THE PRINCESS GALVA.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume V, Issue 1293, 5 April 1918, Page 8

THE PRINCESS GALVA.

[By DAVID WHITELAW. Author of "Tho Little Hour of Peter Wells, etc.] [Copyright.] fl CHAPTER XXIX. 1 The woman rose and looked out into i the hall. On a bracket stood an evil- j smelling oil lamp, turned down low. Be- q side it a brass tray containing the , basin of consomme and a dingy little { metal cruet. There were two letters there also, addressed to Mr Gabriel, and ■ Anna took them up to examine them. They were in her hands when she started suddenly and put them back on the tray. There was the sound of a key being inserted in the street door - below, and, hastily slipping back into J her room, Anna put out her light ami closed the door. I She heard the man come up the stairs and unlock his door and carry the tray into his room. Then a match was struck, and, with a start, Anna noticed a thin r Streak of light break out in the dark- f ness of the wall beside her. t She noticed then for the first time «. that the rooms, like those below, were t separated bv folding doors, but in the t case of the first they had been fastened t up, and on her aide had been papered * over and a heavy wardrobe placed against them. Eagerly Anna Paluda placed her eye to the crack of light beside the massive piece of furniture, but she could see r nothing. She determined that when ] Dasso went out on the following evening she would see what could be done to t widen the crack in the papered door. A week after Anna had taken up her residence at No. 9, Dorrington Street, Senor Gabriel Dasso, as usual, left the house about 8 o'clock. He had seen his fellow-lodger for the first time when he had passed her in the dimness of the stairs that night as he went out. But the heavily-veiled lady conveyed ! nothing to him at the moment, and the stairs disguised the height, which was • so strong a characteristic of Mine. Paluda. Dasso had merely raised his hat and passed on. For some reason a bad mood was : upon the ex-dictator of Sau Pietro. He dined a3 usual at an exclusive little j restaurant in Soho, but his favourite ( dishes gave him no pleasure, and al-i' though he drank twice fia much wine| • as was his custom, the black dog hadi settled firmly on his back and refused to be dislodged. The hole-and-corner lift he was leading was becoming very wearisome to a man of his tastes, and his long daylight sittings in the little Bloomsbury room were getting sadly on h's nerves. Asi •he sat over his coffee and cognac he asked himself whether all this hiding' was necessary after all. j It was only the memory of the man he had seen reading the "Impareial" V in Paris which had prompted him to this secrecy. After all, it may have been a coincidence. True, the man had also been seen at Dieppe, but perhaps that was another coincidence. He had certainly not embarked on the Arundel with him, and at Newhaven Dasso had noticed nothing suspicious No, it was absurd; in the morning he would leave Dorrington St'-eet and take up his residence at some hotel and live a life more fitted to his tastes. Mo-' zara's body, he told himself, would have been burnt out of all recognition in the fire —and ashes tell no tales. Curiously enough, however, the' woman he had passed en the stairs would come unbidden into his mind. Perhaps some turn of the head, some gesture, some mannerism, reminded him of someone he had seen before. Later, as he walked round the promenade of the Empire the memory of the woman on the stairs remained w>th him. Hej was drinking heavily to-night, and as he; drank the depression he had felt earlieri in the evening returned +o him tenfold; 1 something seemed to tell him that retri-, bution was on his heels and little devils' hammered at the cells of his brain tell! ing him that his hour had come. He walked home to Bloomsbury, but' the exercise in the night ah gave him no' relief. He was full of fancies—there! were steps behind him —hands stretched out and touched his shoulder. Once he ] seemed to hear his name called. He' cursed softly'and told himself that it! nerves. He had no right to coop! ~ himself vip in these dingy surroundings.' > It was life he wanted, rich and full. | It was nerves again, lie said, that! made him imagine that a bitter taste came into his mouth after he had| drunk his consomme that night; per-; haps that infernal Liz had put too much: Bait in it. | As he undressed a curious feeling of i lassitude came over him. He forgot I his fears, forgot everything but that] he wanted to sleep. He sot on the edge' of the little bed and fumbled with un-j handy fingers with his collar stud, but he did not undo it. With a little sigh his hands dropped nerveless into his lap and he fell back in the shabby! eiderdown,'his face pale and his breath coming in short, even gasps. In the night Disso dreamed a strange dream. It seemed to him that he awoke to find the room hazy with the grey light of the dawning. Through the little crevices between the slats of the Venetian 1 blinds the pale radiance edged its way, 1 giving to objects in the room a ghostly j and unwonted appearance. Between' the man on the bed and the window: there seemed to stand the tall, shadowy, figure of a woman, a figure which, as lie looked, moved steadily towards him. ' It seemed to Dasso' that the woman bent over him and that two black, pierc-' ing eyes burnt into his very soul. He tried to speak but could not! Then he heard a voice. The figure was speak-' ing to him in a whisper, low and vibrant with passion, telling him what tho little devils had been hammering into his brain—that his hoiT had come. " your hour, Gabriel Dasso, an] '■■jpy hour. For 15 years I have waited tor this moment, and T have never doubted but that it would r-ome " (To be continued.)