A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3005, 30 September 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

By FLORENCE WARDEN.

Author of " The Lady in Black," "An Infamous Fraud," "For Love of Jack," "A Terrible Family," "The House on the Marsh,"

CHAPTER XXXVI.-Continued,

"No, she is with Mr Moseley. The last 1 saw of your husband was when he was introducing Mr Moseley tu Lady Kenslow, and they walked a.vay tjgether—Mr Moseley and Lady Kenslow, I mean. Do, dear Mrs Hilliard, try and find your husband for me. I want particularly to ask him to come round to our little place tomorrow night." t It was rather awkward for Netelka to have to leave the terrace when her guests had be&un to come up to take their leave, but as at that particular moment she was unoccupied, she good-naturedly stepped into the house with the intention of sending a servant to look for Linley As it happened she did not meet one; but as 'she reached the bottom of the back staircase in her search, she heard a slight noise above her head, and looking up between the winding banisters she called, thinking she recognised her husband's soft footfall: "Linley! Linley, is that you?" There was no answer, but there was another slight noise, and then some small object rolled down the upper part of the staircase. Netelka ran up the stairs to see what it was, and half-way up the top flight she picked up a massive gold ring, set with a single diamond, which she recognised as Harrington Moseley's. Now really alarmed, she looked up, and seeing no one, ran quickly to the top of the stairs, and was. just in time to see the*shadow of a man who was disappearing into the corridor on the left. She gave chase at once; and, being fleet of f jot, overtook the man jusc as he was shutting himself in her husband's dressing-room. And it was Linley himself. "L—Linley," she stammered, with blanched cheeks, "look at what I've found—on the back staircase! Y—ou know it; it is Moseley's." And she showed himthering which she had picked up. Linley took it from her and turned it over; and Netelka, watching him, saw he waa making up his mind what he should say. "So it is," he said at last. "Do you know, Netta, I believe that there's been some one in Moseley's rooms taking advantage of what lias been going on? I heard a noise up there, and fancied I caught sight of somebody—l did, indeed. I think wo ought to call him up and ask him if he misses anything." He spoke gravely, as the-nature oi hia communication warranted, uui he was quite cool and collected, and it was not from his manner that Netelka received the impression which at once possessed her. They were in the dressing-room, the door of which still stood open. For a moment Netelka did not answer her husband, but stared at hirn with eloquent eyes full of a new fear. Then her glance fell from his face to his hands, and she saw his right hand move stealthily toward hia right side. "Linley, you're a thief!" The words were a moan of despair. As she uttered them, the miserable wife tore open her husband's coat, and, plunging her fingers into the pocket toward which she had seen his fingers wander, she drcv out and flung upon the floor, one after another, articles of jewellery, a handful of bank-notes, and a bag of gold. Tnen, before she had exhausted the hoards she suddenly drew back, and, bursting into a fit of wild weeping, staggered to the dressing-table, and, falling on her knees beside it, buried her face in her hands. She waa so utterly overcome with grief and despair that she did not re mark the strange silence with which Linley received her violent action and her demonstrative outbreak of grief. She did hear the door of the room shut, but it was only with physical hearing; she did not ask herself, whether he had shut himself in or shut himself out; she did not know whether she wan alone or whether her husband was still by her sids. The sound reached her ears; that was all. , , The shame, the agony, of her discovery, the fir?t absolute assurance pf heV hijsbaftd/s villainy she had had, the fir-t tangible proof from which ?h9 coulcl not osaape, were au uidivhfilinW that at first he>r mind could take in no other impression. But she had suspected Linley too lon<r and too deeply not to be able, before many minutes had passed, to take a clear view '6£ the situation. A ray of light seemed to fall upon her dim night as she told herself that now surely the climax was come, and the odium of having to share tho life of this man waa at an end. She sprang to her feet. But at that moment she heard behind her a sound like the growl of an angry dog, and at the same moment she caught sight in the looking glass of a face which, distorted and livid with rage, was hardly recognisable a3 the calm mask her husband's features usually wore. She saw him raise his arm, she saw that hia hand held a weapon of some kind. The next moment she was lying sense leas on the floor, felled by a rain of savage blows.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

METHOD OR MADNESS? For one momertf, when Linley had laid his wife senathss on the floor, he looked down at her with an expression of something like self-re-proach on hia face. After all, she had had something to endure from himi and she had been, on the whole, submissive to his will on most points. If the blows on the head which he had just administered to ..her-, bad chanced to light on her /> face, disfiguring and discolouring it, certainly the loving husband would

have turned away without another look. But she had escaped this last outrage at her husband's hands; and having discovered, by a glance at the little Indian club which he had torn down from the mantelpiece as a convenient weapon, that there was no blood upon i', Linley felt an impulse of real grati: >to his wife for being knocked dowu 1.0 easily and so neatly. The danger of being discoverd by Harrington Moseley and seized on as the purloiner of his property before he could make his .story fit in nicely at all its points excited Linley out of the fishy insensibility to his wife's charms into which he had largely suffered himself to sink. "How handsome she is!" thought he, as he noticed the delicacy of her clear complexion contrasting with the masses of her dark hair, which had become slightly loosened by her fall. j He dropped on one knee to look into her face, with the abstract admiration of « stranger. But as he did so, he perceived a stream of blood slowly oozing from her head and staining the matting underneath. He recoiled at once with disgust, and rising hastily, replaced the Indian club on its nail against the wall, and left the room, locking the door behind him. He had hardly got a dozen steps down the corridor on his way back to the garden when he heard Moaeley's voice calling tu him by name. So he retraced his footsteps, ran down the back staircase, and slipped into the study, where he sat down hastily at the writing table and began to write a letter. As he expected, he was soon unearthed by Harrington Moseley, who burst open the door and asked him what had become of Mrs Hilliard. Lady Kenslow was going away, and wanted to say good-by to her niece. "In fact, everybody's waiting to say good-by," went on the Jew. "And it looks so odd,' and it's *such a pity, too, when everything's gone off so well! Where is she? Do you know?" "The fatigue has been too much for her," answered Linley, who had overlooked this difficulty in his ex • eiternent. "She said she would go upstairs and He down for a few minI utey, and that if ,<she didn't come down again 1 was t6 make her apologies to everybody." "Well, why aren't you making them," asked the Jew sharply, "instead ot Bitting here quietly, writing? Come and explain to her la Jyship and the rest at once." Linley got up from his seat and followed Moseley into the drawingroom, where, in the coolest manner possible, he gave his explanation and Netelka's apology. Lady Kenslow, although she did not for a moment believe the excuse given, was inclined to accept it and to go quietly away in order to let the incident pass over as quickly as possible and without attracting more attention to it than was necessary. She thought that there had been a quarrel of some sort between Linley and his wife, though she did not imagine what a serious form the dispute had taken. I "Give her my love," she said, "and tell her how much disappointed I am at not being able too see her again—in fact, tell her we are all disappointed, and that we sincerely hope that after a night's rest she will be quite herself again." (To be continued.)