LASSIE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14133, 7 August 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

LASSIE.

[PUBLISHED BT SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.]

BY HELEN MATHERS, Author of "Comin' Thro' the " My Lady Malincourt," Cherry Ripe," .My Lady Greensleeves." ** Gay Lawless, Etc., Etc.

,'i .' V • ' 'V: [COPYRIGHT.]

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

CHAPTERS I. AND ll.— story opens at a social function in London, where the elite are gathered. Lord Alvanley comments to Roup' , St. Leven, a young soldier back from two yt-ars service in India, on the beaut}' of Eugenia, Strata ton. She recognises Roddy, and they con I vers . lie says he is going to try to get out to West Africa. Mrs. St. Leven, in conversation with her son, lets him see plainly that she would. like Eugenia for a daughter-in-law. In discussing family affairs each tries to hide ft know: of straitened circumstances from the other, »n i driving- they come across Eugenia, whom Koauy » mother invites to tea. Later on they see Colonel St. .Leven, Roddy's father, from whom Mrs. St. Leven is separated. , CHAPTER ill. AND IV.—Roddy St. Leven b former man unpacks. He lets the young man know something of what his mother lias gone through.. Roddy sees a girl's picture in a bundle of photographs, and remembers the Latretlics. His uncle, Tom Bullen, visits him, and converses with his sister. Roddy says he is going to see Lassie Latreille. He and Jock, Lassie s broth r, travel together. Lassie welcomes Ron warmly. She owns to several love affairs which she lias made instrumental in the stories she writes. Sho is delighted to hear that Roddy ingoing to West Africa on account of the _ copy he can supply. Luther Latreille, Lassie s father, tells Roddy he mistrusts Lesbia Stratton, but says that Eugenia is a nice girl, who worships the ground that he, Roddy, treads on. Roddy lets? him know that no woman can come into his life at present, as he lifts his mother to thlnk about . Luther wishes he had Roddy's father and a horse-whip for five minutes, v

CHAPTER V. BULLEN'S COURT.

Lassie was absent .from breakfast—not because she had overslept herself, as Roddy supposed, but because she wanted to dash down red-hot all the impressions she had got from his conversation overnight in the smoking-room, where, for once, petticoats had been allowed to intrude. ■

When Jock proposed to unearth her it was with some surprise that Roddy found himself ascending those stairs to the " tallet," in which as he knew apples and pears were stored in winter, the odour of which still clung pungently around, and to discover that in a room next to it Lassie had pitched her tent. A certain humble-mindedness, ftnd the knowledge that Mrs. Latreille disapproved of her tastes, had prevented her taking one of the many ampty, pleasant rooms of the rambling house; but to Roddy the girlish figure perched on a broken chair at a rude kitchen table piled with manuscript, scratching away for dear life, fingers inked, and •_ hair rumpled in the throes of composition, was a rather tragic sight. He never at any time could bear to see a woman work hard, and this was almost a child who was letting slip some of the sunniest hours of youth, in hope of a more ■ ;han doubtful reward.

"Hallo!" shouted Jock; and Lassie jumped, and made a' big blot on the paper as she came out of her imaginary world, and thrust . her fingers through the upstanding lock on her forehead. " Sorry I couldn't come down, Roddy, she said. "You see, breakfasts, dinners, teas, and suppers cut up your life so, and leave so little time for anything." She kissed Jock absently, and almost Roddy by mistake, then re-seated herself in the broken chair. " I'm just putting down some of the interesting things about India you told us last night." "But you've got to"come ' out this morning," said Roddy, sitting 'down,..at one corner of the table, while Jock .took, another. "We are going to ,'#ViVfe j&yui over to Bullen's Court. uncle Tom ox-., pects us to luncheon.'.' ' ' - '' Well," coaxed , Lassie, " if you'll just give 'me half an hour more. I got up at five and I've nearly done." "No breakfast?" exclaimed Roddy. " That's bad."

" Oh, yes '."—reproachfully; "a glass of milk, "and bread and butter." " I say!" called , out Jock, who had been exploring the surrounding sea of papers, " I should think you're on corresponding terms with pretty, well every editor in London, judging by the number of 'returned with thanks' strewn around !"

