"The Chains of Bondage."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10089, 12 September 1910, Page 2

"The Chains of Bondage."

CHAPTER XLI.— Continued. I It had amused him, this mistaken | conclusion the police had jumped at; but what if it had not been a mistake after all? Why had Judith been so startled, insisting, despite his assurances that there was danger for Trevena? That could only mean that Trevena had been at the dead man's rooms in suspicious circumstances—had been the man m evening clothes who had, as the newspaper report of the inquest told iiira, helped a woman to escape. And there Hashed upon him the, remembrance of Judith's unaccountable acquaintance with Wace. Could the ~-oman in the case have been Judith. For an instant or two the racing thoughts held him spellbound; then ie sprang to the door. Too late to itop her. Judith had jumped into .lis waiting car. The ehaffeur knew ler well, of counse; he was already Iriving her away, no doubt to Trevena's rooms. In Heaven's name, what did it ail

aoan? These sudden suspicions in his mind were horrible. He would telephone to Trcvena as she had bidilen him, and then he would follow ! lor —learn the truth at any cost. . Meanwhile, Judith had breathlessly told the driver of Ellstree's car to drive her to Trevena's rooms in the Albany. Would she be in Dime? But what more natural than for the police to go straight to Trevena's address from the tailor's? perhaps he was already under arrest the desperate woman told herself. Outside the Albany, as she jumped out of the automobile, Judith saw two plainly-dressed men loitering about outside, as though waiting for someone. Where they detectives waiting to arrest him? Her nerves were quivering as she went into the building and went to Trevena's door.

'ls Mr Trevena at borne?" she demanded breathlessly of the manservant.

"No, ma'am," said the man, who recognised Miss Fairfax. "He .vent out half an hour ago." \ "Can you tell me where I shall find him?" she asked. "It is a -natter of vital importance."

The man did not fail to notice the suppressed excitement in her manler. He had already had a visit from two. plainly dressed strangers, ,rho manifested a curious interest in the whereabouts of his master, to whom he had vouchsafed no information. He lowered his voice as he answered:

"I know he was going on to BJoomsbury, in the hope of finding young Mr Ralston." He gave her the address of Mrs Saxton's house.

Huriedly Judith went back to the car, and told the chauffeur to drive to Bloomsbury. Mrs Saxon's house. It was there, as she knew, that Jim Ralston's sweetheart lived, Elsie Hood. The recollection broke on her jarringly. Elsie Hood, her own cousin, to whom she had never spoken—the lawful heiress of all George Craven's fortune. The girl she was robbing. She bit her lip fiercely. Yes, that was the word for her—a thief! What would John Trevena think of her if he knew that the "woman for whom he had risked so much was a thief?

'I love him—l love him, John Trevena!" she mentally whispered, admitting the truth to herself at last. "I love him, and my accursed ambitions, the hunger of this money that has kept me in the chains of bondage of greed and base, dishonest scheming, that—that is at the root of all to-day's evil!" And there was a passion of self-contempt in her face. "But for it—but for my sin, —John Trevena would not have been in danger as he is now—in danger, perhaps, of his life!" Those were the thoughts surging through this desperate woman's mind as the car raced swiftly along Oxford Street towards Bloomsbury. But of her crime in conspiring with the scoundrel Wace to cling to a fortune not hers, John Trevena, the man she loved—yes, loved;' she admitted it now to herself, affianced though she was to another—would not be in to-night's peril. Then suddenly the woman cried fiercely to herself: "I'll have done with this money that has brought me only a curse, not happiness! It has brought me the sacrifice of my child, and now the sacrifice of the man I love! But tonight I'll have done with dishonest shifts! I'll tell the truth, though it leave me a beggar! To-night I surrender it all!"

