THE GREY CAR MYSTERY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144668, 30 April 1915, Page 5

THE GREY CAR MYSTERY.

,'COPYRIGHT.]

By A. WILSON BARRETT,

Author of “The House Over the Way,” “The Silver Pin.” “A Soldier’s Love,” etc.

CHAPTER-,—IX. Laurence turned into his rooms a little thoughtfully. He had recognised the dark, foreign-looking man too late in any case to run after him or attempt to attract his attention in any way. And now he was wondering whether he would have done so if he had had the time.

That the man was related to Eve. he did not believe, for she was as evidently English as ho was a- foreigner; but at least he knew her, had dined with her at the restaurant, and would bo able to enlighten him upon the mystery of her identity. And yet Laurence k”ew that in his mind he wits glad not to nave had the opportunity ot approaching him. glad that he had driven on, and that he had not the faintest idea where to come upon him again. He found Eve looking better than he had over seen her when ho reached his aunt’s house tho next day. Her cheeks, pale up to now, had gained quite a rosy colour, and in her eyes there was a healthy, happy look, new since their talk of yesterday. “Is she not looking well?” asked Miss Linton, eyeing tho young girl affectionately. “It is not because you have arrived, sir, don’t imagine it. It is the air, and also a little excitement —the feminine excitement of shopping. We have been out, and we have been buying—frocks.” Eve smiled. “1 am afraid it is I who have been buying and you who have been paying.” she said. “That is as it should be.” Raid Laurence,_ looking at his aunt. “She loves spending money on other people. 1 believe she. would even buy clothes for me sooner than buy nothing. But did you enjoy your walk?” Evo smiled. “Immensely,” sho said. Miss Linton nodded. “We should have enjoyed it still more,” she said, “if you had been with us. You might have freed us from the attentions of some horrible man who would persist in following us all the way home. 1 really don’t know what the Loudon streets aro coming to.”

Laurence clenched his lists, as if tho man were present at the moment. “I. wish I had been there,” he said. “What was'he like,-the brute?”

“A common, foreign-looking person,” said Miss lanton ; “neither old nor young, with a skulking sort of look. I don’t know why we allow so many of those creatures to come into the country.”

She left the two together a little later, the obviousness of which the young couple bore her no malice for, and an hour of paradise ensued for Laurence, broken only at last by his aunt’s return and the arrival of tea.

As he made his way down the steps of the house. Eve’s last looks and last Words in his thoughts, a slouching figure on the other side of the way, beneath one of the street lamps, made his aunt's account of tho man who had followed them during their walk, recur to him. And, crossing the road, he drew near to the man, intending to dako a closer look at him.

But the individual, on his approach, turned up his collar hastily and made off in the opposite direction; and ho was only able to obtain a brief glance at his appearance generally.

“It looks rather like the follow she described,” he thought, going after the man. - “But he has cleared out pretty quick, in any case, and it is not worth while to run after him,”

CHAPTER—X. Laurence had arranged with his aunt and Evo that he should go to lunch with them the next day, and joip them afterwards on a further shopping expedition. And, having a few business documents with Ids accession to fortune to run over, he had decided to spend the morning in his rooms until the hour should come when, eager as a boy, he should be able to make his way round to Green Street. though ho looked up every five minutes at the clock over the mantelpiece, the time when he could with decency ret out had not nearly arrived, "when his man entered, bearing to his surprise, a note for him in his axmt’s handwriting. Something in the shakine,as of the hand-writing, and the fact that the note had been brought by a district messenger—youthful Mercuries whom he had never known his aunt to use before —made him glance at the envelope with rather a serious face, and open it rather slowly. A man who loves fears everything; he is so utterly at the mercy of events over which he has not the slightest control, and something about this missive made Laurence tremble. And when ho opened it he knew that he had been right to fear. “Oh, my dear Laurence.” it ran, “she has gone. She has run away. I do not know what it means. There is nothing to explain it. It must have been something to do with that horrible man. Come at orieo. I am broken-hearted. Oh, what will become of her, the poor darling! There is a note for you. Perhaps it will explain; but come —come at once.” ‘ ‘Gone! Run away! A note for him!” ‘ , , White as a sheet, Laurence crumpled the little note into his pocket, dismissed the astonished messenger-boy, crammed his hat upon his head, and, darting down the stairs, jumped into the first taxi he saw. He found Mias Linton white, too, and tear-stained," her lace cap quite over one eye, her old hands trembling nervously, awaiting him in the hall when he reached Green Street. •‘Oh. Laurence, dear, she has gone!

Sho has run away from us,” she gasped. as she looked into his anxious fane. "11 nw long has she been gone?” asked Laurence. ‘‘And how did she go?” ‘‘Not an hour. I am sure, not an hour. Go? She must have gone straight out. See, this is what she left for me, in my room, on the dressingtable, while 1 had gone out only for a little while to buy some flowers.” Laurence took the little note sho held out to him, and glanced at it swiftly. It was the first time ho had ever seen her handwriting. “How strange if it should bo the last!” he thought. “My dearest, dearest, friend.” Eve had written. “What will you think of me! I must go now, at” once, away from you, away from all your love and kindness, never to soo you again, never to thank you—-hut, oh! ves, X do that. Ido that with all myjhcart. What will you think of me? Oh, yon must think of me no more, you must forget me, forget that you ever saw me. and were kind to me, ever loved and took pity on a broken-hearted girl. I ran write no more. Ido not know what 1 am doing or saying. Forgive me, oh, forgive me, and good-bye.” Laurence looked up. his face paler than ever, as lie finished reading this note which said so little and yet told so much. , “What docs it mean?” he gasped. Then quickly. “Where is the letter she left for me?” Trembling, the old lady went to the window, and taking a little note from a table handed it to him in silence. In silence, Laurence opened it, his back to the light, his hidden. "Laurence, oh, Laurence, good-bye.-It was not to he. It can never he. When you get this 1 shall be gone. U may, 1 think it will, break my heart, and yet I can do nothing, nothing can be done. Oh, 1 cannot write anything that would not make it harder, harder for me to go, harder for yon to do what you must, do—forgot _me, forget the unhappy girl you loved, oh. I am sure Von did, so much more than she over hoped or deserved. And yet you may forget her. Laurence, for that poor girl you know and loved is dead. For the last time.—Your Eve.” (To bo continued.)