Lassie coloured vididly, and she was so pretty when she did so as to offer a premium to anyone to tease her. " I've got to learn my trade and the use of my tools," she said with dignity; " but when I can use them—" She sprang up, and tried to get away from Jock' a manuscript, from which he began to read, holding it high out of her reach.

Has no strange, beautiful instinct ever, Strengthened your heart in its fierce endeavour? Have you not held back your breath to listen? Across your eyes has no heavenly glisten—"

But Lassie had by that time snatched it from him, and put. her slighted offspring to keep company with other members of an extremely large family. ".Jolly fine, I call it," said Jock, with round eyes. ".I wouldn't have believed you could have done it myself. Just fancy a beast of an editor refusing that!" But Roddy was silent, as Lassie smoothed her rebellious " authoress" lock; and soon they all clattered down the stairs together and out to the stables, Lassie snatching a hat and a pair of gloves from the hall as they went. A pair of bright bays were being hap nessed to the park phaeton; for the stables were always full, though there was not a motor in the place. Mr. Latreille would not have missed a run with the Blackmore Vale or the Cottesmore hounds for all the excitements Brooklands ever furnished.

Slender Lassie fa'at bodkin between the two young men, and away they went, swinging out at a dangerous anglo through the great gates, no one caring a pin, all happy, and talking the nonsense that youth talks, and will talk, all the world over.

" I've wired up to the mater," said Roddy, when their spirits were lees effervescent, "and we're going up to-mor-row by the early train." Lassie gasped. "It's a lovely prospect," she said: " but how about my lovers, whom I shall have to leave in -a most ticklish situation?" .

" Oh, you'll get some new wrinkles in town to bring back with you," said Jock encouragingly. "You will introduce me to some clever men, won't you, Roddy?" she said anxiously ; and Jock whistled. "Of course," said Roddy drily. In fact, I'll make a point of getting you invited to the Authors' dinner as a guest. I'm told all the brainy people run to fat, or bald heads—or both."

Lassie indignantly quoted one male author, at least, who was quite beautiful; but Roddy assured her. that he did not write any morehe found beauty and brains were altogether incomDatible. And Jock declared that it was for a similar reason that ho objected to Lassie's " littery" tastes, as he called them; it was her genius and loveliness combined that would preclude her from ever being a real success. This Lassie stigmatised as rude; and Bullen's Court was reached before the teasing of her' by the two young men had in the least palled on them, or their company on her. When they drove up, .Tom Bullen was standing at the entrance of the grey old Elizabethan house, behind which clustered the great farm buildings, that had only been there a couple of generations. He looked as strong and sturdy as his own oak ' door, and as usual when he came there Roddy blessed the good yeoman blood that mingled in his veins with the aristocratic ichon that he so deeply mistrusted, and which he watched so jealously for any sign of its deteriorating influence on his mind and character. ' : >, ■

"Welcome, Lassie, girl!" cried Tom, as Roddy lifted her down. " Hey, Roddy, boy!" And he kissed the one and clapped the other on the back. " Leave again, Jock ? It's a fine tiling to be a soldier, my word! How's your father? Making a pretence of fishing till the shooting begins, I'll wager, and counting

