CHAPTER II.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXIII, Issue 1141, 17 July 1896, Page 7

CHAPTER 11.

It was about a month later that Helen came to me one afternoon dressed for walking, and asked if I would go out with her for a while. I was busy at my easel, for the light was good and I was absorbed in a new conception. I looked at her, and wanted to go, and then at my picture and wanted to stop. She saw my hesitation and retreated, laughing, to the door. ' Oh, irresolute lover !' she said. 'Is it so hard to make up your mind as to the charms of your tvvo m:s---j tresses ] Never mind, dear, I'll give place to art for an hour. I have some shopping to do, and you hate shopping, don't you, poor darling ? Go on with your work and be ready for my return in an hour, and then we'li have a walk in the park before darkness comes on. So an, revoir '/' She threw me a kiss with her dainty finger-tips and laughed and ran away. I heai'd the door close and the patter of her feet upon the stairs outside, and then I turned to my picture and worked steadily again. An hour passed and still I worked and Helen had not returned. At the end of another half hour I laid aside my palette and brushes and made myself ready for our walk. Still she came not. I sat down and smoked, but at the end of two hours I went down-stairs and standing at the door of our house Jooked along the road hoping to catch sight of her advancing figure. Once I thought that I saw her in the distance, and I went to mest her only to find myself mistaken. I went back to the house and waited a while at the door. Ten minutes passed and there was no sign of her coming. I went upstairs to our rooms and sat down to smoke in the studio. It was then nearly three huurs since she left me. and. the . afternoon was rapidly advancing into twilight. Still I did not feel uneasy ; it struck me that she had met some friend or other and made . a call. She knew that I was busily intent on my picture and should not object to being left alone with ir. So I sat there smoking and reading, expectant of her voice on the stairs at any moment. I had no thought whatever of wrong — -how could I have 1 I think T had worked longer and harder that day than usual— anyhoW,

something induced me to sletp. The book which I was reading dropped from my hand and I slumbered. While J slept I dreamed that Helen was in danger. I heard" her voice crying to me for help. I had a momentary glimpse of her face, full of pain and fear. I woke with a start and looked about me. The studio was in darkness there was no gleam of light save the faint rays of a gas lamp' in the strefit outside. I struck a match and lighted the gas, and at that moment the door opened to admit the parlor maid carrying my reading-lamp. I wanted to ask her if Helen had returned, and could find no words to do so. She sat down the lamp and looked at ma 'My mistress has not come in yet, sir,' she said. ' Will you dine 1 ? — cook says that dinner will be spoiled — it's nearly seven o'clock, sir.' Our usual dinner hour was six, a convenient one foi us because it was neither too early nor too late. I glanced at my watch ; it was fivn minutes to seven. Where could Helen He ? It was nearly four hours since she left home, and wherever she might have gone I felt sure, that had all been well she would have returned to dinner. Then I remembered with a sickening sense of fear that we had promised to accompany some friends to the theatre that (-.veiling, and had airanged to call for them at a qnarter to eighf. Even as I remembered that a ray of hope flashed upon me : it might be that Helen had gone there It vras an improbable thing, but drowning men catch at straws, and I was by that time most seriously concerned at ray wife's absence. 1 told the girl to keep dinner waiting, and snatching up my hat tan out. to our friend's house. One word there sent me away again ; Helen had not been there. But as I turned away a voice called me back : one of the daughters of the house had seen her at half-past three in Piccadilly. She -was just going into Hatchard's book- shop, and had stayed a moment at the door to speak to her friend and to confirm our engagement for the evening. There are, I think, few sensations mors horrible than that of a man who loses wife or child in a great city and feels himself hopelpss at soa at the very outcet of his search. I realised this .sensation to the full as I walked away from my friend's house. I was by that time cercnin that something had befallen Helen. She might at that moment be calling on me for help as shp did in my dream. And yet I was helpless, powerless. Which way should I. turn amidst that awful labyrinth of streets ? She had been more easy to find in the desert of Sahara than in that vast city. I went home hoping to find her there. I looked into the dining-room. There was the cheery table spread for dinner with its two vacant places, and the shaded lamp-lighl falling on its polished glass and silver. But the room was ftrnpty, and so was the whole house, empty, at any rate, of her presence. I roamed from room to room for a while, too full of a sickening fear to think or speculate, but at last I could bear the suspense no longer. I left the house and drove to the nearest police station and gave information. There is a certain monotonous regularity about the ways and doings and thoughts of our police which is exasperating like that of which I am writing but in spite of it their help is valuable, and it gave me some further hope (o see how promply their intricate machinery was put in motibn. Perhaps I chafed something under the cold, official questions of the inspector. He was full of motive and cause, I was concerned only with result and effect, I laughed when he asked me if there were any reason why my wife should leave her home, but I answered all his interrogations calmly, only begging him when they were finished to use his best endeavours as rapidly as possihly. I shall not relate in detail the history of the next twenty-four hours. My wife did not return. We found that after leaving home she had walked to Piccadilly and had purchased two new books at Hatchard's. After that there was no trace of her. But later in the day the police took me to a lonely spot in Kensington Gardens where they had discovered traces of a struggle. The wheel of a conveyance had impinged on the grass, and near it were the marks of feet. Close by lay a parcel in brown paper which proved to contain the two books purchased by Helen at Hatchard's. It turned my heart to ice when I saw those books, for their discovery seeir.ed to suggest a tragedy But thers was worse in store. 4 Here's something else,' said an inspector. 'It lay close by the books but whether it has anything to do with the case or not I don't; know. Look.' He held up a-carte-de-visite portrait as he spoke. I snatched it from him — merciful heavens ! It was a photograph of the man whom I had found gazing at my picture in the academy ! (To be continued.)