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Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 December 1939, Page 12

Peters awkwardly, and said—in sudden decision: "All right. I’ll come now. You'll excuse me, John?" Peters remained alone on the lawn, where now the sunset was insinuating shadows to blot out the earlier light, and a faint mist was rising from the river. The white and blue mass of "Sunnyside." was only vaguely to be seen now in the haze which distorted everything. The dying sun had begun to spread a crimson splash across the building, as if smearing it with blood. But of that Peters thought nothing being unable to forsee events. He saw only the picture of Paula Accrington on the aerodrome, every detail of her insolent loveliness indelibly imprinted on his mind. And again he toyed with that insistent idea of his that he had been wrong, that he must claim his own. That gave him an inspiration, and once more his queer little smile flaunted itself on his lips. “By gad, yes!” he said to himself. “That’s the very idea. Just what old Wallingford wanted to happen, only—with a twist in its tail. Prove her an outsider to her face, and then make her a present of the whole caboodle, after she’s come to her senses.” The idea drew him back into the house, and up to the bedroom he was occupying. He opened up one of his rough Canadian leather trunks, and began to search through it, coming at length up on a shining black hold-all. This, as he opened it up in turn, disclosed a number of documents, some a little tattered, and all discoloured by age. One he selected from the rest, studying it carefully. Il was a duplicate certificate of marriage, the date of it very long back, the writing of it that spidery and very precise script of three generations ago. On the form were the names—“ Clive Arthur Accrington—Mary Alizabeth Peters ” But the most important information given by the certificate was the name of the church where the marriage had been celebrated: “St Jude’s, in the village of Barnsley-on-the-Moor, Devon.” Peters smiled again as he refolded this old and time-soiled document. It had been a card long held up his sleeve, although he had never intended playing it till now. It had been up his sleeve that night at the Otterbridge airport in Canada, when that foul little wisp of an ex-solicitor’s clerk had tried to extract money from him for information which already he possessed. It accounted largely for his refusal to have any interest in the proposal. On the other hand, at the time, his lack of interest had been quite sincere. His father’s last words to him had uttered an injunction not—unless he was driven to it—to collect the evidence of his rights and claim them. "You’ve only to go to the church and compare this duplicate with the original in an old register there," he had said. “My old mother told me that, but she was proud. What had been denied her in her life, she did not want to claim even for me, while I could stand on my own feet and owe nothing to that rotten family. And you, my son. The living you make for yourself will bring you more happiness than all the Accrington millions made by somebody else.” That, in fact, had been John Peters’s opinion, too. It was still that. His business arrangement with Sir Oscar promised a wealthy future, the product of his own brain and energy. All the same he no longer proposed to leave matters just where they had lain till the present. The original of this certificate had to be found. He put the duplicate away in a poc-ket-wallet, then returned to other papers in the hold-all to the safety ot his leather trunk, and came away from the room. As he descended the stairs, a pretty voice challenged him from the dark of the hall. It belonged to Pamela. Sir Oscar’s niece.

“You’re not at all nice to know, Mr Peters. I’m beginning to think,” she said, though quite laughingly. “Leaving me all alone for the last hour, while you sat out there talking shop to Mr Wallington- —” ‘But —we weren’t talking shop,” Peters said in some surprise. "Anyhow. if you’d joined us out there on the law we’d only have been too pleased.” “And how do you look when you feel really pleased?” she laughed her gay eyes provoking. “I don’t think you've ever looked positively pleased since you’ve been here. You’re rather a serious person, aren't you?” “I didn’t know it,” he laughed. “And I certainly didn’t know you were alone. I left you with Sir Oscai —" “Oh, uncle’s been more than an hour tied up witli some person in his study, talking high finance," she answered. “Even on Sunday. Money never stops talking, does it?” Then, with a little impetuous touch of pretty fingers on his eoat-sleeve, she said: “There's a lot of money in our library at the present moment, talking to Mi- Wallingford.. Your lady of the aerodrome —Miss Accrington.” "Here—talking to Mr Wallingford?" Peters asked, in some surprise, but remembering now the mumbled message of the manservant a quarter of an hour since, and old Mr Wallinglord’s hurried excuse on leaving. Strange that, so soon after they had been discussing her. Paula Accrington should have turned up here. Peters was puzzled over it. though dismissing the matter from his mind as no business of his. But. a moment later, the library door opened, and Paula Accrington came out, with old Mr Wallingford following her. (To be Continued.)