A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9163, 11 August 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

By FLORENGE WARDEN, Author of " The Lady in Black," "An Infamous Fraud," "For Love of Jack," "A Terrible Family," "The House on the Marsh," etc e'.c.

CHAPTER Vll.—Continued. She fancied, even as he said, "Well, my dear, how are you? You're looking very well," and kissed her, that she detected in his manner a coolness which foreboded the estrangement she had begun to feel was inevitable. The next moment Mr Harrington Moseley, who was close behind Linley, wearing a smile of obsequious deference, diverted her attention. "I hope you will forgive me for obtrading'myself upon you at such short notice, Mrs Hilliard," he said. "But if you are angry, you must blamfi your husband, who was kind enough to invite me to come down with him." If Linley*s eyes had not been upon her, Netelka would have been very curt; as it was, a cold look of warning on her husband's face made her stammer out that Mr Moseley was welcome.

"You are very kind, said the Jew as effusavely aa if her welcome had been warmer. "But, indeed, I should not have dared to come and inflict myself upon you if Hilliard had not invited a few livelier folk than I to mitigate the burden of my society." Netekla reddened angrily. This veneer of extreme deference toward her, when she knew that she was only one of the pawns in his game, was nauseating in the extreme; she thought she would have preferred 0 en impertinence. Her powers of civility were not at tint time put to any severe strain, for Linley, who seemed by no means to crave the society of his wife, carried Harrington Moseley off to the billiard-room, where they remained until the luncheon-bell rang. In the meantime Netelka had decided upon a plan of action. She must get first her husband by himself arid make an appeal to him. If he should oppose a gentle and placid obstinacy to her entreaties, as she thought probable, she would then try the Jew himself, using a firmer tone with him than she dared to employ with her husband. At luncheon she began to pave the way to her intended remonstrance. "Who are these people who are coming down, Linley?" she asked, with an appearance of spontaneity which deceived Moseley's, at all events. "I do hope they are quiet, and that they don't want much entertaining. I am old-fashioned enough to like a peaceful Sunday." "Oh, the men who are coming down won't interfere with you," said Linley. "They can entertain themselves." Here Harrington Moseley broke in: "That is just a husband's off-hand way of putting it, Mrs Hilliard. The facts of the case are that the friends who are coming down appreciate the charm of ladies' society quite as much as ' we do ourselves. A house without a lady in it, is, to my mind, like a man without a soul." "Even the man without a soul ha i his aood points, though," put in Linley, with a certain appearance of ho.-tility toward herself which Netelka noted with consternation. "At any rale, he is neither squeamish nor small-mir.ded; he does aa he pleases, and he lets other people do t as they please." His snarling tone frightened his wife into silence. She wa3 not vanquished, however, and as she looked down in silence at the table-cloth, she pressed her lips together firmly | in "a manner which did not escape the notice of the shrewd little Jew. When she looked up again, she caught him in the act of directing- a warning frown at Linley. She rose from the table, fully determined to encounter both her husband and Moseley in single combat before the guests. But they were two to one, and they defeated her. She told her husband, in a';low voice, that she should like to speak to him for a few minutes, and he told her she might come to him in the library in a quarter of an hour, when he had finished writing his letters. At the end of fifteen minutes, however, when Netelka went in search of him, she found the library deserted, and a sealed note addressed to herself lying on the table. For a few moments she dared not open it, but sat staring at the little white envelope until it danced before her eyes in a mist of tears, and grew into n great white sheet which shut out the whole room from her sight. At last she opened it and read the following words: "My Dear Netelka: It gives me a good deal of pain tu find you so unsympathetic as you have seemed to be since my arrival this morning. I don't think I have troubled you so much with my society lately that you should treat mo as if I were the most terrible of bores. It has cut me to the heart. Where is a man to look for kindness and sympathy in" a time of misfortune if nut to his wife? You seem also t > be doing all you can to turn against us the one friend who has held out to us a helping hand. How can you expect that Moseley will go on showing us the same magnificent hospitality if you won't even be civil t) him, or be ready to welcome his friends? As for your 'quiet Sunday,' you shall have" it, believe me. Don't interfere; with our guests (remember they arc youva, too) and their amusements and nobody will interfere with you. By tic wv.y, they are not strangers to ni2; I know them all, and they are very good fellows, especially this Gerard Waller, whom I insist on your treating with proper nivilky even it' you should run so short of it that you haven't enough to spare for the rest, and particularly for your husband. "I have gone out to avoid a scene. 1 shall always go out to avoid scenes.

"Your affectionate husband, "LINLEY." Netelka did not cry. She sat for a very little while with the letter in her lap, staring nut at the big lignum vitae, whose big, brushlike boughs were nodding against the window-panes in the wind. Then she got up quickly and went out of the room with a brisk step, determined to forget her trouble in occupation, so that she might not become demoralised by excessive grieving before the tussle began. When there was nothing more to be done in the way of superintending the arrangements for the accommodation of the expected guests, Netelka wrapped her head and shoulders in a shawl of cream-coloured China crepe and went out into the grounds. The daylight was already fading, and she feared that Mr Moseley's friends might arrive before his return. To put off the evil moment, therefore, of her enforced introduction to these highly objectionable yuong men, and in particular to the odious Gerard Waller, she took a basket in her hand and went to the chicken-house to look for eggs. She roamed about by herself until it was quite dark, and until she began to feel very cold. In the meantime she had heard the noise of an arrival, and guessed that she would find the quiet Sunday-party in possession on her return to the house. This return she delayed until she began to shiver; and, then, hoping to get to her room unobserved by the quietest way, sh.3 entered by an anterorm, which had formerly been used as a schoolroom, but which was now merely a store-room, for tennisrackets, targets, fishing-rods, and such things. The room was unlighted, and she had to grope her way to the inner. door. This led into the smokingroom, and Netelka heard a strange voice on the other side. "Doesn't seem eighteen months since we were last here, eh?'* asked one voice. "No. It's jolly to be back again. Wonder if we shall have the old times over again?" said another rather deeper voice. "Moseley seems a bit doubtful about it; he's been impressing upon me that we've got to behave well—at first, at any rate. He says he's really let the place to some highly respectable people, who mustn't be shocked." On hearing the voices talking, Netelka had re-crossed the anteroom, with the intention of getting out on to the terrace and entering the house by another wav. But just outside the French window there now stood an enormous bull-terrier, at the sight of which she uttered a little exclamation of horror. She did not know what to do. On the one hand, she dared not pass the dog, who growled and put his paws up against the glass at her approach; on the other hand, she did not wish to introduce herself into the assembly in the smoking-room. In the moment's pause during which she remained undecided she heard another scrap of dialogue within. All the young men were laugh'ng heartily, and a voice she had not heard, a pleasant, fresh young voice, broke in: "Respectable! Ha, ha, ha! That's very good. That's decidedly good, that is. That 'man Hilliard is the tenant, the respectable tenant. Of course, I may be wrong, but somehow 1 don't think he will subject us to very great restraints!*' (To be continued.)