THE LOVE THIEF.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 144421, 8 July 1914, Page 5

THE LOVE THIEF.

NEW SERIAL

By. LILLIAS' rCAMPELLL DAVIDSON. (Author o£-"“The Marriage Trap,” etc.)

(TFTAPTKR- X- —Continued. CH3EEER X—(Continued.) •arranged* Mrs. Daro withdrew old Reynolds over to a sofa in the distance. She Resigned to make herself charming to him, and, incidentally, to find out, if she could, items about the Reynoldses* fortune. Old Reynolds saw and noted her tactics with a grim, inward smile. Ho £new about as well as she did what she was up to.

Of course she’d like Char for her girl. They didn’t seem mighty rich, even with a chef and a motor. But she might spare her pains. Char was to marry-a duke’s daughter when his time came. No humbugging daughter of a Singapore planter tor him! Ho could command better wares in his market. But Mrs. Dare, all oblivious of his reflections, made him supply hot with a footstool, and toid him ho might smoke it he liked. Oh, she said, when he protested, men smqked anywhere nowadays! No drawing-room was ever kept sac-rod! He grinned to himself again, socretiy. Blest if it didn’t look as if she wanted to be Mrs. Reynolds on her own account.!

Fine-looking woman, agreeable, and good judge of a dinner. It the boy married olf by and by, and he himseif thought of a second marriage—why, Jane might go packing. Ho couldn’t ,do so hadiy with this attentive woman.

“l was going to ask you if we might come over and seo you mills one day.” That wasna good subject to begin ou, Mrs. Daro thought. Men were always interested in their work. He would bo taken'by other people’s interest in it. “Wo are so fond of seeing things made, my girl and I. IPs a land of mania with both of ns. Would you take us round if we motored over one morning?” “There isn’t anything to seo, particularly. Only a lot of machines and buttons and tho rest. You wouldn’t caro about it.”

“Oh, but wo would, 1 assure you. Wo love all that sort of, thing. Do indulge us.” “Well, I’vo nothing against it, if you want- to come. But I don’t sea wha-t pleasure it would ho to you. Dirty Work, most of it, and noisy and hot. Not the kind of thing you and young Miss Over-thc-ro arc used to.” Ho was not encouraging, hut she was not daunted. Sho meant to establish an entente oordiale between The Gables and Knightons. Onco they had seen tho works, them wore pictures at Knightons to rave about. And he must, of course, asked them back to dine.

Miriam’s soft; playing of a Grieg fragment drifted to them from tho back drawing-room. She could just see young Reynolds’s profile at tho piano. Ho seemed quite taken with Miriam. “Such -a fvttny thing happened the other day,” sho said, when sho had effusively thanked him for his kind permission to sec his mills. “I was asking somebody about your big works, and they didn’t understand mo, evidently. They couldn’t make out when I tried to describe where they stood. They call the place Holyoaks, don’t they? purious! 1 wonder if there were Druids there long ago? There is generally some reason for those curious derivations. Well, this old man puzzled and puzzled, and finally ho said I must mean Slocock’s. Wasn’t it queer of him? You built the works, didn’t you? What could he mean by calling them that funny name? People here speak of tho place as Reynolds’s.” “It used to be Slowcock’s.” Reynolds spoke with haste. “At least, the old works did, when they were in Birmingham. When I got ’©m, I moved ’em out here. He must have been pretty old to remember.”

"E»aDy.? How interesting! How did they spell the name, 1 wonder? Miriam’s mother was a Miss Slowcock, but that had aV’ in it. 1 fancy it’s rather unusual.”

I thought she was.

“Miss Hare? your daughter?” Mrs. Dare smiled fondly. “As dear as my own, but Pm only a step-mother. Her mother died whon sho was bom, and her father married again in a year. I had her from the time sho was a baby. My husband never wanted her to know anything about her mother’s people. His first marriage was unfortunate—a boyish misalliance. Sho came of quite humble people—shopkeepers, or something. 1 know there was an old Cousin Jonas, who was only an operative.” “Jonas Jonas Slowcock? Aro yon certain?” His sudden start, his curious change of look surprised her. Sho bent forward a little and looked at him wonderingly.

•'Yes, that was the name. Did you know anything about him? Oh, no, that isn’t likely. Ho was only a working man. He lived in the Midlands somewhere, I behove—some place called Standwcll. Blit, really, he doesn’t matter, docs ho? Girls and boys tako from their fathers, don’t they?—not their mothers. Wo poor women aren’t supposed to count in these things.” He couldn’t be thinking that# tho blood of a Midland operative wasn’t good enough to mix with that of another Midland man, self-made himself, if they told the truth about him hero in the country.

