“Blindfold Love,”

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 49, Issue 14890, 3 April 1923, Page 7

“Blindfold Love,”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

POWERFUL STORY OF LOYE AND MYSTERY,

By Christopher Wilson, Author of "The Heart of Delilah," "Eor a Woman’s Honour," "The Missing Millionaire," "The Wings of Destiny," etc., etc.

(COPYRIGHT.)

CHAPTER VIII.—’Continued

"I want to know the truth," said Evelyn, "and I will know it. You ‘brought me here to meet my father. You told me that the police were on his track, that he was here iu hiding, and wanted to see me at once. He was not here when I arrived with you. Then you told me a story of a hitch that had occurred. You assured me that he would come. When I asked you yesterday to let me go to Pegram street, you ■told me that the police would follow me, and that I would get him into trouble. You induced me to creep away from my friend’s house like a thief. Is it true that my father is in trouble? Answer me! Is it true? I insist upon knowing the truth! " She had risen to her feet and faced him with flashing eyes. But lie seemed to bo unmoved, Slowly lie rose from his chair, and said, in quiet level tones:

"There was not oue word of truth in anything that I told you. I lied to you. But lam going to tell you the truth now."

"You lied to me—about my father! Why?" For one moment Bogan hesitated. Then came the amazing reply: "I have promised to tell you the truth. Well, the truth is that 1 lied to you, to save you from your father." Rogan paused, as if to give the girl time to grasp the moaning of his statement. But she merely gazed at him iu a dazed, uncomprehending fashion. Then he went on, with a note of earnest pleading in his voice, that Evelyn Altimont had never hoard before:

•‘Can’t you understand? Sooner or later your father would have discovered where you were. Once you appeared before the public on the stage of Ballwin’s Theatre, concealment would have been impossible. You would have had to go back to your father, and that would have meant nothing but misery to you. I think you know that I do not want you to suffer. I only want you to be happy." "Happy!" the girl repeated, with bitterness in her voice. "Do you imagine that I could ever be happy after I had discovered the real nature of the relations between you and my father? Happy, while knowing- that my father was an associate of thieves!"

As she Hung the words at him, Rogan winced as if she had struck him.

"If you knew ail, if you knew the circumstances that drove me to become •a ‘crook,’ you would perhaps not be so liard on me. ’ ’

1 Again he paused. Then liis self-con-trol seemed to give way, and lie turned to her with outflung hands, his voice shaken by emotion. "It is not your pity that I want. It is something more than that. You would not. listen to me when I spoke to you that evening down in Cornwall. But if you had listened I would have told you what 1 was willing to do for your sake. If you will give me something to live for, it will be the end of the old life. I swear that solemnly. And this is nothing new, no sudden impulse. Ever since I met you I have wanted you. Wanted you as I have never wanted anything else in this world." His hand went out as if to touch her, out she shrank back from him, pale and trembling in every limb. "O’h, it cowardly!" she gasped. "Cowardly to insult me in such a fashion. When you said what you did at Cratloe Cove I did not think you meant what you said. I thought it was only a rude, unpleasant kind of jest. But now, after what you have dared to say to me, I must go—at once. I will not remain in your house one moment long-

With one swift stride he was beside the girl, and his arm went round her waist as he said:

"I want you—l want youl And I will win you if all the world stands in my way. With a shudder that shook her from head .to foot, she wrenched herself away from him and dashed through the communicating doorway into her bedroom. And, as he stood there, swearing beneath his breath, he caught the sound of the key being turned in the lock, and then a sudden tempest of sobbing. On the staircase he met his housekeeper, and with a backward jerk of his head said laconically: "Better see if Miss Altimont wants anything. She is upset." Then, as the woman turned towards the girl’s room, he added, in a low tone: "If she asks you again about me, tell her the truth. Tel her what hap£>ened to your husband when he tried to play the double game with me, and tell her how I have provided for you since then."

