"TAKEN UNAWARES."

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 866, 18 November 1916, Page 8

"TAKEN UNAWARES."

THE SUN'S NEW SERIAL. Our new serial story, '' Taken Unawares," which will be begun in THE SUN on Monday next, justifies its title within the first few hundred words. Old Sir Anthony Tredwick lies shivering on his death bed in the middle of a London June. All Piccadilly is awash with sunshine, there are people everywhere; but Sir Anthony who had many friends —10 years ago—lies alone save for a paid nurse, feeling the chill of death. The minutes go very wearily while he waits the coming of the man for whom he has sent. Mr Humphrey Hindon is a barrister, only 31 years old, but already successful—and bearing on his face the stamp of the qualities which make for success in that profession. Perhaps, too, he has thought too much about that fairhaired, blue-eyed woman who disappointed him in the long ago—for love like his does not count its agony in years. He has hurried to the dying man from his work at the court; and as his taxi cab has whirled him along he has remembered that woman, and the promise he made the man who lies dying on the day he had saved his life. A rash promise, a youthful promise, that he would fulfil any request Sir Anthony might make of him. How was he to know then that, later, he would make a promise to himself—never to marry? Yet that is what Sir Anthony asks. Humphrey is to marry his daugher, that beautiful, penniless, spoilt girl with her oval face, with its wealth of fair hair, strange piquancy and charm —an evil charm, perhaps, for the face is bold and daring, and the lips slightly hard. How will he decide? The authoress, Annie O. Tibbits, answers the question in developing her' cleverly contrived plot. "Taken Unawares" will please readers who are partial to a well-told story.