the days till he hears the sweetest music in all the world. But come —come in!" And as the man led the horses away they followed him' into the cool, oak-panelled hall, the equal to which it would be hard to find in any modern palace.. • , Roddy vralked straight up to the picture of his mother, that bloomed like a rose among the sober aliens of hundreds of years ago, and felt his usual irritation that Tom would not part with it. Still, as her father had paid for it, and the painting had gone with the house, Tom had no idea of obliging Roddy in the matter, though it was a constant bone of contention between them. _ Lassie soon slipped away in search of her old and fondly-cherished friend, the housekeeper. Jock disappeared, and Roddy and his uncle went into the study for that talk which the latter clearly desired; and Tom Bullen plunged, as was his way, into the heart of the matter. "See here, Roddy," he said. "I'm glad you camo back. I'd have been disappointed in you if you had not, when you got an inkling <?f the real state of affairs at home. But this going to West Africa is a mistake, and not fair to your mother. Promotion there is a thing gone by; the increased pay is not worth the sacrifice of your health and her happiness. Sierra Leone ruins a man mentally, morally, and physically. It's worse than folly to _go to where there's only a sheet of blotting paper between you and hell." . "I'd go further than that," cried Roddy, " to make money for my mother. I shall send her three parts of what I makeam taking out my own stores, and so —and with what you allow her, she ought to be comfortable." "Comfortable!" Tom Bullen choked over the word, looking more than ever a typical John Bull in his country get-up, sitting erect in his solid chair, and glared at Roddy, in whom lie was always dreading to find some of the shameless selfishness of his father. _ " There's a much easier way of making, her happy," he said, "and you know it. Why don't you give up the army and com© down here and help me to farm? Things are • about as bad as bad can be; property of all- kinds, and shares, have dwindled to almost vanishing point, but there's room here, and to spare, for everybody." - Roddy nodded, thinking of the many beautiful living-rooms, the spacious chambers, in one of which, when , the Bullens were great people, with a queen for • one of their ancestors, the great Elizabeth had slept. " Until you married— ever you do so —your mother would ask nothing better than to come and live here with you, and the allowance I make her —to put it plainwould be saved. The Latreilles are near by ; you would have your horses and your hunting, shooting, and so on. And let mo; tell you that the life of a country gentleman isn't such a bad one, after all." Roddy knew —that there was, in fact, nothing to beat the home comforts of Bullen's Court— outdoor pleasures of the almost ideal life both Latreille and his uncle lived; but he was ambitious still, a keen ■ soldier, eager to take all risks, - all hazards. West ' Africa appealed to him enormously, and he would not have foregone his chances there for a kingdom. Tom, drumming with his fingers on the table beside him, knew that Lyndsay had lost, even before Roddy spoke. "My mother will not want any allowance from you now," he said. 'I shall send her home three parts of my pay, and a very little satisfies her, bless her! _ I'm very sorry, sir, but I love my profession., And, indeed, Tom knew that he had brought down considerable dislike on his head, because he used his brains in - his work— not play round, as some others did. ' Yet afterwards it seemed to Roddy that this was the parting of the ways, that it was here he failed in his love and selfsacrifice to his mother. He would have saved her much sorrow, and himself something worse than death, had he elected 'to throw away the sword for the ploughshare, and settle down to as clear and wholesome a life as the heart of man could wish. •

' Tom sighed. ? Of all the professions that an only, son should choose, the army is surely-the last; .but all the St. Levens had been soldiers, and Roddy had gone to Sandhurst as a matter of course. At that moment the door opened, and Lassie's head appeared. "Oh, Roddy," she said, "there's such a lot of fruit waiting to be eaten, and plenty of time before luncheon

Roddy sprang up. "Coming, Uncle Tom?" But Tom shook his head. He sat there motionless for some time after the three young people had turned their backs on his stately old house, on its smooth lawns and;'' well-tended flower beds, to disport themselves in the great, walled kitchen garden, that could have supplied a regiment with fruit and never missed it, and where they had "tucked in" so often before.

The worst of Bullen's Court is," said Lassie, as the luncheon-gong called them in, and she surveyed her fruit-stained, rosy finger tips, "that it always puts me out of conceit with Colinshayes!"

CHAPTER VI. THE WOOLWICH DANCE.

"Isn't she a dear little kid?" said Roddy. He and Eugenia were watching Lassie, over whom a. number of cadets were fighting for a dance, and some older men hovering about, waiting for a chance to cut in.

Everything hangs well on a girl's young, slim figure she requires no dressing up— her youth dresses her. Lassie looked the spirit of youth and joy-in her gossamer robe, one white rose with vivid green leaves nid-nodding above her lovely hair and dancing eyes. That her-feet were those of a fairy, both her partners and the onlookers knew.

"Awful little flirt," he went on reflectively ; for, with Jock, he saw that Lassie was frankly It was her tender-heartedness, perhaps, her complete unconsciousness and intense interest in whoever for the moment absorbed her attention that mad© him thus designate her.

" You see, she means to make ' copy' out of those fellows for a book she is writing," said Roddy, who, with some consternation, had observed how Lassie seemed to get every day further from the soul with which he had credited her.

" One can't imagine Lassie sitting still," said Eugenia; "she seems to have the secret of perpetual motion. Doesn't Jock look hotand happy?" "I heard him boasting just now," said Roddy—" and with truth—that his party had bagged all the good looks in the room; and he's not far out."

