THE HEART OF DIANA,

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12455, 25 May 1926, Page 4

THE HEART OF DIANA,

IPUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.]

BY

DOROTHY M. GARRARD,

Author of "Irii,” “Roger Northcote’s Wife/* “The Spider’s Web,” etc., etc.

CHAPTER V. “Oh. Freddy, I’m so glad, so thankful you’ve come.” Sheila Mackenzie, not even dreised foi* dinner, although it was already just on seven, camo rushing down the staircase. Freddy Farquar, muffled in a travelling coat of the latest fashion, stood in the hall. Before he had time to more than gaze at her, in mild sirprise. she had dragged him into a little lobby adjoining. “Oh, Freddy,” she went on, feverishly clinging to his arm. “such dreadful things have happened, are happening here- I don’t know what to do, and Dad’s awful.” “What sort of things?” The young man’s face was jjewildered. At tbe same time it struck him how pretty, how much prettier than she had been last year Sheila had grown. “It’s Derek, Derek Moore and his wife. You knew they were here. And that hateful man, Clifford Allerdyce. He got invited somehow. And he’& just written a book—l expect you’ve read it—about himself and Diana. I only read’ it to-day, but it’s the most detestable thing. It makes out Diana is a perfectly horrible sort of girl. Derek found out about it—it was my fault in a way—and there was some sort of a scene between them this afternoon. No one knows what happened, but Allerdyco came crawling out of the room like a whipped dog, and be went off in time to catch the six o’clock train. I think Dad would have thrown him out if lie hadn’t gone. And Derek's gone, too. Ho just walked out of the house as he was, and he hasn’t come back yet. I’ve not seen Diana. Sho went up to her room and sent her maid down about half an hour ago to say she had a headache and didn’t want any dinner. Of course, only Dad an:! I realty know that something has happened, but everybody guesses, anti they all look at me as if they were dying to ask me questions. Oh, it’s awful. Why they’ve not been married three months yet, and Derek’s such a dear hoy. Then there’s Diana, of course: I suppose, if this is true. I mightn’t to like her, but I do. somehow.” As, for sheer lack of breath, she

stopped speaking, Freddy rubbed bis bead in a puzzled way. Here, indeed, was a pretty kettle of fish. He had—with all the rest of London—read “Base Metal.” Its cleverness in depicting the sordid soul of the woman beneath her beautiful exterior had struck him. But he had loathed the man who could write it. Despite his attempts at cynicism, Freddy had a clean mind. And with all his heart he had hoped that Derek would never know of it. “It is pretty hopeless,” he said at last, “especially with a chap like old Derek. He’s not the ordinary man about town. Even if it is true, Allerdvee ought to be thrashed. But I don’t believe it is true.” “You don’t believe it is true?” Sheila stared at him open-mouthed. “But, surely, if it isn’t, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t dare ’• “I don’t believe that it isn’t true that Diana and Allerdyce were 1 once hcad-over-heels in love with each other,” Freddy spoke bluntly, “or that it wasn’t mostly on account of what he’d got that she married Derek. But I don’t believe she threw Allerdyce over like that, the way it says in the book. I don’t know anything about it. I’ve never actually spoken to Clifford Allerdyce—but I think he’s a liar and a worm. And I don't believe what lie’s written is the real truth. Tile only thing will be to trv and make old Derek look at it the same way. And it won’t be easy.” “No, hut we—you—must make him see.” All Sheila’s youthful optimism rose to tho surface now. Things might not, after all, be so bad as they seemed. Even she knew that many girls have a love affair, fervid enough while it lasts, with an impecunious lover, before they finally settle down into matrimony. But that was a different thing from doing as the central character m the hook did, deliberately mnklug a plaything of the first man, and just as deliberately throwing him over so soon as a second, sufficiently wealthy, came along. “You will trv wont you, Freddy?” she added, in her most persuasive tone.'

(To bo continued.)