THE PRIME MINISTER'S SECRET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14391, 9 June 1910, Page 3

THE PRIME MINISTER'S SECRET.

, BY W. HOLT-WHITE. Author of " The Man Who Stole the Earth." " The Destroyer," etc., etc.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT. CHAPTER XX—(Continued.) . Kathi__v now found herself in a large square room, simplv and yet fairly well furnished, partly as a bedroom and partly as a sitting-room. " It is here," said Melun, " that I am unfortunately compelled to ask you to await your father's decision. However, I release you unconditionally from your promise neither to scream nor to attempt escape. " You are at perfect liberty to scream to your heart's content. There is no one here who will mind in the least. You are also at perfect liberty to make what efforts at escape you choose. I fear that you will only find them futile." He went out quickly and closed the door after him. Kathleen, listening in the badly lighted room, could hear a key grato in the lock and bolts shot in both* at the top and the bottom of, the door. Quickly and methodically sho made an examination of her prison. She looked into tho cupboards and into the drawers and the massive bureau. But there was nothing about the room of the remotest interest to her which offered the faintest suggestion, sinister or otherwise. It was, indeed, only when she looked out of the windows, of which there were three, that she discovered to the full how utterly helpless was her position. 0 The window on the south side was apparently over the window of the dining-room, and, as ihe peeped over the sill, looked sheer down the face of the precipice beneath her. The west window, she found, looked down into a stone courtyard, while the windows on the east overhung the pond. Apparently she was imprisoned in a tower. When Melun had reached the ground floor he sought out Mme. Estelle. • "I have not had much opportunity of saying anything to you," lie remarked, as he entered the room in which she was sitting, "but I should like to tell you now how splendidly you have done." . Madame was restless and ill at ease. "If I had seen that girl before to-day she said, " I should never have brought her here. "Then you would have been a fool," said Melun, rudely. " Possibly, but still, even at the risk of your displeasure, there are a few things which I do not care to do." Melun glanced at her sharply. . "Of course," she continued, "it is too late now. I have made up my mind, and we will go through with it, but, frankly, I don't like this business." | " Never mind," said Melun; " it will not last for ever. " To-morrow ought to settle it. I shall go back to town first thine, | starting at about five o'clock, as I shall have to make a detour. I have changed the number of the oar, but still it is hard to say what Westerham may be up to. If he finds that his precious motor has not come back to town he may take to advertising it as stolenwhich would be awkward." ; -Madame at this point bade Melun goodnight, and the captain sent for Crow. To him he gave instructions to have the car ready at five o'clock, but. told him that he should drive.it back to town himself. "You can serve a better purpose by remaining here," he said. "For, mark 'you,' I will have no hanky-panky games in this house in my absence. And, mark you, too, I have no desire to have Mme. Estelle and Lady Kathleen becoming too friendly. You never can rely on women. They are funny ; qreaturee, and .madame is far too sympathetic with the ! girl already. So I shall look to you to stop anything of that ! sort. ..-,■.• , . :: ..^;;"-.',~''.■- —- -, > *- . -.-,. ' "For the rest, you will know what to. do if certain contingencies should arise. .1 have not brought the dogs here for nothing." He broke off and shuddered a little himself as at some short distance from the house he could hear the baying of the great hounds. " They are loose I suppose?" he asked. Crow nodded., " Then heaven help the stranger," he ,rejoined; with a cruel laugh, and pulling a rug over I himself he lay down to sleep on the sofa. ' He was up betimes in the morning, and had, indeed, been gone four hours when Mme. Estelle came lazily down to break- ■ fast. ,% •■■ ■ .. * Melun had left no instructions* in regard to Kathleen's food, and as she did not consider it advisable to let the unfortunate girlstarve,lniadame,: after she had herself oreakfasfe.d, set a tray with the intention of carrying it up to Kathleen's room. ) , Before she could uo this, however, it was necessary to send for Crow in order to obtain the key. When . the asked for it, Crow shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. ~ ' " I have very strict orders," ho said. . " What do you mean," madame demanded sharply. "What do you mean?' '■■'■. " Simply that the master said that you and the young lady were not to get talking too much. He! said nothing about food, or of waiting on : her ladyship, and it didn't occur to me until this morning that it was a bit of a rum job for a chap like myself to wait on her. I" "However," he added, with a smirk, "I don't so much mind." But Crow's clumsy utterances had again aroused all madame's sleeping suspicions. There was, moreover, no reason why she should . keep • silence now. Her treachery was a different matter' altogether. : The way was smooth for asking Kathleen the question , the answer to which meant so much to her. • | .' She laughed in Crow's face. ' " It was hardly necessary for the captain to give you any orders, seeing that he gave certain instructions to me. He said that as there was no|other woman in the house it would be myt place to take Lady Kathleen anything that she actually needed. I am going to take up ; her breakfast now. Give me the key." | Crow hesitated a moment, but finally handed over the key. [Madame put it on the breakfast tray and went upstairs. Kathleen, as she heatd the bolts drawn back and the key turned in the lock, suffered fresh apprehension. For she had caught the rustle of maflame's skirts outside, and she would rather have faced Melun than the woman. I With very little apology Mme. Estelle entered, and, setting the breakfast down, immediately withdrew. Her impatience to ask the question was greatjfaufc she schooled herself to waiting. !'. .In half an hour's time she went up for the tray,' and ■ then she faced Kathleen boldly and looked ner in tj>e eyes. "Lady Kathleen," she sais, "I am really ashamed to have brought vou. here in such a treacherous way. I will i|ot ask you to forgive me, for you will ndt undei#and. I can only tell you that I am\a very loving and a very jealous woman.*! Mme. Estelle paused, and was conscious that Kathleen looked at her In. great surprise. * '' ' - i "I want," she continued, "to ask you a question which means much t6 me. . Is it, or is it not, one of Captain Melun's conditions that you shall marry hiii before he returns your father's secret?" I "Yes." answered Kathleen, very quietly, "it is." \ Madame's rather flushed face drew white, and h«r eyes blazed with passion. She clenched her fists and beat the air with them. j "Oh, the liar!" ehe cried, ''the liar! Oh! it is hard, to be treated! like this when I have done so much for him." Kathleen drew back startled and amazed. | "I assure you that you need, have no fear so far as I am concerned. ; Both my | father and myself have refused to comply j with that condition, and we shall refuse to the end." % ■ Madame, however, paid but little heed to Kathleen; she was beside herself with rage. ' -'-.• | , "Ah, ah!" she cried, "wait till he returns! 11l kill him! I'll kill him!" . So distorted with fury was the woman's face that Kathleen became alarmed for her sanity. She drew near to her and endeav-