Suddenly there pelted out "The Call of the Whistler fed- his Dog"-vibrant, challenging notes that fired the blood and set one dancing whether one would or not; and Roddy and Eugenia responded with the rest. But though the girl danced well, it was not with Lassie's irresistible swing and enjoyment; and soon they sat down, and looked on at a scene that had all the life, colour, and movement that is the soldier's true atmosphere, and that somehow he always manages, to create, wherever he may be, "There's my mother!" exclaimed Roddy, and rose on the instant, for she always had first claim on him, but, glad to see him with Eugenia, she made a sign to him to remain where he was. If she gently pushed the girl and Roddy towards each other it was because she had a terror of her own love overshadowing his life, becoming the tyranny that some love of some mothers is for their sons, for, after all, the young will incline to the young, and if Roddy had brought a chorus girl home to her as his wife, Lyndsay would have welcomed, been kind to her, so ling as she made him happy. "There's no. one like her, is there?" he said heartily. " No one." " "

; "You know that I have got the post I want," he said, "over the heads of hundreds of other menit's wonderful luck !"

Have you ever waited on a siding for an express train to the north to go by? Throbbing with , light, it gives you a lightning impression of some tremendous power going out to the unknown—may not the passing from sight of a friena be like that, and you left? That is how Eugenia felt then, as she sat with hands fast-locked in her lap.

. " It is awfully good of you to mind," he said, not looking at her. Roddy liked Eugenia personally. She did not clip her words, or talk the shibboleth that prevails among most of the smart set; then-she was always a delight to the male eye, arid he felt he could have made a real pal of her had things been otherwise. /' -

" But I shall be back almost before I am missed," he added cheerily. They give you four months in every year, you know—that's one of the great inducements."

"Because if you stayed there any longer you would die," said Eugenia. " Who was it said that man thinks everyone mortal but himself?"

"After all, a man can only die once," said Roddy curtly. To him, as to most soldiers, it was nothing to make a fuss about.

"But his mother may, many times," said Eugenia, under her breath, for there was a warm friendship between her and Lyndsay. ' " Poor little girl!*' he said, and touched her,hand. It was accident, of course, that made Lesbia pass at that moment, but. the look she threw on him recalled sharply to his mind Luther Latreille's sinister whisper, even if in the same moment the woman's beauty struck him more startlingly than ever. "By jovo!" exclaimed Roddy, suddenly, "there's Alvanley! Fancy his condescending to a rough-and-tumble Woolwich dance—l never expected he'd come Eugenia frowned and turned her delicate head away as the Guardsman made his way towards her. Had Roddy got Jock to ask him down to get rid of her? Roddy rose when Alvanley joined them, and, like many others, he thought of the Moor and Desdemona, so great was the contrast between the dark, almost swarthy man, with Eugenia's dazzling fairness. Perhaps the girl was aware of his becommgness, for she encouraged him about her much more than any of her other admirers.

Not exactly a Guards' ball said Roddy. There's Miss Latreille—l think I must go and ask her for a dance—don't expect there's much chance of getting one!" For, empresses like Lesbia or princesses like Eugenia notwithstanding, Lassie, with her delightful youth and vim, was in old-fashioned parlance decidedly the belle of the evening. - "What a jolly little girl she is!" said Alvanley, looking at Lassie as she put her hand through Roddy's arm and moved away. He thought her a little different, and that was all, to the common varieties, which only emphasised the rarity of his coveted white rose, Eugenia. "So you're having a good time, Lassie?" said Roddy. " I've hardly set eyes on you since you came up." "Oh, it has been lovely!" she said, as they sought a comfortable corner and found none, for the sitting-out arrangements were primitive in the extreme, and bellying canvas, swaying pedestal lamps, and tottering screens kept everyone in a more or less lively state of fear. " I believe supper's in the wind," he said presently. " Let's go and find my mother!"- And after some search thev discovered her for the moment alone, for if she did not dance with any great energy she had plenty of men to talk to, and was very popular, more because she was Roddy's mother, she used to declare, than on her own merits.

When they had come out victorious in the football scrimmage that nowadays is called "going in to supper," it was found that the extravagant boys had provided endless Heidsieck, but nothing else, and Lyndsay clamoured in vain for soda-water. Lassie had barely time for a little soup and a bunch of grapes before she was hunted out by a persistent partner, and the two who made the best company in the world were left to each other.