“It’s an odd name. That's why I asked. I don’t suppose there are many of that spoiling. And my place was Slowoock’s onco. That’s why I asked about it.”

His head was in a whirl. He looked at hor with furtive scrutiny from under his shaggy eyebrows. How much did she know? Was it all pretence, that innocent manner of hers? Had a sudden danger dawned upon him, a sudden gulf opened just beneath his secure prosperity ? He must find out; he must make sure. This was a horrible shock, even in its suggestion. Was she trying to draw him, to trip him up with admissions? Hot she! Ho was on his guard now, and a man was a match for any two women.

Slowcock! Was it possible? That girl at tho piano there, with Char turning her loaves for her—was sho suddenly of an importance so huge, so marked that the whole of his world seemed to centre in anxiety round her? Ho must find out. He must set his doubts at rest—those doubts suddenly sprung full-armed upon him.

CHAPTER XI.

THE JUDAS KISS.

Reynolds tho younger had opened the post-bag that morning as usual. It had hold nothing that he felt called on to intercept, and he was just going out after luncheon, when the second post came in. He delayed his start for a moment or two, keeping his car standing at the front door, while ho went hack to the library with the bag, and unlocked it, glancing through tho contents in the fashion that had now become habitual to him.

As ho tossed out the letters one newspaper fell with them. His quick oyo lit on the stamp—a foreign one. Ho turned it over, and saw tho New York postmark. Ho recognised, too, half folded together, the name of that paper ho had looked out in the press guide. tilth a grin that wa-s like one of his father’s for cynicism, but hod something ferocious that his father’s lacked, he slapped tho paper back into tho bag exultantly, and called tho servant to sort the letters.

All tho way into Holyoaks, where he was ‘ going on business, a thrill of triumph and elation wont with him, pleasingly tickling his veins, and raising his spirits. She couldn’t stand against that. Ho had her now', sure ami fist enough. There wasn’t'anytiiing in the world to turn to but himself and the home lie offered. She had been stubborn as a little mule; that was wliat most had made him want her. Well, that was over now. By bis own quick wit. and cleverness he had snared his bird, and thero was nothing left, but to take her. It was such a, simple trick, too. A child might have thought of it. So easy to get these notices into foreign papers, where editors didn’t verify references, even of dead men, and thero wasn’t any fear of indignant Canadians seeing a New York paper, and writing in protest to declare the notice false.

Lot ’em write, if they wanted to, in this case. Those who read the notice over here would never see the contradiction. Yes, it was a. simple, easy trick, but it would get him what ho wanted, and send the prize into the hand that itched for it.

Ho cut his business short that afternoon, hurrying the men who waited on him in a shop, cursing a boy who stopped him to ask the way when he was getting back into his motor. He made the run homo with anticipation that only glowed tho more with each -familiar turn of the road, each wellknown landmark. Littlo minx! Ho -would seo what she had to say now. ,He would play the protecting eider -rbrothor, Jest she should bo too startled at tho sudden approach. But the way lay dear now for him.

Ho got out of the car at the door, and before it was turning to slip away to tho garage in the yard ho was in tho hall, and had his motor-coat and cap off. He went straight to the little room where Miss Waterson worked, and went in rapidly, as was his usual way. Then ho stopped blankly. Sho was not there.

Tho room stood empty. Ho glanced round, disconcerted for a moment, so full of his eagerness that ho could not brook even that slight check to it. Ou tho door by the table Jay a crumped bit of thin brown paper, flung there from tho table by the wind made by his entrance. His quick eye recognised it. Ho stooped and picked it up. Ah, lie thought so 1 ,It was tho wrapper of tho American paper. He glanced round again. No, the paper itself wasn’t there. Sho hail taken it with her, wherever she had gone. Ho crossed tho room, and pressed tho bell insistently. “Toll one of the maids to see if Miss Waterson is in hov own room,” he said to tho man-servant. “I want to have a letter written. If she’s there ask her to come down at once. If she’s not, find out whore sho is, and come and tell me.”

While the man was absent he paced up and down the room, trying to still the fever in his veins, to bring himself into control again. Miss Waterson was not in her room, came back the reply, but one of the housemaids had seen her from tho corridor window upstairs as she left tho house about an hour or so ago. Sho was walling fast, and sho had something in her hand—a newspaper it might be. She had turned down the shrubbery walk. Perhaps sho had gone to trio'seat that overlooked the hills. That w r as a place sho often sat with a ‘book or her writing. (To be continued.)