“Adventurous Anne,”

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 49, Issue 14874, 9 March 1923, Page 7

“Adventurous Anne,”

PUBLISHED BT SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. DELIGHTFUL STORY OF LOYE AND ADVENTURE—

By E. Everett-Green. Author of ‘Defiant Diana,” “Married in Haste,” “A Queen of Hearts,”

* 6 ' (COPYRIGHT.)

CHAPTER XlX—Continued “A capital place,” said Jack, “very comfortable and cheerful, and the servants understanding and ‘obliging. And I realised, Anne, that it would not do for you to appear there bringing Ravenhill. So I am supposed to have gone to Colchester to meet Ids train. When I appear with him it will be exactly as though I had fetched him from the station. I thought all that out as I went down this morning, and was very glad to get your wire as to your whereabouts. And now, the only question remain t, what are you going to do You can’t go touring in the car, as you intended. And here you are, after having done this thing so cleverly, and got Ravenhill out of the trap he has been walking into, stranded like this ■” < ‘Stranded! ’’ mocked Anne, with her delightful laugh. “-Do you take me for a helpless duffer? There are ten thciisand entertaining things to do. _ Don't vou worry about me one little bit! Do you think I cannot take care of myself?” “Anne —I want to have the right to take care of you. Anne ” She held up her hand. There was that in her face which arrested his farther words. Always about Anne was a certain virginal dignity, a quiet power of authority, which seemed in curiou seontrast to the gay and impulsive, temperament. He became instantly silent, and she spoke on as though -she had not heard the sudden exclamation that had broken from him. , “It will be charming to bo quite, quite unfettered. There are a number of amusing tilings that I can do. I am sick to death -of the racket and smell of streets.” ‘ ‘You will not go back to the flats —to the neighbourhood of that woman? Tou will at least promise me that, Anne;” “Certainly I will! I have not the smallest intention of going back. My term will be up in three weeks now. I have moved everything out, and Mrs Bellermain has the bulk of my boxes. I am as free as air. I may tramp with a knapsack. I may buy a governess cut and pony and drive. I may go to the Broads and get a houseboat. I may charter an ■aeroplane and take my way to Mars. Have no fears for me. But I do think the sooner you get Ravenhill out of the hot sun and into a comfortable hous-e the better. Just help me carry my suit cases to the road side, and the nwe will bring him to your car and then we will bring him to your ear situation.” “Leaving you alone -by the roadside? Anne, I can’t!” “Most certainly you can,” laughed Anno. “It will not be long before some nice old-fashioned farmer comes along, or some yokel with a waggon, and I shall beg a lift to the next town or village. 1 have my purse and my cheque book and a big .balance at the bank. What can heart -of woman desire more ” Jack did her bidding. He saw determination in her face. And he himself had reached the eo-nclusion that, her name must not be mixed up with Ravenhill’s disappearance. The starting out from the flat with him looking on would not excite wonder. They had been motoring a good deal together of late, -and in London —well, nobody thought for five- minutes together of trifles like that-. But in the slow-going country, where every small incident was noted and discussed —that was a different matter altogether, as he had quickly realised, and even before this encounter he had seen that it was due to Anne to meet her -and take over Ravenhill, and bring him to Moat. Roden as though he had met him at Colchester. He was wondering whether this was going to be a difficult matter or not; but the accident to the car had probably simplified things, for it had driven all recoleetion of the Princess Ki’.inskv out of Ravenhill’s mind, and when Jack woke him up and told him he would soon have him comfortable in the house -of a friend of -his own quite near by, Ravenhill sat up and seemed quite ready to go. But some faint recollection of an unpleasantness remained with him, for he j eyed Anne with a furtive kind of hos- : tiJity in his generally friendly eyes. “She is not going too, is she?” he asked, and Anne laughed gaily. “Dear me, no-. I have my -hands full, thank you, Lord Rave-nhil-l. Look at my poor car. D-o you remember how it took a mad dance over the grass? That comes of being a little too clever. Women always come to grief in time, don’t they? But thank you for your company on the trip. We had a grand run. And I suppose I may get something out of the insurance people. My big car was insured, and I suppose that covers any -one car I may have. I don’t profess to know the ins and -outs, but 1 can find out. And lucidly Jack is here to take you to his friend's house and leave me free to go -about my own business. As for me, I really think I’d sooner have the thing burnt up satisfactorily than have to -have it ignominiously lugged along to workshop on a lorry. Much less trouble, anyhow.” Ravenhill walked all right with the assistance o-f Jack’s arm. He seemed a little dazed, but not -otherwise changed. The car was turned and -he was put into the seat beside Jack. It was a comfortable seat, and he never asked a question as to his destination. Anne watched them drive off and slowly dwindle to a blotch and a whirl of smokelike dust, and then she drew a long breath of relief.