"Mother," said Roddy, " you don't think Lesbia Stratton will do any harm to Lassie? After all, we are responsible for "the child." ! -

But Lyndsay, who "was very broadminded, laughed at the idea. -"Has she done any to Eugenia? The girls are very happy , togetherlet them remain so, Roddy.". . .. " Then you don't think she's bad?" said -Roddy. ' - . . "Why, lovie, is anyone really bad? Life's forces tug at 1 a man or woman, . and in every body-cell nature aids and abets, demanding its own. Until you have your-self-felt the temptation that overpowers a fellow-human, you are no judge of the strength of it. There's a devil in Lesbia'e eye—not a happy one, and no wonder, for she adored Stratton, and she adores money, and has lost both."

"You always find excuses for everyone, bless you said Roddy, and against his better judgment let things elide, though what Lesbia's game was puzzled him. •How was he to know that she.had always believed his interest in Lassie to be serious, that he had only waited for the girl to grow up to marry her? Le«bia was determined to prevent their coming to an understanding before he left v for the Coast, so kept the girl amused and with her all she could. For, once deprive Eugenia of hope and she might turn in pique to Alvanley, vigilant , for his chance-—as his presence here to-night testified—and all Lesbia's 'plans for keeping her daughter unmarried would he in the dust.

Four o'clock had struck before ' Jock packed his party in two motors back to town. Roddy, at the last moment, to his mother's surprise and Lassie's disappointment, accepting a lift home from Alvanley. :.;"C _ ' ■ The two were very good friends, but not intimates, and though the Guardsman was no more the man to take a liberty with than Roddy, as a rule, was a man to take one, on this occasion the latter deliberately did so. He would be gone in three weeks, and he wanted the other to know that the path was clear, so far as he was concerned, with Eugenia. So when he got out at Sloane-street he turned back, as by an afterthought, and said quietly: ."Take my tip, old chap, when you've got her consent, bolt with Miss Stratton, bolt with her anywhere that you can find a registrar to tie the knot, but be sure you don't tell mother-in-law you're going to do it."

Alvanley looked at him keenly, perhaps understanding more than Roddy supposed. Eugenia had been kind to him that evening, kinder than she had ever been before —Lesbia's bad temper was sufficient to witness that.

"I wish Lady Stratton could have all that beastly money," lie said. " I have lots of my own." "Just as vulgar to have too much as too little," said Roddy airily, and waved his hand as the motor elid away to St. James'.

CHAPTER VII. A FAIRY GODMOTHER. It seemed natural enough" that Eugenia and Lassie should go about together, especially as Lyndsay was far too preoccupied . with Roddy to make ,an efficient chaperon, while "Lesbia Stratton had the art at her finger ends. Nevertheless there was a forcing of the pace that Roddy did not like, and had Jock not been kept from town just then by the manoeuvres he would have spoken to him about it. A motor would be at the Sloane-street door almost ibefore Lassie had breakfasted to take her the short distance to Hans Place, where she would be swallowed up in gaieties for the next eighteen hours, with intervals for dressing. _ Lyndsay, from time to time, felt qualms at absorbing so much of Roddy's society; knew that she was a poor hostess to Lassie, whom she hardly saw. She consoled herself, however, with the reflection that Lesbia was giving the child what was probably the time of her life; but one night she urged Roddy, who felt in no jrood for society, which had never at any time greatly attracted him, to fetch the girl from a concert fit Carlton House Terrace. •

After some search he discovered Lassie — who had been working hard at pleasure ever since eleven o'clock that morning, having gone to bed in broad daylight— and as he slipped into a vacant chair beside her he thought that surely she wore a costlier frock than, usual, of some gauzy material, touched with exquisite leaf-green embroideries, and a little chaplet of what looked like leaves sown _ with diamonds resting on her hair, which was dressed differently and higher than usual. . He preferred wound round it the long thick phut that lends itself so graciously to the lines of a woman's head, as he aleo

stained fingers, and all her " failures" scattered around her. ■

"Enjoying yourself, Lassie?" he said. : "Yes— you have come," she said reproachfully. I never see you now

" Because I'm out of the house before you are up and in bed before you come home," said Roddy; "and I'm; very busy, too. Only another week now before I start."

Lassie's heart sank. She had not in the least realised how soon it was. And, suddenly, all that had enchanted her. and the round of delights that had hardly left her time to breathe, showed vain and empty, and herself mean and ungrateful.

