A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9165, 13 August 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

By FLORENCE WARDS N. Author of " The Lady in Black," "An Infamous Fraud, - ' "For Love of Jack," "A Terrible Family," "The House on the Marsh," etc. c'c.

CHAPTER Vlll.—Continued. "All right, old chap, don't be sulky," he cried, inflicting upon Sam Teale a slip on the back, which was a fresh outrage to that gentleman's dignity. "You shall have your revenge to-night, and let me win back the 'monkey' I lost the other night." Netelka, who heard these words, through the conversation she was keeping up with Moseley and Gerard Waller at the same time, faltered and grew pale. She knew what a "monkey" was; and the mention of such a large sum showed to what an extent these young fools indulged their propensity for gambling. But at that moment dinner was announced, and, playfully carrying out Gerard's suggestion that she had better go first, in regal dignity, that set them all quarrelling for the right to escort her, Netelka Jed the way into the dining-room. Netelka sat between Moseley and Waller. Conversationally, dinner was a failure. Waller tried to begin a conversation with her, but Mr Moseley's interruptions, taking for the most part the form of stilted compliments, prevented it from becoming interesting. And Netelka was, moreover, distracted by the talk of the other two young men, who betrayed at every other sentence their lack of ideas on every subject but horses, cards and the ballet. She left the table almost as soon as dessert began. In the drawing-room she found that a long table had been placed during her absence, marked ready for baccarat. At one end were several packs of cards. A man she did not { know, who looked something like a ; servant, had just drawn up some J chairs to the table. j "By whose orders has this table i been placed here?" asked she per- , emptorily. I "By Mr Moseley's, ma'am," answered the man, who had at first looked as if be intended to be less than respectful, but whose manner instantly changed to deference at the wound of her imperious voice. "Take the table away at once,' £ said she in incisive tones. The man changed colour and hesitated. Then he said, in a tone which was respectful still, but quits as determined as her own: "I dare not, ma'am, without my master's orders.*' "Is Mr Moseley your masttr?" ; "Yes, ma'am." Netelka did not falter, for a momen*-. She turned, swept out of the room, crossed the hall to the diningroom, and threw open the door. ' The younger men were by this time very merry, and all were'laugh- , ing heartily when she entered. I A dead silence fell upon them all, : however, when they turned and saw her face. She was quite white from forehead to chin, and the pallor of her face made her black eyes look ' preternaturally large and luminous. There was a moment's pause, and in the absolute silence Arthur Sain:bury let a dessert-knife fall, with a little crash, upon his Opiate. The noise, slight as it was, caused Netelka to start,. Then she spoke, not in her sweet and rather low-pitched voice, but in a tremulous and broken one, which sounded new and strange to herself. "Mr Moseley," she said, addressing the Jew, who immediately arose, "your servant—l don't know his name —he is a man I have never seen before—refuses to obey me. I must ask you, therefore, to give the order for me. A baccarat table has been set up in the drawing-room; I must have it taken away. As long as I am ; in this house there will be no gambling here." While she was spaaking all the men in the room had risen one by one, aid were listening to her word 3, in the subdued manner of mice just out of reach of the cat. But as soon as she had finished, L'nley, who was the farthest from her, came round the table quickly, with a stealthy tread, and with hard , cold, angry eyes. His white lips were set in a straight line. "Do you know what you're doing?" he apked, hissing the words in her ears in a voice so low that they would have been inaudible to the rest but for the dead silence which prevailed. "Do you knov that you are taking a confounded liberty? And that my friends—my friends can amuse themselves as they please? Go back, go back to the drawing-room, if you can manage to be amiable. Jf not, let us see no more of you to-night." All the other men in the room had begun to move uneasily, for Linley's manner was so cold, so cutting, is to make his words brutal in the extreme. "No, no, Hilliard," remonstrated Moseley, "you mustn't talk like that fi> a lady. If Mrs Hilliard objects to card-playing in her drawing room, she shall certainly not be annoyed by having it done against her wishes. I dare say our young friends will not mind " "They will amuse themselves just as they intended," broke in Linley doggedly, his pale lace more deadly white than usual. He shook like a leaf in the wind, not with fear, but with an uncanny, deadly anger. "Go!" As he spoke he cave his wife a little, contemptuous push from him. Slight as the movement wa3, the manner in which he made it reminded tho3o present of the way in which a master kicks a dog. There was a sort of gasp from them al!,Jarid Gerard Waller sprai-g. torward with hia.i'acu aglow. Moseley caught Ills arm as he raised it; to strike Linley. His tongue, however, was not stopped so easily. "If you speak to your wife again like that, Hilliard," he cried, his voice shaking with passion, "whether are my ho3t or not, I'll knock you down." ,

He would have carried the threat into immediate execution if Linley had not retreated nimbly to the other aide of the table, while Netelka. very much frightened, allowed Sam Teale, at a sign from Wail -r, to bad her out of the room.

CHAPTER IX. MR MOSELEY'S GRATITUDE. Netelka completely unhinged by the scene she had gone through in the dining-room, ran upstairs to her own room, and, throwing herself upon the sofa which stood at the foot of the bed, before the fire, sat, without tears, in an agony of dull despair. She was full of faults, this woman who Linley Dax had married for her beauty and the charm of her abundant vitality. Passionate, vain, extravagant, easily cowed yet easily led, she was not strong enough to act upon all the good impulses of her heart, and above all, to be the helpmate of such a man as her husband; for she could neither conceal her misgivings about him, nor ignore them; or, rather, she could follow neither of these courses consistently. At one moment she would be sincerely affectionate, refusing to believe any of her own fears; at another, she would let her doubts look through her eyes. Now, with Linley, this conduct was fatal; he hardly knew whether he was the more irritated by her unquestioning, demonstrative affection, or by the open suspicion which was its only alternative. She was now suffering from a fit of suspicion the most profound she had yet known. Judging her husband, womanlike, rather by his treatment of her than by any more rational standard, his brutal rudeness to her before the other men seemed a more conclusive proof of the suspicious nature of his connection with Harrington Moseley than any of his other actions. The young wife felt as if her heart were broken. She was losing, in spite of herself, both her love for her husband and her hold upon his heart. And the one person to whom she had turned in her despair, instead of holding out arms of welcome to the unhappy woman, had repulsed her with a calm recommendation to do her duty. Duty? The wcrd was a mockjry. Would even Aunt Mary tell her that it was her duty to obey her husband when he demanded that she should preside over a gambling-den? The small party assembled this evening was only the thin end of the wedge, Nettl ;a felt sure. She asked herself what she ought to do, and could find no answer. She was not a specially self-reliant woman, but had always until now had some adviser at hand to whom she could appeal in a difficulty. Two years oefore, her mother wa3 alive; and since then, until now, she had had Aunt Mary. But now Lady Kenslow seemed unaccountably to have failed her, and she was indeed alone. Suddenly she started up, alarmed by a knock at her door. It was only the housemaid, with a request from Mr Moseley that Mrs Hilliard would be kind enough to see him for a few minutes. (To be continued.)