THE CHAINS OF BONDAGE

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 168, 18 July 1910, Page 8

THE CHAINS OF BONDAGE

BY EMILY B. HETHERINfcTON, i

Author of "His College Chum," "Worthington's pledge," "A Repentent Foe."

I her face and her dress seemed to proI claim that fact. It was the other to I whom Sybil Ellstree'3 words referred —a ! girl wlio was an utter contrast to her companion, with refinement and charm in the:sweet, eighteen-year-old face, the colour in which had deepened a little at the sight of Jim, as Sybil's eyes had not failed to notice. Jim ignored the spice of'malice, in her words. "Yes, that's a friend of mine—Tom Saxon —an engineer at some works down Bow way, and not an extraordinary chap at all," he laughed, "but a really good fellow —though not your eort, Sybil. Some hooligans set upon mc one night—-meant to grab my watch. This chap came to my help. I was jolly glad, I can tell j'ou. I was in a pretty tight corner, with three of 'em, until he rushed up. That's how I got to know .Saxon. And a fine fellow I've found him!" said Jim warmly. "That's his sweetheart with him—the girl with the feathers in her hat." iiybil looked as though she were not in the least degree interested, but it struck her as significant that he did not speak of the third party—about whom, as a matter of fact, Jim was thinking in the silence that followed. He had never dreamed of seeing Elsie Hood here —this girl whom he had only known a few months, yet who interested him far more than Sybil EUstree, whom he had known for years. She was a | typewriter in a city office. She and her mother—a somewhat reserved, sad-faced woman, who was unmistakably a gentle-1 ! woman—lived in "furnished apartments" in the house of Tom Saxon's mother. !Her father, of whom she never spoke, was presumably dead. Elsie Hood was still in Jim's thoughts when a general move was made by the party on the four-in-hand. "No; I think I'm not going into the paddock just now," Trevena said. "I rather like this side of the course, watohi ing the crowd —candidly, the crowd in- ! terests mc more than the racing—and ' listening to the ready-money bookmakers, in their 'big checks, 'bellowing the odds— it's amazing that any one man can make ,so much noise! How the suffragettes ' must envy 'em! Their voices would be invaluable demanding 'Votes for Women' at a public meeting!" Sybil EUstree did not seem to mind Trevena's desertion, so long as Jim Rals--1 ton remained of the party that made its way to the paddock. Trevena was a good deal older than Jim—nearer forty than thirty, with a square, rather ugly, clean-ahaved face, that somehow suggested a bulldog. A man w.ith innumerable friends among people with whom he had little in common —such as EUstree, for instance. He did not gamble, he did not play bridge; and yet EUstree liked -him, as did every one in Ellstree's set. He was a man every one knew to be scrupulously straight. j Trevena made his way toward a little knot that had gathered round a racei course tipster with whom was a woman jof whom Travena had caught a glimpse j from the top of the drag —a woman of I such uncommon, striking beauty that he I wished to have a closer glimpse of her. | The tipster had paused in his noisy harangue to his audience to exchange recriminations with a rival wearing a stained jockey's jacket and cap, who had taken a position too near his own. "Who gave you the winners of four races yesterday? Who knows a stablesecret certainty for the race now to be run?" it seemed unlikely that any confiding owner or trainer had breathed secrets into Gilbert Hardress' ear; but this was certainly implied, together with his willingness to impart the valuable information for sixpence. Trevena's chief in terest centred round the woman, who was listlessly selling the folded slips. He thought he had never seen a womar so beautiful, or with such a haunting look as he saw in the dark, troubled eyes. As the pitying thought was in his mind, there came to Mm the sudder sound of raised, angry voices of a near ing din. Trevena looked quickly round to see a man, hatless, his white, set face mud-smeared, and with blood on it, the coat half torn off his back; a man running desperately, as if for dear life, wit! deep, panting sobs, chased by a little crowd —judging by the angry shouts ol a burly Yorkshireman hard on his heels evidently a detected swindler. In the ugly rush the ring of bystand ers about the tipster were scattered pell mell. Trevena, seeing the woman'; danger, sprang forward just in time tc shield her. Caught in the excited rush in the crowd, she would have 'been swept off -her feet,' and possibly badly injured but for this man with the bulldog face who had sprung to her side. The crowd swept past, leaving hei white and frightened, but unhurt. A minute later a couple of policemer had arrested the fugitive, and were bus\ protecting their prisoner from the York shireman and; his friends'."' Yorkghiremer have a particular .objection to beinj; swindled. As the white-faced fugitive had dashec past Judith had recognised him. It was her husband's friend, Vernham. "But for you I might' have been badl} hurt!" said Judith, in a voice the tone; of which surprised Trevena almost as much as her beauty. "I don't know how to thank you for your kindness!" "Oh, it was nothing at all! I was glac to be of service!" And, raising his hat, Trevena walked away. "Poor woman; what a life! Poor wo man!" he added to himself, pityingly. The remembrance of that moment was to come 'back afterward both to hhr and to this woman, whose name he die not know, when, in circumstances fai stranger, these two were to meet again. (To be continued daily.

