SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13744, 5 September 1908, Page 6

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER I. — One day in June Am'berley Scott, a South African millionaire gives a tea-party on the terrace of a political club facing the Thames embankment. Charrington Brown, a brilliant young journalist, commences to tell a story in connection with the Illicit Diamond Buying traffic in South Africa. Brown's story is listened to with intense interest by all present. Ho tells of an employee at a Kimberley mine, who, having locked up some diamonds in a safe, g< es to meet his sweetheart, Anne Basset. She, on her return home is arrested because some of the same diamonds are found in her room. She is sent to prison for seven years. Scott coolly finishes Brown's story for him, and tells how tho man is compelled to give evidence against the girl, whom he believes guilty. Brown threatens to publish the story, which is obviously Scott's own, unless the i latter withdraws his candidature for a (constituency which Brown is also contesting. Scott emphatically declines, and defies his opponent. Just then a lady is announced, who is no other than Anne Basset. >

CHAPTER II. — Anne Basset explains that she has had two* years of her sentence remitted, and that she has returned to England to clear Jier name and prove her innocence. ' Amberley Scott is callous and cynically incredulous. Anne believes that an old clerk named Luke Fisher can help to prove her innooance, and asks Scott his whereabouts. The financier promises his assistance, and arranges to meet her on the Embankment late the same night. When leaving, Anne encounters Lady Minnie, Scott's wife. Immediately afterwards the latter misses a diamond chain.

CHAPTER lll— That night Scott tells Anne that Fisher is dead. Ho urges her to abandon her hopeless quest for proof of her innocence. She spurns his offers. He swears that she will never succeed; and at once the blinding truth of- his guilt, flashes upon her. She upbraids him, and pleads with him to confess his crime, but in vain. He induces her to drive home in his brougham. Inside, she comes in contact with the body of a dead man.

CHAPTER IV.— Jack Easter, Lady Minnie's friend, had taken her -chain. Fearing detection, he dropped it into Anne Basset's umbrella. He invites Lady Minnie to a card party at hjs chambers, 'where Minnie meets Meg Morant and Dan Garret, a wealthy American.

CHAPTER V. — Leaving Easter's rooms, Garret sees a woman's appealing face in a passing brougham. Anne Bassett finds herself locked in Scott's carriage with the dead body, of Luke Fisher. Garret, heeding her mute appeal, gives chase in* a hansom, which colliding with the brougham, disables it, the coachman making off. Dan listens to Anne's story, explains to the police, and after advising her to fly, takes her to his own chambers. He carries the body of Luke Fisher to his. bedroom, and just then Jack Easter appears on the scene.

CHAPTER Vl.— Garret/ sends Easter for a doctor. When he returns Anne Basset and the brougham have disappeared. He accuses Anne of having stolen Lady Minnie's chain. He contrives to secure her address, and finds she is living at the house of his own wife. ; '

I CHAPTER VIJ.--On the following 'morning Jack Easter insists on seeing Anne Basset, and accuses her of stealing the diamond chain whichy she finds in her umbrella. She secures the chain and announces her intention of returning it to the owner. Easter threatens to denounce her to the polico for the alleged murder of Fisher. Anne temporises, then suddenly flings a glass of water in Easter's face, and escapes during his confusion. Proceeding to Garret's chambers, she enters in time to hear Charrington Brown accuse her of stealing the chain. She passionately denies it, at the same time flinging the chain upon the table.