A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9173, 24 August 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

FLORENCE WARDEN, Author of <• The Lady in Black/' "An Infamous Fraud," "For Love of Jack," "V Terrible Fami'y," "The House on the Marsh," etc. e'.c.

CHAPTER XlV.—Continued. The week passed slowly and iin- , eventfully for Netelka, the principal j occurrence of any importance being | a change for the worse in the ! weather. On Thursday the sun failed; to shine, on Friday the snow came, and on Saturday the wind, snow and bitter cold made it impossible to do so much as put one's head outside the window. Netelka expected a telegram to say that nobody was coming, and she was astonished when a cab drove up in the afternoon containing her husband, Moseley, and Gerard Waller. Gerard had a bad cold, and was looking very ill, and the Jew, to do him justice, was full of solicitude on his account, and expressed much annoyance at his having ventured out of the house in such weather. The young fellow himself, however, made light of his cor.dition, and only hoped, as he said to Netelka, that she would forgive him for presenting himself when he was such a pitiable object.' He was in his morning-room, sitting by the flie and shivering in spite • of the warmth, when he said this Netelka had just brought to him with her own hands a tumbler of hot brandy and water. "Drink this," said she imperiously, "and then I really think I shall order you straight to bed." "1 think you'd better, if I mto drink that." said Gerard. "I don't want to tell you all my secrets until I feel disposed to do so. Of course 1 ought not to have come, I know that; I shall be nothing but a nuisance, but —but " , ~_ ~ He helped himself out oi a difficulty he felt by a drink of the brandy and water. "You won't be able to goto the Collingham's!" said Netelka, in a tone of despair. "No. That's one comfort! "But Jem! Don't you know I have made a plan for you to marry Jem?" "That's very kind of you! "Well, don't you like it?" Gerard took another drink, and appeared to be considering. "On the whole, 1 think I do," he said at last. He paused a little, looking at the fire. "I shall have to be down here a great deal, if I carry out your plan! Have you considered that? When I'm down here, I shall feel bound to call upon you. you begin to find me a bit of a bore?" "No, indeed, I sha'n't." "Then," snid Gerard, "the plan of campaign is already determined upo.i. It only remains to wait tor open weather to begin the siege." He had to wait lunger than he expected, however. His cold got so much worse that they thought it well I to send for the doctor that night. It was two hour 3 before he could crime. The doctor's arrival brought relief to all. He quickly examined the patient, and prescribed a stay in bed for a few days and the utmost can . Gerard had ?n attack of pneumonia, through which he was tended by trained nurses. While his illness lasted, both Linley and Harrington Moseley remained at "The. Firs, and the latter suffered the most acute and genuine anxiety. Netelka was quite touched by this, and on the first occasion that Gerard Waller appeared down-stairs again she mentioned it to him with the remark that she felt quite ashamed of herself for having done the Jew>n injustice in not having credited him with nearly so much feeling as he possessed. But Waller laughed. "My dear Mrs Hilliard," said he, "1 don't doubt that his solicitude was genuine enough. My death before my father's would mean a loss to him of between seven and eight thousand pounds." L . Netelka took this statement in silence. She was learning something of the ways of financiers. Linley and Harrington Moseley, although, to do them justice, neither of them showed any genuine love for the society of the other, had been pretty constant companions during the last few days, an J it had becornu evident to Netelka's sharp eyes that therj wan some scheme hatching between them. On the night of tiie day on which Gerard was declared convalescent, Linley woke his wife up to tell her something. In the wer.k light of the little oillamp which burned all night, Linley's face looked grotesquely ugly and distorted, Netelka thought, as she sat up in bed with a start. "Don't look as if I'd frightened you!" cried Linley pettishly. He had become so irritable of late that a hasty movement or an exclamation would annoy him. "Waller and Moseley and " a l had a long talk tonight after you left the diningrx>m." , '"Yes," answered she, I noticed that you were a long time before coming into the cir wing-room." to "We were discussing an arrangement that somebody suggested. This young Waller, you know, is by no means strong, and he doesn't get properly looked after, living in chambers in town." , ~,.,• Linley paused, expecting that Ins wife would guess what hia-j>roposition was. But if she Uu so, she made no sign- i( , , "'Well 7 " she presently asked. "How would you like it if wo let him come and stay with us for a little while-at any rate, until the cold weather is over. You like him, don t you? You seem to get on with him capitally!" ~ "Yes, I like him very much, answered Netelka, wh-i hardly knew why the suggestion did not please her. "But how can he stay here, Linley, when you aie hardly ever here yourself?" 1 "Oh, if W3 carry this arrangement into effect, of course, I should stay here all the time."

Netelka's face fell still more. It was rather hard, she thought, that it wanted some inducement of this kind to make her husband remain with her. However, there had not been enough confidence lately between husband and wife for her to care to tell him so. "Well, cbn'fc you like the idea?" asked Linley impatiently, after a pause. " Ye-es," she answered doubtfully. "At least, I should if—if " "If what?" "If Mr Moseley didn't!" "What an absurd prejudice you have against him ! Tt's most ungrate ■ ful of you, too, for he has a great admiration for you!" Netelka said no more. But her dreams that night were haunted by her vague presentiments of evil. CHAPTER V. WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM? Four months had passed since Gerard Waller took up his residence at "The Firs," and winter was giving way to spring. A new era of pleasant, easy life seemed to have been inaugurated for everybody by that arrangement. Linley stayed at home, pottered about the grounds, and in and out of the hot-mouses and greenhouses, and was nearly always good-humoured and amiable. Mr Moseley CEfme down very often, but he spent most of the day writing letters, or professing to do so, in a room which had been ret apart for him for that purpose, and he never came down to breakfast. As for Waller, he did not look like the same man. The unhealthy pallor, which had distinguished him on hi 3 first arrival, had disappeared; he had the appearance and way of a big , boy, and he went about the place whistling softly to himself all day long, as happy as a bird. He was very lazy, certainly, and required a good deal of alternate coaxing and threatening to get him to do the amount of hard reading which, he was fond of explaining, that preparation for the bar made necess-ary. It was becoming more and more difficult to induce him to go up to town to eat what he called the "harmless necessary" dinners; and he didn't care a bit when Netelka reproached him with being tied to her apron-string. Not that Netelka had any reason to complain of him. He was at her beck and call all day long, openly worshiping the ground she trod «n in so straightforward and unaffected a manner that Linley and Harrington Moseley only laughed at him, and the only person who felt any qualms on the subject of his devotion was the objsct of it herself. For Netelka, while professing, like others, to treat him iike the boy he looked, knew very well that he was a man, and that the attentions he lavished ostentatiously upon her were a cloak to feelings which he wished neither to probe nor to analyse. On the whole, she hardly knew whether she had been happy or not during the last four months. If she had been the frivolous flirt that in her girlhood's days she had been considered, 6he would have been entirely happy, for she had all the money she wanted, a beautiful home, no end of attention, and a return, in appearance, at least, of the affection her husband had shown her in the early days of their marriage. (To be continued.)