oured to catch her hands in her own, imploring her to be calm. ; V _y-and-bye Mine. Estelle listened to her, and in a sudden revulsion of feeling fell on her knees, sobbing bitterly.' Kathleen bent over her, doing her best to console her, and presently, as the woman grew calmer, she endeavoured to turn the situation' to her own and her father's 'advantage. • : . "The best way to defeat Captain Melun's scheme, so far as I "tun concerned," she urged, " is to release me." But at that Mme. Estelle leaped to her feet again and her face was hideous*in its cunning. "Ah! not that," she cried, "not that! If I distrust him, I distrust you still more. Your pretty face may look sad and sorrowful, and you may declare to me that you will never consent: but I will wait and see. I'll wait till Mclun returns and confront you with him. Then perhaps I shall learn the real truth." Kathleen made a little despairing gesture with her hands ; argument, she saw, would be useless. Gathering herself together, madame blundered, half blind with tears, out of the room, and Kathleen with a sinking heart heard the bolts drawn again. All through the day madame sat brooding, sending Kathleen's lunch and tea up to her by Crow. All the evening she still sat and brooded, until as 11 o'clock drew near and there were still no signs of the captain sho had worked herself up into a hysteria of rage. . Twelve o'clock struck, and still the captain was absent. Another half-hour dragged slowly by, and then she heard his oar grating its way up the hillside. . She was at the "door to meet him, and would have- plunged straightway into the matter which absorbed her but for the sight of his face. *- • • It was haggard and pale as death. His eyes were blazing in their sockets, and his straggling hair lent him altogether a distraught and terrifying aspect. "Melun!" cried the woman, stretching out her hand, " what is it?" "I don't know," he said hoarsely; "I wish I did, but the Premier's gone." " Gone! What do you mean?" "He is lost. Westerhain kidnapped him." " Impossible!" " Impossible, you fool I" shouted the captain, irritably. ""It's true —perfectly true!" He walked into the hall and sank exhausted into a chair. "As for me," he grumbled, "I have • had the narrowest escape I ever had." . "Bo that's all, is it.' cried Mme. Estelle, remembering her own grievance. "So that's all I" " But what of me? What do you think I have gone through? What do you think I have suffered? What do you think I have found out?" Melun rose unsteadily from his chair and looked at her in alarm. "Is it Lady Kathleen?" he asked; "is Ehe safe?" "Safe! Oh, yes, she is safe," she cried, with a peal of uncanny laughter. "Safe for vour kisses and for your caresses. Oh, you "liar! you liar! I have been true to you m all respects, and you have been false to me in everything that mattered. So you will marry the pretty Lady Kathleen, will you? Oh, but you won't! Never! never!" She rushed at Melun as though to strike him, but Melun, jaded though he was, was quick and strong. He caught her brutally, as he might a dog, by the neck, and threw her into the dining-room, the door of which stood open, and, utterly careless as to what harm he might do her, sent the unhappy woman sprawling on to the floor. In a second he had banged the door to and turned the key in the lock. Ho sank down on to the bench trembling and exhausted. He heard Marie nick herself up and hurl herself in blind add impotent fury against the door. ' , . ■■,■"' He listened, shaking like a leaf, as shriek after shriek of fury reached hie ears. Up in the tower Kathleen heard these shrieks too, and shuddered. A horrible fear took possession of her heart that there was murder being done below. She sat on the edge of her bed with her hands pressed to her heart, listening in fascinated horror. The shrieks died away, and there was complete silence in the house for full half an hour. • "'.".':■■« Then Kathleen Heard a sudden shout, a crashing of glass and a scrambling, tearing noise, the hideous bay of the hounds in the courtvard, a scream, and a thud. Stabbing the other noise with sharp precision came the sound of shots. (To be continued daily.)

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