THE THIRD DEGREE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 209, 4 September 1925, Page 12

THE THIRD DEGREE.

i 1 BY R. A. J. WALLING. ! I j Author of " The Fatal Glove," otc. ! ; I JJAJ'TEi: XX.— (Concluded, i ''The next morning she vas more > lornial. J ought to have been warned, nit 1 was preoccupied with the idea of ; lie settlement with Lanson. He was • oming to dinner that night, and bringng all the documents with him. You ;now about the dinner party. Aftervards Lanson wanted to go straight on vith the business, but by some unmppy chance 1 insisted on a game of j lilliards first. I wanted to soothe niv lerves and think. We had nearly inished our game. Lanson was playing i break, and I went into my room for nore cigars. "While I was at the cupboard ihe maid came and said Mrs. Baird wanted to see mc. I said, 'I'm just rushing a game. Ask hJfeto come iown here." wf "1 waited in my room for a few moments, and while I waited 1 took up the bundle of papers Lanson had dropped in a basket, undid the tape, and spread them out on the table. I was turning them over when 1 heard the shot."' Orainger leaned forward from lib i-hair. , "I was right about the pistol,' , he said. ! "Quite. Lanson took it out because it galled him in playing and put it on the table, and we did joke over it. as you guessed. 1 rushed into the billiardroom just as she was flinging it through the window. She dashed past mo and ■was up the stairs before my man came out. 1 rushed after her, but I heard the servants moving, and I turned into my room again. The thought flashed into my mind that she had not heen seen, and might be safe if I pretended "' •■ "That you had done it. .Mr. Baird." cried Orainger. "I ought to go on my knees to you." "There is a phial of veronal in my cupboard," said Mr. Baird. disregarding it he interruption. "It was the easy solution.; I was looking for it when they all came down. And soon the greatest horror of all happened. My son was brought in by the policeman." "That's enough!" *aid (Jrainger. "Only one thing, though. She had not intended to do this? it was a sudden temptation ?"' , "Yea. She had gone into the billiardroom expecting to find mc there. The pistol was on the table. Lanson was hending over playing a shot. Her mad Tirain did the rest in an instant. But in it-hat- instant the boy. standing outside the window, saw his step-mother murder Mr. Lanson. You know how he took it, Orainger. He is the right ptutl'." j "The very best," said Grainger'.' "But jhowtdid he know that she was his step- i mot hen?" j "It was. that very morning when he ', Avas "blowing off against mc that Lanson Oiad told him—shown him the letter in "which I made the arrangements for his. maintenance when he was a baby." ("irainger had been deeply shaken by the story. He felt himself alternately flushing and shivering as he realised the i narrowness of his escape from the working of a terrible wrong. ''Nothing I can say, Mr. Baird. will repay the injury I have done you." f : "You were merciless, Grainger. . But you did what you thought you had to 'do. I did not mind the-accusation. • I meant from tho first to accept it if I must. What hurt mc was your assumption that I was a blackguard through ■and through. 'Steal,' 'lie.' 'rob'—you ■used all those words. In my desk at home you will rind every document of security given to Lanson in a paxkage addressed to Phyllis Lanson. She, as you said, is the owner of everything— you mentioned the chair T was sitting ;oii," he added with a wan smile. '"The ! difference is that J meant her to have I everything. It was only the awfill complication of Jack's presence there that prevented mc from .lmnding r it, over at once." "I have seen it all clearly for some minutes, Mr. Baird." said fJrainger. "Now— will you do what "I ask you?"

"Let it all alone. Let it take its course."

"No!" t-ried Grainger. "It's impossible. I am a fool, but I cannot be a scoundrel, even to help you out in a piece of selfsacrifice like this. Every word I said and every word I did not say would be a lie. No!"

'"Think of tliat poor woman. Grainger." Mr. Baird appealed to him. "Her body a wreck, her mind a chaos. To bring this thing home to her now would "be an outrage. It would be a hundred deaths for mc."

"Where is she?" asked Grainger. '"In a private institution. , I. had to send her away. 1 could stand it no longer." He drooped his head in his hands as he spoke. "I am going now." said Grainger, with face set hard. "I shall be back with

