A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9179, 31 August 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

By FLORENCE WARDEN, Author o£ " in Blaok," "An Infamous Fraud," "For Love of Jack," "A Terrible Family," "The House on the Marsh," etc. etc.

CHAPTER XVIII.--Continued. "This question is getting too abstruse for discussion on thediafty platform of a railway-station," said he didactically. "What do you say to our walking acrosH the bridge into the Strand and finding a restaurant, where we could fortify ourselves for argument with coffee and cake?" Jem's face lighted up. "Oh, yes," said she. Then her face clouded. "Oh, no," said she. "Two flatly contradictory answers in one breath! It is a little confusing." "I meant," said Jem, slowly and deliberately, "the first answer to express my feeling on the matter, and my second to express my resolution." "I see. I am not the sort of person you would like to be seen eating cake withl" Jem laughed derisively. "That's it, of course. A creature without any gloves!" And she held out the bare hands ehe had been trying to hide. "I should have thought," pursued he, "that Mrs Hilliard's introduction would have sufficed for my moral .character, But I think I understand." /ind he sighed with unnecessary heaviness, "It was because I Mggegted. coffee! ' There Is a wicked, free-and-easy,Jcigarette-and-cognac sort of a flavour about the word coffee. If I had said 'cocoa and a bun,' you would have gone with me to the end of— Oxford street!"

JCm Wad laughing hilariously. "It isn't that," said she, "But, fclone thing, I'm not fit to be seen; for another, at home they'll wonder What's become of me if I miss this train; and for a third, you will— i mean you would find me very stupid." As she spoke the words referring to her personal' appearance, Jen put her hand in a frantic and fruitless endeavour to make her hair tidy and her hat straight with one large, sweeping movement. "If you would only allow time," said Hugh, very meekly. "I really could do more good than you. I have had sisters, and I have made an exhaustive study of the nature and U3es of hair-pins. There's nobody inside the waiting-rooms but an old gentleman with a newspaper. If you will step inside and take your hat off, I assure you 1 shall perform wonders." Jem giggled, hesitated, consented. She took off her hat exhibiting an untidy head of beautiful fair hair. Of course, she said, "There, thank you; that'll do beautifully!" before her coiffeur had finished, evoking indignant protests. "I had inserted th 3 last two hat rpins in quite a masterly fashion, when you undid it all by that light skirmishing movement, " he grumbled. "It doesn't matter. I really must go back home," said Jem, with a recurrence of self-consciousness, "indeed, I should bore you. Nobody who admires Mrs Hilliard could help being bored by me." Hugh looked rather surprised, and Jem blushed deeply. "That's just like me!" cried Jem despairingly. "Of course, I ought not to have said that." "Why not ? It is quite true that I do admire Mm Hilliard very much. 1 was in love with her before her marriage." "Oh, I could see that," exclaimed the young girl quickly. The obtuse male creature was astonished. "How could you see that'.'" he ' quickly asked. "Ob, it was easy enough. I—l Well, I've been in love myself." Hugh looked interested. "Wouldn't it be rather good fun," suggested he, after a moment's pause to recover from his astonishment at this arlesß confession, "to go somewhere—to some picture-show, for instance—and compare notes?" "It, would indeed!" admitted Jem. Hugh hailed a hansom. "Where to, sir?" asked the driver, looking though the trap-door above them when they had got in. "Oh, to—to—to U glove-shop first." Jem had a horrible pang of torture. She had not brought her purse!

CHAPTER XIX

HUGH THORNDYKE'S SUSPICIONS. "Oh, no," cried Jem Collingham faintly, as the driver of the hansom said, "Right, sir," a.id whipped up his horse. Hugh Thorndyice turned to her gravely. "I—l haven't brought my purse!" fjltcied Jem. "And—and •" "But I've brought mine; at least no, I never carry a nurse; it saves the pockets so much trouble if one does, tiut I have a whole handful of coins scattered about me, and I can li"-'rmeyour cr°dit,:)r to any reasonable amount. Here we are. What i< your size? Sixes, I suppose?" "Six and three quarters," murmured Jem bashfully. "It's a drcadfullv large size, isn't it?" "Shockingly! However, we can make an effort to procure hand-cover-ings of those preposterous dimensions." They went into the shop, and Jem wad astonished to find thai sho was promptly fitted with a pair of gloves which rr.ad« . her hands look much small' r than nana!, -h-m was delighted, i-he saw Hugh put down a sover».nd her pleasure was changed to consternation, when £ : he caught m ht <u the change as he took it up fi in tlu cjuuter. When they got odt side the shop her companion was ah:me I to se:; that eve 17 traca of colour had left h~r f»-.*e. "What's tin matter: Are-are you "

"Wh—what did they cost?" faltered Jem.

"I don't know, I'm sure. The proper prne, I suppose." "The proper price of my gloves is always one and eleven pence halfpenny," said she, with dilated eyes. "But these —oh, let me look at your change!" "I'm afraid it's got mixed up with the rest of my wealth now," said he,* diving into the pocket in which he had put the money. "But it's all right; if the proper price is one and elevenpence halfpenny, no doubt it was one and eleven pence halfpenny that they took." "Oh, no, it wasn't," groaned Jem. "They only gave you back a halfsovereign and two half-crowns, I'm sure. And, when mama hears that I've paid five shillings fc a pair of gloves, I don't know what she will sav." "But you didn't," said Hugh. "It was nil the fault of my stupidity in letting them cheat me out of three shillings and a halfpenny." Jem shook her head. "They didn't cheat you," said she with conviction. "These are lovely gloves, the best I've ever had. The one and eleven pence halfpenny ones always bulge out in the wrong places and show white at the seams, when they don't split directly when you put them on/' By this time they were back in the cab. Her companion frowned in some bewilderment. "But surely," said Hugh gentlj, "if the cheap ones bulge out and split, and the dear ones are everything they should be it is a mistake not to call the cheap ones dear and the dear ones cheap." "Mama doesn't think so," said Jem, with a sigh. Hugh Thorndyke took it for granted that Miss Collingham was one of those numerous unfortunate young ladies* who have to be content with a very scant allowance of pocketmoney. But, as a matter of fact, Jem should have been particularly well off in this respect. The trustees of her mother's property allowed her a handsome sum for her personal expenses; hut this had come to be confiscated with the utmost regularity by her stepmother, with poor Jem's easy consent. She was the bestnatured girl in the world, and it seemed to her not at all unfair, although it was a little inconvenient, that the money which was intended to pay for her dress, small expenses, and the perfecting of her education, should be used in paying for Major Collingham's club expenses, and in filling the gap in her step-mother's accounts left by that lady's slipshod methods of housekeeping. Hugh stopped the hansom in Regent street, in front of a shop where the display of highly coloured confectionery in the window attracted Jem's unsophisticated eyes. They entered the shop, and Jem found it quite hard to keep her eyes from gloating greedily over the plate of cakes which stood on the little marble table at which they sat down. Hugh's warnings ahe took lightly; he mistrusted pink sugar, and had no faith in saffron-tinted delicacies. It is a shocking thing to have to admit, but she was so much absorbed in an eclair which Hugh had condemned as "prehistoric," that, when he recalled her to the subject of her love, she started, and blushed, and said "Oh, yes!" in a tone which showed ,that she had forgotten all about it. (To be continued.)