A RECKLESS ROMANCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10021, 18 April 1910, Page 4

A RECKLESS ROMANCE.

A story is just now current in London Society which, fAOm its circumstantiality N and its monstious conclusion, would suffice to take away the breath of people less habitually trained in scandal '(writes Sir Henry Lucy in the "Sydney Morning Herald"). Some weeks ago there •suddenly died in Paris a well-known member of the House of Commons, heir to the great peerage. It was said that he succumbed to a sudden

attack of pneumonia. The body wai brought home, and interred near hii ancestral home, among general ex presaions of regret profound grief al the sudden cutting off of a still young life, which had before it promise oi high distinction. It is now greatly whispered in drawing-moms and told at dinner tables that this explanation is a pure invention. What actually happened, one is assured, is that the noble lord, naving observed on the part of a friend rough treatment of a wife recently married, remon-, strated with him. The result was an angry scene, followed by a challenge to deadly combat. Accepting it, the two made a tryst in the neighbourhood of Paris, and at the first round" the well-meaning, friend was. shot through ; the heart by the erring husband. In order to hush up scandal, the story of death by pneumonia was, by commDn consent between the two families concerned, concocted and published. This is pretty well as it stands. The climax is reached by the further assertion that one of the duellists is a member of the present Cabinet, who, apparently haviui* killed his friend, returned to his affice in Downing street, quietly took up the threads of administrative business, and may be seen any night on the Treasury .Bench m the House of Commons. The wildest indention of a reckless romance never soared above the bold heights of his story. Twice within the past week I lave been asked by persons otherwise ipparently sane, whether I have leard it, and whether I think there s anything in it.