THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16421, 23 April 1919, Page 8

THE SHUTTERED HOUSE.

EXCITING STORY OF SENSATION AND LOVE.

By WILLIAM GUIDOTT,

Author of “Through tho Silent Night,” “What Delia Dared,” etc., etc. CHAPTER 111. Soon after five o’clock on that November afternoon, Clarice Thornton was pacing up aud down the drawing room of the house next door. She was undeniably beautiful. Even the gloom and fog of the closing afternoon did not conceal the beauty of her form, as, with the grace of a panther she moved restlessly across and across the limited space. She paused at the window, and impatiently grasped tho heavy, red, faded curtains. For a moment she stood gazing out into the gloom. Then with a clash of brass rings drew tho curtains across and shut it out. She lit the gas. The glare from tho incandescent burners showed up pitilessly tho hideous cheap furniture of tho room. Sho was always disgusted every time sho looked at it. To-night, it struck her as being even worse tlian usual, tho more so that there was no need for economy or discomfort in tho house. Old Robert Thornton was rich enough, she knew that. She turned to tho piano, and laid her hand on it with what was almost a gesture of affection. Her brows contracted. The glaring gas light would havo ruined the looks oi most women, but it had no terrors for her gorgeous, southern colouring. The oval lace with its warm tints, soft full lips, and stormy dark eyes with the light of a slumbering volcano. She leant in careless abandon against the magnificent piano—tho only thing she cared about in the hideous house, tho only thing that made tho place bearable. Sho was thinking and thinking hard. Her rule in lifts, as long as she could remember, oven when sho was a little girl touring round the second-class , French opera houses with her mother, had been to face a situation, think it out and get above it. But this one was of more than ordinary difficulty, and sho felt bewildered, the more so that there seemed nothing that sho could do. Sho drew herself erect with a quick, nervous movement, and brushed tho cloud of dark hair from her temples. The muscles of her throat tightened as she threw back her head. To think that tho live long, unspeakable years she had spent in this house might be in vain. Robert Thornton’s son had returned. The old man had told her that afternoon. Was she only frightening herself needlessly? Sho pictured the hard, old man lying ill upstairs. There was no benevolence left in him now, whatever ho had been like in bygone days. She pictured him, his head hunched, between bis shoulders, the hooked nose, cruel mouth, and grasping, crooked fingers! Would he keep to his agreement noiv? The promise ho had made to her when her mother had died? Ho had reluctantly given her a home, and taken a sort of selfish pride in her i glorious voice, grudgingly paying for her studies with a famous master for years, but when she wished to sing publicly he refused to allow it, and sho had not,dared to thwart him, although her whole soul craved for admiration and publicity. Her beauty commanded it. She wanted to test her power. All her great talent of which she was fully conscious was wasted in this place. It stifled her. True, sho was the only relation hor uncle had beside his son--the sou who had run away from home before she had eomo to this gloomy bouse, and his money was to come to hor. In a rare moment of communicativeness he had shown her the will. Was 1 ho going to alter that now his son had returned? What had ho meant? His mean, cunning eyes had gleamed, as lie had hinted it this morning. She caught her breath, and again started pacing up and down the room. Tile sound of knocking arrested her. It was next door. Someone had evidently missed the way in the fog. Sho. shrugged her shoulders. Taking up an opera score sho crouched down by the fire and studied tho pages for a'time. Then sho went, quickly to tho piano, and ran her fingers over the keys, humming softly, lovely floating notes above the chords. Sho stopped, and turned angrily as someone enme into.the room. . hat is it?” Concentrated impatience was in her tone.

“you’d bettor go up. It’s half-past five.” said the old housekeeper in a sum tone.

She closed the piano, and stood for a moment with her fingers resting on the lid, then swung round and watched the old woman as she went over to the fire, muttering to herself, and threw on a log. There was no mistaking the nilcertain gait. With a shiver of disgust the girl realised that the old housekeeper had been drinking as usual. She watched her and laughed a little. Thero was something sinister in tho sound. In tho hall sho stopped suddenly. On the table was a white package. Clarice Thornton took it up. It was nothing interesting, only something from the chemist, labelled “It. M. Thornton, lisq.”

“More sleeping draughts, I suppose,” she murmured indifferently. At the, foot of the staircase sho paused, her eyes fixed and staring at the package in her hand.

Her lips moved, hardly forming tho words. “People do sometimes take an overdose.”

She looked round the hnll out of the corners of half-closod eyes, and tlien went quickly up to hor uncle’s room. She entered softly. Robert Thornton had an unpleasant way of resenting anything that disturbed his short intervals of rest. Tho room was dim, lighted only by tho dancing flames of tho fire. She placed the package on the little table near the bod and glanced at the silent figure lying there. She supfxisod ho was asleep. She crossed the room and slipped down on her knees by tho fire, holding out hor hands to the comforting blaze. Somehow she felt cold. Sinking back to a sitting posture, with hor hands folded in hor lap, .'he let hor thoughts ran riot.

She hated this hour, moat of all tho uneventful hours. The enforced inaction, tho elements of decay in tho room pressed on her spirits and made her fool as if before long she would become part of it. Her intense vitality cried out against it. (Continued daily.)