A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9168, 17 August 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

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

CHAPTER. X.—Continued. "Ah," sighed Netelka, as she, sea .e l herself on a low settee and loukdJ at the fire, "it ia I who am insufferable now!" Gerard did not immediately reply. Wnen he did, it waj to murmur in a conventional tone, "Not at all, I asjurj you." ••it h I." we.it on Netelka, "who am taking a liberty now." "Ate you? I shouldn't have found it mic by myself." Alrealy there was a little constraint 'in hid tone, as if he knew what it was in her heait to say to him, and resented her interference in advance. Netelka suddenly turned upon him a very different look from any that he had yet se?n in her eyes. It was a pleading, earnest expression, almost passionate in its intensity. "But you will find it out if you stay hsre so much as a minute longer, for 1 shall take a real liberty, a great liberty. I want to lecture you; I want to preach to you; I want to make you ashamed of yourself. Now you are warned And you needn't stay unless you like." For a few moments Gerard looked as if he would not stay. He glanced at tha'door, with a very definite expression on his mouth. Then he glanced at the lady, and changed his mind. He began by heaving a deep sigh. "I'll stay," said he, "and I'll lister. But that's as far as I will undena'ce to go, and i hope you will consider that is qnough of a concession. Not only will I not promise, co start with,"that 1 won't give it u;-) " ! Netelka sighed in her turn, but cheerfully; for if ths woman who j hesitates is lost, surely the man who listens is lost, too. j "Sit th-jre," said Netelka, indi-J eating a chair at a short distance. | But Gerard began to b=j refractory , > i at once. "No," said he. "I don't like that chair It's a woman's chair, made for phowing off a lady's dreas. I shouldn't look at all graceful in it. You would never get me to repent while I sat in a chair like that." "Choose your own chair, then." Gerard went ail round the room, slo«ly, sitting down on all the chairs in succession, throwing bade his head and settling his arms in each, as if determined to find one which snoul 1 be perfectly comfortable in all ruspects. .. .. "Never saw such a lot of chairs! lie murmured despondently in t ie ! course of his tour. "This a nice height, but the back's too short. And this one," as he tried the next, "would be perfect if it only l»u arms." He wanted to tire out Netelka's patience, to make her laugh, and to restore the conversation to the level of frivolity he preferred. But she tired him out. Sitting | quietly on the settee, with her eyes fixed upon the fire, she would not turn her head to notice his anticr, but i waited tranquilly until he stooa before her once more. ; "I think I'll settle upon,this," said he, as he draggel forward a little light Algerian sea 1 ;, made of two croas-pieceß of wood, with a skin , plung between, "because it looks so I Jolly uncomfortable. Even if wh t you say to me shouldn't make ma I feel sorry, I t link I can manage to j look sorry if I sit on this long enough." Again the humourous blue eyes j sought hers, but found no answering • expression ol a xiuse.Tient in Netelka's black ones. On the contrary, when aha smiled, it was with a Lok of infinite sadno s, "I don't want to make you sorry," said she. "To begin with, I don't know whe hir you have anything to be sorry Lr, but I wait U» portuide vou to give up Laccarat." "Why"' "Because it's a thing that can do no good to anybody, and that may do a great deal of harrr." "To me in particular?" "Ye- es, 1 think so." "Again—why?" Nettlka looked rather taken aback. Shi had spoken upon an impulse, a not inexplicable impulse; but Ssh.i was not prepared with a detailed explanation of her motives. She opened her fan and shut it again. "Because- '" she began, and stopped. Suddenly Gerard came to her aid. She founJ that the light-blue eye 3 wtre a little nearer to her, looking up into her face. "Naver mind," said he gently. "You are quite • right, even though you can't explain. When you ( say 'baccarat', you let 'baccarat' stand for h lot besides, don't you?" "Weil, I suppose I do." "Let us talk it out, then. Wculd you tie bored to death if I told you all about it, and myself, and how it all cm me about? You could preach tj me eve- to much better if you knew all a )uut me, couldn't you?" "i'm ::ftaid it wouldn't do ycu much irotid." "Well, it would do me good to tell ' oj. You see, it's so much time ■. \ed from baicartt." "Go on, then." 'J he wind was ri's.ng, beating the Vjigieens against the tiny-puned melieval windows. The candles uich which the, room was lighted ikcKered a little in the draft. Gerard drtw his nncomfortabla seat closer to the tire, and, sitting with bent head and hid hands clasped loosely together. he toll he: his story, while me firelight strange shadows on hU facj and brought unsuspected furrows into view. CtifvPTER XI. A . EXCHANGE OF CONFIDENCE?. There was a seductive charm in the cvff, luxurious room, with its low

ceiling, its corners, its rugs, and its big square cushions. Netelka now noticed it for the first time, as Gerard Waller drew closer to the fire and began his story in the .low-pitched, '.■jnfidential tone of an old friend. Ev>en while she listened to him she wns asking herself unconsciously how it was that this was the first time that the handsome apartment had worn a homelike air. Of course, the reason was that until to-day she had been miserable in it, and that she now heard a sympathetic human voice in it for the first time. Gerard had got as far as to tell her that he waa the son of an ironmaster, and that he was born near Middlesboiough, that he was now twentythree years of age, and that he was reading for the bar, when it occurred to him that the attention of his hostess was wandering. He stopped short and sat up. "I am bpring you," he said. Netelka started, and denied the accusation. "But you were not listening." "I was. I believe I could repeat what you have said word for word. And yet it is true that I was thinking of something else at the same time. "Is it a secret?" Netelka hesitated. "Hardly that," she said at last. And then sha looked at him with a peculiar expression which made Gerard smile. "Might one Le permitted to hazard a guess?" asked he. , "One might." "Then were you wondering just a litt'e to find yourself sitting cozily here by the fireside, listening like an old friend to the maunderings of a fellow whom a lew hours ago you had never seen?" Their eyes met frankly, and they both laughed. "Something like that,, perhaps." G?rard leaned back thoughtfully. "It wasn't so very wonderful that I should guess your thoughts like that," said he, "for they, were in my own mind, too. You see, I htd heard about you, just enough to make me expect some one quite different. They talked as if " Gerard pulled himself up vrry suddpnly, as it flashed through his mind that ti.e lady's husband was one of the two persons who had spoken to him about her,and that the impression Lii had given him was of tome horrid old cat of whom he him- j self was afraid. The moment he hesitated, .Netelka, greatly interest- j ed, snapped him up: ! "As if what?" 1 "L hj, as if you were so very, very prim, and, — and particular. They quite frightened me. I thought, well, I think I had got it into my headthough they certainly never said that —thac Linley had married a woman much older than himself; that we should find a stately, well-preserved old lady on the wrong side of fifty, instead of, instead of " He glanced at her shyly, troke off, and laughed again. Metelka laughed, too. "No, I'm still on the right side of fifty by- let me see—twenty-eight yeira." "Oh," said Gerard, "with interest. "Twenty two. Then you are just a year older than I am. (To be continued.)