A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9183, 4 September 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

By FLORENCE WARDEN. , , • Author oi " The~Lady in Black," "An Infamous Fraud," "For Love of Jack," "A Terrible Family," "The House on the Marsh," etc. etc.

CHAPTER XXl.—Continued. "A nice little girl that!" Hugh said, as soon as he and Netelka were alone together. "She is the sweetest creature I have ever met," said Netelka fervently, glad to turn the conversation away from herself, and her affairs, "and in consequence she is sacrificed every hour of the day to the caprices of a foolish stepmother and the selfishness-of an equaily brainless old papa. I want to see her happily married, but both papa and mama are very anxious to keep her single unless she can find a husband with money; for they get the benefit of her own fortune as long as she remains with them." '"Poor little thing!" said Hugh, in admiration. For in the light of this revelation Jem'a behaviour on the occasion of their walk together seemed extraordinarily sweet and touching. "I am glad, Netelka, that you have at least one friend near you whom you can care for. She lives close by, does she not?" "Yes," said Netelka. "You are mistaken in thinking that I am so short of friends, and good friends, too," she faid quickly. "Gerard Waller, who I hope to see married to her some day, is another friend in whom I can trust implicitly." "Ah!" Hugh's face had clouded again as he uttered this exclamation. Netelka went steadily on with'%what she had to say: "I pride mycelf on having done the young man some good," she said, as she seated herself at the piano, and began to play a waltz, as if nothing very serious had been occupying her mind. "A year ago he was addicted to gambling, and was doing everything he could to find the speediest way down-hill. I showed him how silly he was, persuaded him into common sense; and I am very proud of the result. I assure you he is not the same man that he was when I took him in hand." "So I understand," said Hugh shortly. "I met him coming out of an insurance office, where he had been insuring his life. And he said that a year a K o he couldn't have dne it." Netelka's playing had mt ceased, but.it had suddenly become hard and mechanical, while her face had giown rigid. Hugh,, watering her narrowly, full" of suspicion, a-, once guessed something like the truth. "Ah," he exclaimed. "You didn't know this?" Netelka recovered herself in a measure, and answered with an assumption of indilfe.-ence: "1 don't remember to have heard it. But it doesn't concern me. Surely you don't think that it does?" she added, with a sudden change in her voice to pleading, to plaintive entreaty. "No, no, no! Good' heavens,' no!" cried Hugh passionately. "How can you suggest such a thing? But your husband—and this Jew Moseley —do you think, don't you think they have something to do with it?" In truth, poor Netelka had been asking herself this question, with the .agonising certainty that there could only be one answer to it. But she was not going to betray her own husband, and she made a valiant stand. "Really, your conduct this evening is very extraordinary," she said, affecting a tone of some levity. "You begin by accusing me of terrible crimes " "No, no," protested Hugh. "You retract, and attack my husband instead. And all without much knowledge to support your accusations. You seem to have brought back with you the habit a man acquires in savage countries of carrying a revolver in a convenient pocket, and of looking upon every one he meets as a prouable rogue. I should have, thought that I, as an old friend, might have been reckoned beyond suspicion, and that my husband, as my husband, might have been accorcuci the same meed of grace." "But a cheat! A card-3harp"r!" cried Hugh. "It is all the worse in him, as he is your husband." "Sh—3h!'* said Netelka, below her breath, in great alarm. „ For Hugh had spoken in loud tones, and there was more than one person in the house, as Netelka knew, who was not too proud to listen at convenient keyholes. And then, before another word could be uttered the nearest door was opened very quietly by Linley. Hugh, who had been leaning upon the piano, drew himself up with great stiffnesss. Netelka turned very white but said nothing. She guessed, from the look on her husband's face, that by accident or otherwise he had heard Hugh's last speech. "I hope I am not in the way, that I'm not breaking up a pleasant tcte-a tete?" said Linley disagreeably. Hugh felt sick. Pitying the woman before him with all his henrt, he felt that he was utterly powerless to help bir. At the same time he experienad such a longing to kick the litEk- piiiK-and-whi!e-fuced man who cheat :J him of his money, that his oukiorily resist the temptation by kei p : n;* his eyes carefully fixed in the oppjdit'j direction. Linloy was more incemed by this contemptuous treatment 1.1.an by the accusations he had overheard. "Ay dear," ?aid he in a hypocritical, eflusively affectionate tone to his wife, as he sidled up to her, "is this l.eiaon a particular friend of yours?" > "I know him—well—long ago, when I was a girl," answered she, in a constrained voice. "But I didn't know that Mrs Hilliard was an old acquaintance of mine before I entered this room, half an hour ago," explained Hugh, forcing himself to apeak with a little civility,

for Netelka's sake. "I was delighted to meet her again, but I'm afraid I have been rather N a bore, and that Mrs Billiard will be glad to get rid of me." He offered Netelka his hand as he spoke; but Linley, doubling his fist, struck Hugh's hand down so sharply that he cut the fingers of the other man with the large diamond he wore on his lttle finger. Netelka drew a deep breath between her teeth, but she said noth* ing. "Mrs Hilliard will be glad to get rid of you," snarled Linley, "and so shall T." Netelka moved, and tried to spring up from her seat. But her husband's hand was on her, shoulder, and, fragile and white as it looked, it was like a bar of iron. Cut to the heart, furious, yet keeping command of himself for the woman's sake, Hugh bowed and left the room. CHAPTER XXII. THE MYSTERY OF A BROUGHAM. Hugh Thorndyke was perhaps the first person who had ever been able to accurately appreciate the relation in which Linley and his wife stood to each other. Her vivacity, her natural impetuosity, the love of effect, which made her dress well, and dance well, and walk with an air of distinction, caused people to think that Netelka was a woman of strong will and masculine understanding, in whose hands her pale, delicate-fingered, insignifi-cant-looking husband was a mere puppet. This view of them Linley had long known and taken full advantage of. Hugh, however, had had the chance of seeing the iron hand under the velvet glove; and remembering, as he did, the sensitive and impressionable nature of Netefka in her girlhood, he was able to understand the thraldom in which her husband held her. He looked at his watch as he came out of the house. It was twelve o'clock. The last train back to town would have gone by this time. A hansom was waiting at a little, distance from one of the outer gates of "The Fiis," and the driver, catching sight of him, drove up at once. Hugh shook his head. He did not want to go back to town until he had had an- | other .walk with.Netelka. -He. knew,* from Jem's description, which house was "The Maisonette," and, seeing that the, lights in the drawing-room were bright, he concluded that Gerard Waller had been detained there, and thought he would wait outside for the exchange of a few words with him before seeking a refuge for the night at some local hotel. There was such a very little bit of garden between "The Maisonette" and the road that, when Hugh came close to the ralings and looked up at the fantastic little green wooden balcony outside the drawing-room window, Jem, who was looking out into the night, recognifled him at once, as the light from the drawing-room lamps streamed upon his face. "Mama," said she, stepping back into the room, "there's Mr Thorndyke outside-the gentleman who lent me the money for my gloves the other day," she added hastily. "I suppose he is waiting for you, Mr Waller." . (To be continued.)