CHAPTER n. A GULL IX THE CASE. "What a perfect day for the race! After the deluge of last night, I was so afraid it was going to l>e stormy; and if so, 1 don't think that even the prospect of seeing Wilfred win the Derby with Meriel would have, been sufficient inducement to bring mc clown to Epsom," said Sybil EUstree in her rather petulant voice. The sun had risen after a night of .storm: long before the course began to lie thronged, its heat had drawn the moisture out of the sodden turf in wreathing, smoky mist. Overhead, the sky was clear and blue, flecked with ■ white clouds. Sybil EUstree, a -somewhat languid, fair-haired beauty, cliarminglv attired in an elaborately simple white frock —that "simplicity" that is so costly when the frock comes from Paris—and a "Merry Widow" hat, was one of .the party on her brother's —Sir Wilfred Ellstree's—four-in-hand. EUstree was the owner of the Derby j favourite—Meriel. "As it is, 1 am. rather glad there was ' such a downpour," went on Miss EUstree, in her indolent voice, shielding her companion from the sun with a lace parasol. "The running couldn't 'be better, fori Meriel; and the dust would have been/ fearful on the way down from town. The storm was a blessing in disguise." A man sitting near her on the coach j laughed. "1 suppose some of the poor wretches who slept out on the downs last night, with no shelter but the gorse bushes, thought the blessing very much • disguised!" Sybil EUstree raised her beautifully pencilled eyebrows in surprise, as she danced at'the-speaker, John Trevena, "Why should any one want to sleep out on the downs? If any one was really so foolish on such a night, surely they deserved to get soaked." said Sybil languidly, with the faintest' uninterested shrug of her dainty shoulders. "Well, you see, I expect there were a few hundreds of people come down to make a trifle out of the Derby harvest, who were foolish enough not to be able to afford the price .of. a'hed in Epsom," retorted Trevena lightly, in his pleasant, good-humoured voice. ."It seems a poor reason, perhaps."' She looked at him sharply. "1 believe you are laughing at mc," she said, with a trace of pique. Her sense of humour was not strong, but she was acutely sensitive to being poked 1 tun at. "Really, one would think you held mc responsible for the eccentric doings of these people!" And she turned to the younger man by her side, ignoring Trevena. '"I wish we hadn't to wait for three races to be run before the important event," she said. "I believe I'm much more anxious than Wilfred, who says Meriel can't lose. But I shall be in suspense until the race is over, and we know the best —or the worst." "Oh, we won't aehnit the possibility of there being a 'worst,'" said Jim Ralston quickly. "Yes, Wilfred's pretty confident. Small wonder! I've seen one of 1 Meriel's trials. Jove! There'll be some • hats thrown up when Meriel wins. Ell- • stree's so popular; the public know he's straight, and always runs to win." Jim Ralston was a man of some five-and-twenty years, with a tall, athletic ' figure, and 'a pleasant, good-humoured face; and if it had small claim to be 1 calleel handsome, there was an air of distinction and character in it to render mere good looks superfluous-. He was the son of old Paul Ralston, reputedly an enormously rich man, though 'what the precise nature of his ; financial operations in the city was no one seemed exactly to know. Father and son were amazingly, unlike, both in outward appearance and characteristics. Jim took after his mother rather than this grim, taciturn, self-made- man, who wis something of an enigma even to his own son. EUstree and Jim Ralston had been friends for yeans—the former the representative of one of the oldest families in the country, and the other—as Jim himself gaily admitted —without anj ancestral pretensions. Not that that fact made any difference to Jim's popularity. Everyone liked him. It might have" been thought, from an indefinable something in Sybil Ellstree's manner that this was a mild way of expressing her feelings. Jim hardly wondered Sybil should fee] suspense about her brother's prospects of carrying off the race of the day Meriel's Victory or defeat would, he suspected, mean a. good deal for EUstree; that the circumstances of the ownei of the favourite were none too rosy— this descendant of an old, hard-living racing stock, who for generations back had impoverished themselves on the turf —he had more than a suspicion. It was singular that the two men should be such friends. Ralston took little interest in racing. After leaving Oxford he had eaten his dinners at the temple—had been called to the bar But his ambitions, Uke those of his father for him, were for a pohtical career. His friends prophesied that when Jim entered Parliament he would make his mark. "I am glad you are so confident, too Jim, about Meriel's chances," Sybil said suddenly. "If Meriel were to lose Do you know, Jim, I could hardly sleep last night for worrying about it? I was positively haggard and ugly when I got up this morning!" Jim laughed. "Come, that's a strain on my credulity!" he said lightly, wondering idly for a moment if hers was a nature that anything could ever deeply stir. And then lie remembered watching her as she playeSfc bridge the other night—like all fhe lalstrees, the passion for gambling was in her blood—and he remembered how she had seemed a different woman, her eyes feverishly alight, her usual air of languid indifference gone, in the absorbing excitement of the game. "Really, I don't think—barring accidents, of_ course —you need worry " Hid attention was suddenly distracted. Sybil saw him smile and raise his hat. with a look of surprise. She looked quickly ill the direction of his eyes. "Surely, Jim, that extraordinary-look-ing young man cannot be a friend of yours?" she said. "Or. perhaps your smile was intended for that girl with him in the homemade frock? She was rather prett;- in her way, I noticed," Miss EUstree added, with a touch of malice in the languid insolence of her tones, looking after the young fellow in an obviously cheap, ready-made suit of a somewhat startling pattern who had responded to Jim's salute. There were two girls with him. One . of them was a typical cockney gixli *?*"■