PRIMROSE DELORAINE

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 1034, 15 August 1911, Page 2

PRIMROSE DELORAINE

UUR SERIAL.

DAUGHTER. ..jIE PENDENNIS. jrV.'i- «.: "Sir Reginald's Vvi:im," "The Forgotten Heir." "Rival . FeautUs,' 'etc. '

CHAPTER XXlV—Continued

"For soma time I lived out at the next camp to Red Tree Camp—Blue Gum Camp it was called —and lvliile I was there f went over to Red Tree more than once with some boys, and one of the times I saw Miss Deloraine —Primrose of Red Tree Camp as she was called—and she saw me. That's •.vhy she thought my face was familiar ivhei: she saw me on board ship coming over. I had no special reason for .•joining back in the same boat that she did ;it was a mere chance. It happened thatl had finished my work out there, and found out all I could, and so I took the first boat home, and it happened to bo the boat that Miss Deloraine had chosen. Naturally, as she was on board, I, so to speak, kept an eye on her, for one never knows what may turn up.

once more his old, reckless, mocking, lawless self —onco more the man whoso dare-devil life was a challenge to th-c* Fates. The detective laid a restraining hand on his arm. "Half a moment, please," he said, "there's just one question I want to ask before I go." Then he looked straight at Poker Bill. "Where is Eve?" he asked sharply. 'What have you done with Eve, of Red Tree Camp?" Silence followed the question, a hor-ror-sthicken, strained, unnatural silence. Poker Bill turned absolutely livid, and his face was so ghastly to look upon that those who saw it shuddered.

"Then, when I wanted to go down to the neighbourhood of Eversdene Castle, I struck the idea of posing as a chauffeur, and, by good luck, induced Sir Gerard to engage me. You see, by that time I knew that there was some connection between Lord Eversdene and Captain Jack, but I hadn't quit-e spotted the extent of it, and I did not know that they were one and the same man. But I went on working, picking up a clue here and there, till the case was aimost complete.

"Eve!" he muttered thickly, "Eve of Red Tree Camp!"

"Then just in the end Poker Bill turned up, and when I had rescued Miss Deloraine from him, and nearly frightened him out of his life by telling him who I was and one or two other things about-himself that -he thought nobody knew, I got a little moro information out of him, but not quite enough. It was Mrs Vivian who gavo me the last clue, that proved, beyond a doubt, that Captain Jack and Lord Eversdene were the same." He looked at Lord Eversdene as he stood there tall and impassive, to all appearance an absolutely disinterested spectator of the scene, and' the shadow of something—was it regret or admiration? —flashed over his expressionless face. .'

Great drops of perspiration stood out on his forehead, and poured down his terrified face. His eyes looked as though they would .start from his head, his lips worked convulsively. There was something so repulsive, so horrifying, so terrible in his look that, all the others instinctively drew away from him, leaving him face to face with the detective. "Where is Eve?" Henry Lester asked again. Poker Bill glared at him in silence, with much the .same look in his eyes as shines in the eyes of a trapped wild beast. Then slowly, as if impelled by something against his will, he turned and looked over his shoulder with a stealthy, shrinking movement that was unspeakably gruesome.

Then all at once an awful cry rang out. A cry that those who heard n never forgot. A cry so full of absolute, craven fear, mad, wild, unreasoning terror, that it made the blood run cold in their veins.

"You owe to-night's to Mrs Vivian, my lord," he went on. "It is a woman who has gone back on you, and it's a way they have. Never trust a woman. That's my motto. And if your lordship: had seen as much of the seamy side of life as I have it would be yours, too." Then he went a step nearer. "Sorry to trouble you, my lord, but if it's convenient to you to start soon— —" "Quite," Lord Eversdene interrupted. "I am ready at any moment, Mr Lester. The sooner we are off the better." He looked round the room ht the somewhat incongruous group gatkeiv ed there. The two policemen, standing stiff and stolid just inside the window; the clever'detective between him and the door; Valerie Vivian crouching on a sofa, her eyes glittering wickedly in her small face, reminding him, as she had done once before, of a ruffled, fluffy, wicked tiger \ kitten; Poker Bill leaning back against the wall, his hands in his pockets, a sardonic grin of triumphant ferocity on,his heavy face; Sir Gerard a little apart from all the others, his face very, white and strained; and/hist of Primrose—-Primrose clinging to his! arm with all her girlish strength, her pretty head on his shoulder, her slight figure shakenby. cruel I heartrending''sobs. And/asi."'he v looked He sighed, then smiled. ''' ' "When shall we seven meet again ?" he paraphrased. And then, very gently and tenderly, he disengaged Primrose's clinging arms, and put her, half fainting, into a chair.

Following the direction of Poker Bill's eyes, they saw what he saw. The tall figure of a woman standing in the open French window, a white face with weird, gleaming, stormy, greenishgray eyes, and above all the shine of red-gold hair. And as they looked they held their breath. Poker Bill put his great hands over his eyes as though to shut out the terrifying vision.

' "Take it away," he shouted, in a voice that was awful to hear. "Can't you see that it's her ghost, her ghost? Eve's dead, I tell you. I saw her dead myself, lying on the floor of the cave, and Oh, what am I talking about? I didn't mean that. But she's dead, I tell you —dead; and that's her ghost come to drag me down to hell. Take ,jt away, can't you. Take it away;

away." He looked at the tall figure that stood there rigid, without a movement or word or sign; then cried out again with the horror of it all, and began to stagger about the room in a frenzy of fear, his shaking knees almost giving way beneath him"Take it away!" he screamed. 'Take it away!" He glared all round the room, and his eyes fell on Lord Eversdene. And then his face became perfectly demoniacal. "It's your fault," he shouted. "If Primrose had never your face she and her money might have been mine. But you stole her away from me. You've come between me and the tiling I wanted more than'anything in life, and you shall pay for it.> You might have cheated the hangman,yet;,,ypu're slick ' enpighvfor : '.a?iything ) ;; but you "woja'tj live to cheat the hangman. You won't cheat me. You did me once, but there is no room in the world for the man who did Poker Bill twice."

'Ah! dearest, dearest, don't cry," he said.. "Bemember, while there's life there's hope, and I may yet be saved from the doom that I haven't earned. I aw innocent, heart's dear—never forget that. And surely the Heaven we have been taught to believe in guards those who are innocent. Now good-by, sweetheart, good-by." He. turned away, .and then -laughed aloud, as. his eyes met the ; "Come along," he said recklessly, "why ate you waiting? Where are your handcuffs ? Why don't you bring them out? lam a desperate character, I assure you. Go to AustraJia and ask them what they think of Captain Jack, and they will tell you that it would be only waste of time sending three men to take him; and so it would if—if he didn't choose to go." He laughed again as he moved toward the door, easy, cool, amused;

Quick as lightning he whipped a revolver out of his pocket, and J covered Lord Ipversdene.as he stood there, smiling with maddening coolness. But Henry Lester was quick, too, his keen, j sharp wits all on the alert; and he caught the murderous hand and diverted its aim, so that the bullet that, Was meant to make its teark in a man's heart imbedded itself harmlessly in the ceiling. Lord Eversdene nodded pleasantly. 'Thanks,. Lester," he said. "You meant that weli/l have no doubt, but! I'm not *ure that you wouldn't have done better to leave it alone." Then, in the breathless silence that followed, the figure that was standing in the window moved forward, and as Poker Bill saw it move he cried out again with the same awful cry that had rent the shuddering air before. (To be Continued).