Sandys before the night is out." "Be merciful. Grainger! You owe it to mc!" cried Mr. Baird, as the door of the cell was closed. Miss Belliver walked slowly along the roads that leads from the. hamlet to Lakeford Woods. It was a bright morning, a summer morning which had rushed forward into spring. Miss Belliver was in tune .with the joyous day. She sang a little comic country song with a rollicking refrain—sang it under her breath lest a stray child might hear the schoolmaster's daughter " And I thought I should never go home to bed Tbe night that I was pixy-led."' The night that I was pixy-led." She was crooning it as she reached the point where the track led upwards towards Fox Gerred's clearing. There she sat on the bole of a fallen tree, took a letter from her blouse and read it. Not a very long letter, but exloessively important. That was plain ' from the number of tinies she read it j The la«t passage in it was this: — "That* the question I want to a>l Ton. If you come to meet mc in Lake i ford Wood* I shall know thtit- tlia :in

i "You're a wonderfully confident man."' : said Miss Belliver. holding the letter in her left hand and shaking a finger o£ her Tight at it. '"But. you see, I've come to meet you in Lakeford Woods. The answer, as they say in Parliament, lis in the affirmative." ! She restored the letter to the ne>t j from which she had taken it. and rej sinned her song. Looking up the track. : she saw amm descending. He wa< a I long way off. but she recognised the

writer <>f the letter, and she vent to meet him. No sooner had phe risen than hi' saw her and waved his hat and quickened liis step. • (> ,

Clear-eyed and clear-browed, the girl smiled to him as lie neared her. He lipid out liis hand. She grasped it "irmly. Hers was coul, hi s hot and rembling. ''You had my letter?" said he. '"I have come to meet yon in Lakeord Woods," ?aid she. That was all. He put an arm about it-r and held her close to kiss her. At first there was not much convprfition that morning in Lakoford Woods, dr. Torn Fewinjpt and Miss Bellivor '.•■re too busy listening to the music if tin , spheres. But in the due efflux •f time they deigned to give a little itterlion to thinfTs of the earth and the tfTairs of tlieir neighbours. "Have you heard from Jack*" Mr. ■"•'wings inquired. "He promised to vrite to mc. hut never a line except vlint he could get on a picture post•ard throe weeks ago." "Men have a reputation for neglecting heir male friends when they take Up Tith the other sex." said Miss Belliver "Perhaps I'm unreasonable." said Mr Fewings. looVing at her quizzically. "1 .yonder whether I shall write long let ers to Belliver when f am on the same jrrand?" S!k- blushed under his planeo. ''Yes: wp have heard from .!a;k." slit »aid in answer to his question. '"The lionevmoon. of course, is an immense iuree*s. Miss Lunson was adorable but Mrs. Jack Belliver is infinitely am ??rf]uisitely superior to her. Tlie con ?eit of men! Phyllis" association wit! line of the lords of creation under t changed name has converted her from ' princess into a goddess! Fi'winjrs laughed. "T promise you." said be. "to avoii that pitfall of e<?otism. Miss Bellivp' i=; perfect: a> Fewings she wil only change her status, not alter he; character." There was an interlude for emphasis in? this sentiment. As (hey turned back towards Lake ford, the talk turned on the events ilia , had broucr'it them together. "You have -een nothing of Mr Baird, I suppose?" the girl asked. "No. He has orone away from West port. Only Belliver knows anything; o his movements. They keep in constan touch. That terrible experience broki lrm up. He has got over the mom of despair, but he is quite broken (irainirer told mc sompthiiisr about tin last scene*. They were awful. Cram eer was even tempted at one time t< hold his tongue about the discovery t< which you led him. Mr. Baird's agon; when he knew that the erirrn' had beei traced to her was so intense that a the moment it would have been a char ity. Orain'jer says, either to let hin commit suicide or even to stand hi trial for the murder. But. of course it could not be. He simply ravei when Grainger went to tell him tha his confession had been burned and tha he was free." "He is an extraordinary man." s=ai< Miss Belliver. "I never heard of ; case of such iron courage and self sacrifice. It was a mercy that he wa spared the last torture of all." •"You mean !"' 'T mean that the poor woman wa txtvond their reach.'"

"Yes, the one mercy that was accorded him. It seem* that although he sent her away to a private asylum before firainger' had fetched back Bi'lliver. she heard of it. or a rtlmour of it, and the fear of what would happen turned her from a melaneholiae into a maniac. When the case oame on she was certi- j lied to be unlit to plead. And the end j came soon. Her death was the final | mercy. But it crushed Mr. Baird into the earth." '•He may rise again." said Miss Belliver. "He may live again in the 'if ,l ; of his son. The worst calamities of I life have some redeeming feature. ' J '"Yes. indeed." tried Fewines. "Let's think of fairer thing*. The. redeeming, feature of it all for mc is that it brought mo to Lakeford Scheolhouse one afternoon last autumn." She pressed his arm in recognition of the thought. They reached the floor of the schoolhouse'now. Mr. Samuel Belliver was standing there. I '•How do you do, Mr. Fewings?" said | he in his formal way. 'Splendidly. Mr. Belliver." he replied. '•Better than ever T did in my lift , " (The End.l