A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9160, 6 August 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

By FLORENCE WARDEN. Author of " The Lady In Black," "An Infamous Fraud," "I'or Love of Jack, "A Terrible Family," "The House on the Marsh," etc. etc.

CHAPTER IV.-Continued

"Nonsense!" said he. "You will be able to cultivate, in my absence, that higher, more intellectual, life fur which I've heard you say you feel such a craving. You will be at liberty to cultivate your 'aspira tions' untrammeled by my Phili.-s-----tinism, my dear." Netelka flushed a little. "I've been cured of them," she said rather shottly, "if, indeed, I ever had any," she added, with something like a stifled sigh. Then the subject dropped for awhile; but before they reached Loncon he let fall a remark which showed her that his mind was quite made up on the matter; he was going out of the country—and without her. Linley drove his wife to Lady Kenslow's, but he did not even go up to the door with her. He felt unequal, at this juncture, to a meeting with Aunt Mary, who had not only strongly opposed her niece's marriage with him, but had avoided him ever since. When his wife had left him, Linley drove to a quiet hotel near the Strand. As he got out of his hansom, and was louking at the handful of change he had left after paying the man his fare, he became suddenly conscious of a Hebraic countenance close to his. Looking up quickly, annoyed at being caught in the act of looking anxiously at the few coins he possessed, Linley frowned, and promptly turned his back to the smiling gent ■ leman, whom he recognised as the Jew who had spoken to him at Edge Hill. "Now, don't be offended," said Mr Moseley persuasively, following him up unabashed. "I have a proposal to make to you, my dear sir. Aa I told you before, I am very much interested in your undeserved misfortunes, and I should like, if you would let me, to hslp you to a fresh start in ; life." . I Linley no longer looked at him with haughtiness. There was something in the Jew's manner which suggested that he "meant business." However, he would not commit himself to speech; he merely allowed himself to listen while the Jew propounded his plan. "There is a way," said Mr Mossley, not staring fixedly at Linley, but learning enough by an occasional glance, "by which you could, if you pleased, do me a service and yourself one at the same time. I have a furnished house at Wimbledon, a veiy big place, a nice place, with servants eating their heads off, and everything complete except a master. I can't make it convenient to live there myself all the week through; 1 like to run down now and then, and, very often from Saturday till Monday. And I couldn't let it just at this season, even if I cared to give it up altogether. Now would, you care to become my tenant, rent free, for a little while, just to give you time to look about you, you know?" Liniey looked at him with the frank expression of the man who "wants to know." "You're very kind," he said. But there was caution rather than gratitude in his tune. After a pause, he went on rather slowly and deliberately: "If, as you say, my staying there would really be doing you a service, I need not say that it would suit me also for a little while —that is to say, until I have had time to look about mo. For I am in a state j of lonely bachelorhood just now " j Mr Moseley's start of dismay in- 1 terrupted him. | Linley, looking up quickly, went j on: "My wife is staying with relations, with Lady Kenslow, of Trewitlun Street, in fact." For a few moments, Mr Mosely, looking frankly nonplussed, pulled his black moustacne, and looked at his dh m md ring. Then he said: I "Look here; will you come over to Scott's with me, anJ have some champagne, and something to eat? 1 don't suppose you've been in tha humour to eat much today," he added, without much tact. Linley shivered, but he consented to the proposition, and drove o i' in a hansom with his benevolent new j friend. Next day Linley Dax met h s wife by appointment «t Charing Cross Station. He was in very good Ipirit3, and extremely : ffectbnatc. Netelka looked at him warily, noting certain signs in his manner portending that he had something to say to hir that she would not cars to hear. ' "Well, my darling," said he wi h tenderness, as they walked up and ; down one of the lens-crowded plat- ' form 3. "1 think it will not be rrc.e m sary for us to separate, after all.' j Witho.it e>.press ng piematuro elti- I tion, Neteilia glanced at him and prepared to listen. ! "I'vj been offered the loan of a lovely house at Wirnbieuon, a place with stables and al!, so that vou can have your carriage agui;:, and where we can ba close to town and alt. 6 fun of it, and yet not he too near to its fog and noise. How do you like the idea of that?" "But Linley, I don't understand. Where's tru mon y to come from to keep it uu?" y "Didn't 1 tell you th« plice was to "iie lent to ua?" said Linley impatiently. "It is to be just as if it were our own, j-.i-t as if we had bought the placj outright. Nobody will know us, and via shall b:j able to cnjov ourselves quieil/ without being stare 1 at as if w:. were stalled, which we should be if we were known." "But our name —it's so uncommon!" stammered Nctclkn. "People would be surd to find us out. And then—oh! —" Instinctively she clasped her hands, as if in despair.. "We're going to avoid all the risk of that," answered he quietly, "by changing it. We shall be Mr and

Mrs Hillard." Netelka drew a deep breath. "And who is going to lend the house to us?" she asked suddenly, alter a pause.. "Oh," answere.l Linley hurrying over this equivocal point, "the little man who gave me his card as we were raving Liverpool. Good-hearted little chap, he seem«!" he an assumed light tone Then there was dead silence. "Well," asked Linley, at last, rather querulously. "What —is he doing it for?" "How should I know?" said Linley snappishly. He's a good-natured fellow, I tell you, and he wants somebody to the house warm,' as he says: Therewas another pause before she asked in a low voice : "Won't you let me stay—with Aunt Mary? You won't be so very far off at Wimbledon, will you?" Linley's white face turned livid, as it did when he was deeply annoyed. "If I have to go to Wimbledon without you, or rather if, because you -will not go to Wimbledon with rat', I have to go somewhere else, I will never cume near you again." Again there was silence, broken by the sound of a stifled sob from Netelka. Her emotion had no effect upon her husband, unless, indeed, it irritated him. "Tell, will you come with me to Wimbledon?" he asked at last, in a grating voice. "Yes—of -course -I must," There was a plaintive note of despair in the wife's submission. CHAPTER V.

THE LITTLE NEW HOUSE AND THE BIG ONE. On high ground, and close to the pleasantest part of Wimbledon Common, stands that picturesque old house, "The Firs." Strange to say, there really are firs to be found on the grounds which surround the house, protected from the gaze of the vulgar by a very high and massive brick wall, supported by bulging buttresses, and overgrown with clusters of moss and bushes of ivy. A large, comfortable-looking house of red brick, .vith a tiny turret on the top, in which hung a rusty bell. Netelka thought, when she saw it for the first time, that she could have loved the place if she had come to ic in happier circumstances. As it was, her mind was too much occupied by conjectures as tu the reason of Mr Moseley's liberality for her to feel any pleasure in her new home. It was rather startling to find, ut the outset, that there had been misrepresentation on the part of thi owner; for, while he had described it as being in the rough order, with a large household of servants, Netelka found it inhabited only by one cantankerous old woman, who had lived up to her character of caretaker by neglecting the house in her charge with unmistakable thoroughness. The handsomely furnished rooms were damp and musty, proving that she had neither opened the windows nor lit fires during the year and a-half she admitted having spent there. The mice ran about the rooms, and the spiders hung their weos in the corners without interference from anybody. (To be continued.)