" You are beginning to look fagged," he said.

"Eugenia is much more tired than I am. She can't sleep," said Lassie, who was the only one of them all who did not know what ailed the girl.

"Well, it is a good job for you both that the season is nearly over," said Roddy, glancing round at the utterly fagged out audience sunk deep in chairs, and discovered to his amusement that it slept.

With the last song came a whisper of supper that woke up the sleepers, and galvanised their presumably starved bodies into a surprising energy. Roddy was one of those men who make things ,go on velvet to the woman who happens to be with him, and who are always served first, and he and Lassie quickly got a table to themselves, to which he beckoned a man whom she already knew slightly. " So you're off to the Coast next week, St. Leven?" said de Cartaret, when they had fortified themselves with soup and started on hot quails. " Yes. One dear old lady has sent me a mosquito tent with a text running round the top," said Roddy, chuckling. "Can't you fancy me sitting in the middle of it, like a moulting cock-sparrow, hiding from the hungry mosquitoes thirsting lor my blood outside?" , "And it's, just the quality of the pool where the mosquito has drunk that makes it a toss-up whether your \ grave's dug a few hours or so after you're bitten," said de Carteret, and put down his glass of champagne untouched. " It's horrible," he said. ''Here are we brutes who stay behind, eating, drinking, fooling, grumbling furiously at the least 1 personal discomfort, and here _ arc you and many others like you—going out „to face death at every you take. It makes me feel ashamed.—" "Oh, it's all right said Roddy. "Lots of us come back safe enough." He did not look at Lassie, who sat trembling arid white as death, scared suddenly out of her foolish butterfly life of the- past three weeks, at the thought that : Roddy, who was the very dearest thing in the whole world to her, next to her father and Jock, and whose very existence she had lately forgotten,—was going away almost immediately, and might never return. _ "No room anywhere 1" exclaimed Lesbia's voice behind , them. " You couldn't squeeze Eugenia in, I suppose? I'm afraid she's going to faint," she added in a whisper to Roddy, who sprang up, and placing the girl in hie chair, called to a servant for another. Eugenia protested, but Lesbia had already passed on, and gradually the blue shades under -the girl's . eyes became less distinct. Something more than dissipation was at work here,' and Roddy knew it. In some unconscious way it soothed him that the girl suffered at his going as careless, unconscious Lassie did not. ;'. What was wrong with him, he wonderedfor Eugenia was very sweet Pride, or indifference, or hatred of marriage, it love of his mother ? Yes, he supposed it must be that, for his was no preoccupied heart, save by her. With a pang he realised how awful- was .the power he held over Eugenia for happiness or misery. : It seemed to him that a wave of dangerous sentiment was stealing over him to-night—as it will over men who are leaving home on some forlorn enterprise, men who have tender hearts, like Roddy. And it was for that,;', when all was ; said and done, that Eugenia loved him. - If the eyes of all women followed • him, for he represented a type that all the world over they loved, the lean, muscular, fighting type that has been every- " where, done everything, and strong and experienced, ©till seeks new worlds to- conquer, it was for something more than this that Eugenia loved him. Alvanley would love her; yes, but love is not sympathy or tenderness to a woman's weaknesses and faults. Roddy's attraction for . her, though she did not know it, was because he loved all women for his mother's sake, and through her, understood them. 1 ' - , •

Lassie was quite out of it. ; Both men devoted themselves •, to Eugenia, in whose fragile loveliness was • something ; helpless and appealing that touched de Cartaret's chivalry even as Roddy's. • . < -

Unconsciously to herself, the soul had come back to Lassie's eyes. A man at a table near, who was watching her, caught that gleam. He often watched her, had done so ever since he saw her —the very spirit of unconscious youth and joy, dancing. An. epicure in emotions, he would not say thank you for a, beautiful woman's body without that light—call it soul or the capacity for passion, which you will. s <

. He got up in a leisurely way, and came over to her table, just as they rose. • •

"Will you introduce me to Miss Latreille?" he said to Lesbia. And Lassie, turning at hearing her name called, found herself face to face with a tall, slender man, whose eyes seemed to look through her, heard the world-wide name, Sir James ...Coulter —Miss Latreille," and with a' leap of the pulses, realised that she was face to face with her clever man at last. . \

(To be continued next "Wednesday.)