CHAPTER XLII. THE CROWD. While Judith was seeking Trevena that afternoon, Jim Ralston had bent his steps towards the city. It was nearly half past five, the hour when the great tide of humanity coming back from the metropolis to the suburbs was in full spate. From the great buildings, honeycombed with offices and workrooms, a continuous stream was pouring into the narrow, crooked streets to the hurrying tide of life pulsing through them, diverging into innumerable currents that ran to all points of the compass—to the subway stations, and to the great termini of railway and street cars; the army of London's workers whose day is spent in offices at the drudgery of ledgers and typewriter was going home. Jim jumped out of an omnibus,

BY EMILY B. HETHERINGTON. Author o£—"His College Chum," " "Worthington's Pledge," " A Kepenjant Foe," eve.

and walked as far as the ancient city church, hemmed closely about by dingy warehouses, where he paused and turned, as though waiting at some rendezvous; this church was two minutes' walk away from the office where Elsie was employed, and had become the meeting place, where night after night Jim would meet his- sweetheart to escort her home. Ho waied expectantly somo_ nve minutes or so; then a smile lit up his face, and he went forward eager- | ly, as he saw the slim, girlish iig- j ure in black coming towards him. "What a long day it always is until half-past five, sweetheart?" he said, as he took her hand, arid looked down at the sweet face, so pale now, stamped with its impress of a great sorrow, that showed how heavy a blow her mother's tragically sudden death had been to the girl. "And the rest cf the day makes up for the slowness by flying much too fast," Elsie said with a smile. "It's too bad that happy hours should send the hands of the clockround so quickly. They went into a restaurant and Jim sat opposite to her at one of the tables, and watehed her daintily pour out the tea, her little hands fluttering like white doves over the teacups —rather thick, clumsy cups; what did that matter to two people so much in love? It was the one hour of the day they both looked forward to most, their meeting under the shadow of the old church, and the delightfully, leisurely business of tea in some quiet restaurant, when they would talk, as lovers should, of themselves and their castles in the future, before Jim escorted her home to the houss in Bloomsbury.

As he sat facing her now the thought was back in Jim's mind of that interview with Sybil Ellstree of a few days ago, and the words Sybil had spoken to him then:

I "The girl you love was George Craven's daughter, but not his heir■*ess, because her mother was never legally George Craven's wife. The marriage he was supposed to contract with her was no marriage at all." Was it true? The look in the jealous, vindictive face had given him more than an inkling of the malice behind her words. And it seemed so improbable on the face of it that Elsie's mother should have confided such a secret to a stranger. Besides, a copy ofthe marriage certificate had been found in the bureau, as though just before her death Mrs Hood had been looking at it—the marriage of herself with George Hood.

Had George Hood been George Craven ?

George Craven was dead, Mrs Hood was dead—the lips of the two people who coidd have told the truth was sealed. Would it be possible to dig down into the grave of a dead man's past of nearly twenty years ago to bring the truth to light?

CHAPTER XLIII

A SCOUNDREL RECEIVES A LESSON.

Jim Ralston had not given an inkling of his suspicions to Elsie—not a hint that he believed her father to be the Australian millionaire. He shrank from doing so until he could disprove that ugly story whispered to him by a' malicious, jealous woman—a story that he believed to be a lie, and meant to prove it a lie. His eyes were on the sweet, beautiful face the table as these thoughts were "in his mind, and ho realised that he had never had a moments regret for all he had given up for her sake. He was only impatient to take hor from that dingy city office, and made her the mistrcs of the home ho would build for her. Regret? He laughed at the thought of his father's words. What did old Paul Ralston know of love and all that love means—this man who lived only for money? And perhaps his eyes told Elsie something of his thoughts, for the faint colour deepened in her cheeks, and a tender answering smile crept about the corners of her mouth.

"What is it to be," said Jim, when at last tea was over, and they rose to go—"taxi or omnibus?" "Oh, an omnibus, of course!" she laughed. "How extravagant you'd be if I would let you? That would be the second cab home this week; and poor people like ourselves have no right to be extravagant," she answered gaily. (To Be Continued.)