A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9189, 11 September 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

By FLORENCE WARDEN. Anth or of " The Lady in Black," "An Infamous Fraud," "For Love of Jack," "A Terriblo Family," "Tho House on the Marsh,"

CHAPTER XXV.—Continued. What had this innocent young girl to do with that detestable little card-sharper? Hugh was resolved, for Jem's sake, to know. So, at the risk of a severe snub he addressed her again as she turned away from the office, ticket in hand. "Miss Collingham, please forgive me if you think my curiosity impertinent; but has Mr Hilliard offered to take you to nee his wife?" Hugh thought he had made a rather shrewd gueas, but Jem's eyes opened wide in indignant astonishment. "No," she sharply answered. "I don't like him well enough to ask him to do such a thing, or to ask him anything if 1 can help it." Hugh gave a sigh of relief. St 11 he was curious and rather anxious. Jem, observing this, thought she had better confide in him, to some extent at least. "I don't want him to see me," she whispered, in a tone of some importance. I'm following him—l want to see Where's he's going to." Seeing the not unnatural astonishment on Hugh's face, and thinking he might perhaps be persuaded into a valuable ally, she went on rapidly: "He's got a bag with him, hasn't he 7 " "I—-I think he has," stammered Hugh, taken aback. "It's full of Netelka's clothes," hissed Jem earnestly. "And I want to see where he's going to take them!" This rather sensational statement, made, as it was, in a very sensational manner, startled Hugh, although he was not inclined to take so tragic a view of the circumstance as the girl did. At this moment the train came in, and he,hurried with her to a compartment. But, as they had a car-ful of passengers all the way to town, they were not able to hold further conversation upon the matter in hand until they got out at the Waterloo station. "You are not going to —to play the spy, surely?" cried Hugh, aghast as Jem, having kept hidden, in the crowd until Linley had got into a hansom hailed one in her turn. "Yes, but I am, though!" said she, with spirit. And, before he had recovered from the stupefaction into which he was thrown by this answer, she had jumped in and was telling the driver to follow the hansom which had just gone out of the station. "Well, if you will go," wailed Hugh plaintively, "of course, I must go with you. But I hadn't any idea you were so headstrong." And he jumped into the hansom and took his seat beside her. "Why," cried she, turning upon him with flashing eyes, "could I do any less when I don't know what has become of her?"' "You are very brave," said Hugh, smiling rather pretty vehemence, "very brave and very loyal. But jou must take care that your zeal doesn't outrun your discretion." "My discretion can't be outrun," answered Jem simply, "because I haven't any. Now, it seems to be," she went on rashly, "that you are all discretion and no zeal. And yet, you say you are fond of her!" "I said I had been fond of her before she was married!" corrected Hugh, rather shocked by the form taken by the young lady's statement. "Well, you can't have lost all interest in her the moment you knew that she was married—so that you don't even care to know what has become of her! 1 shouldn't cara for affection which could so easily change into indifference." ' Hugh felt very much annoyed; he began to feel that he had been mistaken in this girl, who.waanot nearly so nice as she had at first seemed. "Don't you think the husband would prefer my view to yours?" asked he, rather coldly. "A husband like Mr Hilliard would prefer your view to Mr Wal- j ler's, for instance," she answered, j colouring deeply as she mentioned tho second name. Hugh felt more annoyed still. I "J think even the immaculate Mr Waller would say you were doing a very risky thing in engaging in such an expedition as the present one," said he coldly. "Then, why did you come?" Hugh put up his umbrella to stop the hansom, and Jem, now as humble as a moment before she had been bold, recognised the fact that she had been both ungrateful and rude. "No, no, don't—at lea3t, of course, you can go if you like. But I am sorry I've been so rude. I'm always doing something like that," she added tragically. Hugh desisted, and before be had time to accept her apology in words the driver opened his little trap-door and said: "Shall I go on, sir? Tho gentleman's go*; out." Hugh and Jem had been so much occupied by their quarrel that they were in danger of forgetting what their errand was. "Drwe on," said Hush. Linley's hansom had stopped ;U a" house in a shabby stivet near Victoria, and Linley himself had got out with his bag, dismissed the hansom, and entered the house before the hansom in pursuit drove past. "And now," said Hugh decidedly, "you must let me take you back to tne Wateiloj' btation, for yju maybe quite sure that Netelka is not in that house." A glance had tcld him that the house in question was a lodging-house of low character. Jem had sense enough to make no objection. But she proffered a stipulation. "Will you, Mr Thorndyke," said she solemnly, "have the house watched? I have an idea, but I would lather not tell you what it is until I

find out whether I'm right. Then you can't laugh at me, you know, if I'm wrong." Very reluctantly, Hugh agreed to this, and agreed also to let her know if any result came of the watching. She was very grateful to him, but Hugh was rather piqued by the frank simplicity with which she looked upon him as a mere part of the machinery by which her plan of finding Netelka was to be worked. "I will be sure to come down, and tell you if any thing happens," he promised, as he put her into the train at the Wator'.oo station. "But nothing will happen, you know," he added, reassuringly. "Things worth putting oneself out about so seldom do!" "Thank you, oh! so much," said Jem fervently, as she gave him a hearty grip of the hand and looked at him with tantalising gratitude out of her pretty blue eyes. And then she spoiled it all by adding, with the most innocent but cold-blooded cruelty: "You needn't trouble to come, you know. You can write!" Hugh, in spite of the decision he had come to that he was disappointed in Jem, felt that his face grew longer as he received this recommendation. CHAPTER XXVI. LINLEY'S LITTLE GAME. Jem did Hugh Thorndyke an injustice. His interest in Netelka had not evaporated, although he showed it in a less demonstrative manner than that impulsive young lady. He recognised, as she did not the need of great caution in dealing with a man whom he believed to be an accomplished rascal. And yet Hugh's actual knowledge of Linley's misdeeds was not extensive, being confined to the conviction that he had seen the delicatehanded gentleman cheat at cards. But this was enough; you could go no lower than that; and Hugh, whose acquaintance with card-sharp-ers had been perfected all over the globe, was quite ready to believe Linley capable of other malpractices. He walked away from the station in a thoroughly discontented and irritable mood, uneasy about Netelka and annoyed with her valiant little friend. Of course, he was anxious about Netelka's safety, just as anxious as Miss Collingham could be; but, really, the girl's husband and wife were very far-fetched, and her constant references to Waller, aa it he were an angel from heaven, began to be extremely nauseating. Decidedly, Miss Collingham, pretty as she undoubtedly was, must be dropped if she persisted in expressing her outspoken preference for a man who was deeply in love with another woman. But then there came the most irritating reflection of all; and this was that Jem was not only entirely willing to ba "dropped" by him, but that she had herself suggested that he should write, to save him the trouble of calling! Hugh would have liked to flatter himself that Miss Collingham was not averse to opening a correspondence with him; but, alas! her matter-of-fact manner, her entire absence of coquetry, had made it impossible for him to entertain such a thought. There was nothing for him to do but to set about obeying her behest; Hugh did so with more thought of pleasing Jem than that of satisfying himself about the safety of Netelka. (To be continued.)