I'll forgive you anything, if you'll only huld your tongue, | now and for ever, about the whole de- j I testable business,"' interrupted Linley in a snarling tone. "Do you t«hjnk I want to hear you go over the old ground again, after alM've heard of it the last two days—after the way I've had ic dinned into me, till I couldn't get any rest or any peace for thinking of it, and wondering what too dunderheads in the jury-box would brin? it in*;" Netelka's cheeks became paler, and her voice, as she answered, had lost its musical ring: "And you won't feel a secret grievance against me for believing for one moment that it was possible you might, in a fit of despair——" "My dear girl," broke in Linley again, and this time his tone-was decidedly harsh, "I don't care a jot what you do believe or what you don't believe, as long as you will let the subject drop once and for all. I tell you I'm s'ck of it. I don't want any explanation or apologies for thinkiagthis or that. I only want a little peace, I think you might be able to understand that, my dear," he went on less snappishly, as he noted a change in the expression of his wife's sensitive face. "How would you feel yourself under the circumstances? Put yourself in 'my place." "That's just what people have been suggesting that I ought to do," said Netelka quietly. "What do you mean?" , "That they say—it has been said, that — that— that—that the— thit what took place was all through me, all on my account." Linley listened to this* avowal with much interest. (To be continued.)