“Well, I don’t think Olga’s going to get him this time. But if these episodes are to be of annual occurrence it will become fatiguing for somebody. He really is getting to need watching over. A designing woman like that is a constant menace. His brain is giving way rapidly. He has changed very much in the time I have known him. It’s a horrible thing. And more horrible still that any woman should try and decoy a poor creature like that and entrap him into marriage. "Well, we’ve dished her again this time, I fancy. Bus Ido not think it would ! be healthy for me to meet Madame Olga just at this moment.

Anne sat herself beside the road under such shade as a clump of bushes afforded, and she tried hard to banish from her mind the look which Jack had bent upon her at the last, the words which he had tried to Speak, and which she had declined to suffer. And yet, she knew that they fanned the warp and woof of all her other thoughts. Of course, it was impossible that anything could come of it. She herself must take care that it never did. Ilis career must not bo spoiled through his generous, chivalrous feeling for her —of course not. And yet —and yet —how splendid he looked when he told her that he loved her. And how glorious a thing it was to bo loved! A smile stole over Anne’s face. She forgot at that moment her hunger and thirst; the heat of the sun or the wrecked car burnt to a skeleton a hundred yards away. She sat lost in a dream

A burly farmer was driving the cart, and he pulled up as soon as he drew near, touching his liat by way of greet-

ing. “Maybe you’re the lady I heard tell of away back, ‘by a young gent in a motor car. Said as how yonr-s had been burnt up,” the countryman could not repress a grin at this -point, “-and maybe you’d like a lift behind a good ’oss, a-s doesn’t go off in fire and smoke if it gets off the high-road.”' Anne’s laugh was pleasant to hear. She lifted up her baggage and stowed it away ,and sprang up gaily beside her uew friend.

of un-knagined -sweetness, and was only roused from it presently by the beat of horse-hoofs along the road. Anne -rose quickly to her feet. She was glad to -see that the four-wheeled dog-cart which was coming along was proceeding from the direction in which Jack had vanished. She did not want to go towards Roden, but away from it. °

“I love horses a lot more than I love -motors,” she said, “and I am quite glad to leave that burnt-up thing yonder where it busted up! And for the future I’ll trust to Shanks’ pony or a nice beast like the one between your shafts. ’ ’ CHAPTER XX. Before they had preceded a mile on their way Anne had made quite a conquest of her farmer friend. He liked her way of asking questions, her shrewd remarks about the horse, her gay laugh and the fashion in which she made light of the destruction of her car. She was what he called “a -good plucked one” in his homely vocabulary, and conversation never slackened -as they jogged along together. They had left the high road now and were passing through pastoral country and corn lands, placid, dreamy and tranquil under the summer sun. A sense of peace and well-being was getting its hold of Anne. She felt as though it was good sometimes to be out of the great swirling stream of life, drifting into one of its quiet backwaters. She loved these calm meandering streams, willow -swept, with cattle standing deep in shallow water. She thought the -lit-tle villages -charanling and the scattered farmsteads infinitely attractive. “And where can I be taking of you to, Miss?” came -the voice of her -companion, rousing her out of a reverie, and Anne gazed round her with shining eyes as she made reply. “Is there any place near here where I could get a lodging ” “What kind -of a lodging would you be thinking of?” asked her companion with a side-glanee at 'her. “Well, a cottage would do, if it was clean and had a little garden. But what I should really like would be a farm. I love animals so dearly, and there would be more space. You are a . farmer, aren’t you? Do any -of your friends or neighbours ever take people in as summer lodgers? ”- “Well, my missus has sometimes took in an artist gentleman for -a spell. We don’t what you call let lodgings regular, b-ut once in -a way, when it’s been asked -of us, we’ve done it.” 1 (To be Coonnuofl.l