But when the -woman tapped at the door of the bedroom Evelyn Altimont did not reply. She was packing her belongings with feverish haste. For the moment her one and only thought was escape from the hideous trap into which she had been so cunningly lured. Then, when she had finished her preparations, she seemed to master the feelings of panic, and she sat for a while in the chair by the window, thinking things out.

As long as Bogan was in the house there was the risk that he might forcibly prevent her from leaving. Once or twice she heard the tones of his voice in the room below, and also the shriller accents of Jules Legaine. And so she waited, hoping that they would depart and leave the coast clear for her 'flight. Then, as her thoughts became clearer and more collected, came the recollection of the previous night, and the mau whom she had seen on the lawn, lurking by the wall of the house. It seemed that it could have been Bonald Dane, but again and again the thought came back that it was really he. Her plans for the future were vague enough. One thing .only was certain, that she could not go back to her father. She shivered as she remembered that he had actually scolded her, been furious with her, for having repelled the advances of Lanty Bogan in Cornwall. If she went to Blanche Brierley Bogan would follow her and persecute her. Again, the thought of Dane came to her. She would go to him and ask his advice.

Suddenly a door slammed below, and as she leaned out she caught a glimpse of Bogan and Legaine walking over the lawn to the road.

A little later she took up her small handbag, unlocked the door and slipped noiselessly into the corridor. All was still in the house, and it seemed to her as if she could hear the tumultuous beating of her own heart as she stole oil tip-toe down the stairs. There was a bend in the staircase, and as she turned the corner her beating heart seemed to stand still, and her band went up to her bosom with a clutching gesture of fear.

(To be Continued.)

For at the end of the staircase was a heavy oaken door, cutting the upper portion of the house off from the hall and the rooms on the ground floor. And when her trembling hands closed upon the door handle, she found that the door, was locked and barred.

In an agony of fear she flung herself at the door, beating with her lists upon the thick panels till her hands were bruised. There was the grating sound of a ‘bolt being withdrawn on the other side, and then the click of a key in the lock, and the door was opened to the extent of a few inches. But the links of a chain hung across the opening. "Let me out! Oh, you must let me out!" she cried, almost hysterically, as she shook the door till the chain rattled.

Then the thin, haggard face of the housekeeper appeared in the opening. ‘ ‘ For heaven’s sake, miss, go back to your room. If Mr Rogan came back and found one speaking to you here—-—* Humour him if you can, miss; it’s all you can do, God help you!"

She uttered the last words with a kind of sobbing catch in her voice. Then the door closed again, and Evelyn could hear the snap of the lock and the scraping of the iron bolt. At first, when she w r ent back to her room, she paced up and down with the rapid, unthinking movements of some caged creature. Then a reaction set in, and she dropped limply into a chair, staring hopelesly into space.

Then she realised that the window of the sitting room was nearer to the road, and unlocking the door for the first ime since she had fled from Rogan, she passed through into the sittingroom and seated herself at the window. Surely someone would pass by. Then quite suddenly she caught sight of a figure lurking behind one of the kilns- in the brickfield, quite near to the house. There was omething sinister in the man’s movements, as he slipped across to the boundary wall with the crouching run of a soldier taking cover under fire. And she drew back instinctively, thinking that it was either Rogan or Jules, who had returned to keep her under observation. Then came a crash of glass in the bedroom, and as she turned towards the communicating doorway she saw a stone lying on the bedroom carpet, and, fastened securely to the missile was a folded piece of paper. It was the work of an instant to pick up the stone, detach the paper and decipher the pencilled lines. "Dear Miss Altimont, —No time for explanations, but if you are detained against your will I shall do all in my power to help you to escape. If the American and Juies are not in the house, draw down the blind of the room you were in just now, when you saw me, and keep it down as long as they are absent. Leave the rest to me. If you draw down the blind I shall know that you are in need of help. —Yours truly, Ronald Dane."