“The Lifting of the Shadow.”

Wairarapa Daily Times, 3 July 1925, Page 7

“The Lifting of the Shadow.”

(PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.) POWERFUL STORY” OF LOVE AND ACTION,

(By Ben Bolt.) Author of “Love Finds the Clue,” “A Bride from the West,” “A Modern Delilah,” etc., etc.

(COPYRIGHT.)

CHAI’TER ll.—Continued. The man looked at her with gratitude. “I'm awfully obliged to you. You are taking considerable risks. If you are found out ” The girl laughed. “We must take the risk of that, and, 'believe me, I do not mind. I belong to an adventurous family.’ ’ He nodded thoughtfully, then asked: “These clothes’ They will be missed.” “I don't think so,” broke in the girl. “They are my brother’s, and he has been abroad for more than a year. That daub tlierc is supposed to be a fair likeness of him.” •She indicated one of the canvasses hung on the wall, and the man turned to look at it, and as foil on the portrait lie started violently, and after a moment he asked hoarsely: “Is that your brother?” “Yes,” she answered. “You seem to know him. Have you ever met him ? ’ ’ The man disregarded her question. “That is your brother?” he said. “Tell me your name, please.” “My name! Oh, my name is Wedmore —Kathlyn Wedmore! And that is” mv brother Jack. You know him? — L am sure you do.” “Yes,” admitted the convict slowly, “I do know him. We used to be great chums before ”

“I understand,’’ ’ said tlio girl sympathetically, “and I am very glad to be able to help a friend of Jack’s. But I really must go now.” She stood for a moment in some embarrassment, then set down a little packet on the table. “There is some money here,” she said confusedly, “not very much, but enough to get you to London. I —l am rather hard up at present, having overrun mv allowance.”

She laughed to hide her confusion, and the man laughed with her. “It is a loan,” he said. “Tell me the address, and I will send it back to you by the first post.” She laughed as she gave him her address, then, observing his convict clothes, she said: “You can put those in that corner there, under those draperies’. I will dispose of them somehow when I get back.” Then, wishing him good-night, she left the studio and went back to the house.

“Looks as if I were going to have a visitor. I wonder if Babette ”

For some time after she had gone the convict remained in deep thought, then he crossed the room and stood looking at the portrait of the girl’s brother. Tie was thinking of a night long before, the last night of- liberty that he had known until his escape from the great penal settlement, and the expression on his face revealed tlliat his thoughts were very bitter. He 6tood for a long time, and then he addressed the portrait. “You left me in the lurch, Jack, and it was mean of you, but 1 forgive you—n ow! ’ ’

He broke off without finishing the sentence, and a moment later, as a man’s voice sounded harshly outside, knew that the thought which had crossed his mind was wrong. It could not be Babette, and furthermore the voice was that of a stranger. The clamour outside increased. His own dogs barked furiously, the man’s voice grew harsher and more insistent, and now and again a dog yelped in sudden pain. “He’s using the whip,” he said to himself, as he rolled up the map and tied it with a leather thong. Then, rising from his stool, he gathered his papers together and stowed them carefully on an improvised shelf in one corner of the room.

He lit another cigarette, picked up his convict clothes, and rolling them in a bundle, concealed them in the place that the girl had indicated; then he set the alarm clock, extinguished the light, and composed himself to sleep.

At quarter to five the alarm clock wakened him, and after making a rough toilet and eating the food left over on the night before, he stole out of the studio, and closing the door behind him, made his way across the fields to the road. He had no difficulty in finding the wood which the girl had spoken of, and he remained there bidden.until the sound of a motor horn warned him of the approaeli of a ear. He peeped cautiously forth, and saw that the motorist was Kathlyn Wedmore. He looked up and down the road, and finding that the coast was clear, stepped out into the open. “Jump in,” said the girl, her eves dancing with excitement, and as he took his place at her side, she added: “-You will be safe now. I don’t suppose we shall meet anyone that matters between here and Plymouth.” But she was wrong there, for half a

mile down the road they encountered a gentleman with a gun under his arm, who lifted his liat to her, glancing keenly at her companion as he did so. The girl’s face flamed as she nodded to him, and the car swept onward.

The individual they had left in the road looked back at them. “Now, I wonder who that is,” he said thoughtfully. “I didn’t know they had anyone staying at the Wedmore’s, and Miss Kathlyn seems in a tearing hurry.” He strode up the road thoughtfully, and finally made his way to the girl’s home, where he invited .himself to breakfast with Mrs Wedmore.

“Kathlyn not about this morning 1 ?” lie asked casually, over his second cup of tea. 1 •-‘'■fill

“She has run into Plymouth for some colours she is wanting, Rufus,” explained Mrs Wedmore. “Alone?” he asked, still in the same casual manner. “Of course. You know what Kathlyn is. She is afraid of nothing, and though I told her last night that the roads were not safe with this escaped convict about, she only laughed at me and insisted on going.” Mr Rufus Wariow nodded, said nothing, but thought a good deal, and at the conclusion of breakfast announced his intention b f awaiting the girl’s return.

Airs Wedmore, who knew that he was interested in her daughter, smiled. “As you please, only I have to go out, and as iny husband is away you will have to amuse yourself, my dear Rufus. ’ ’

“Oh, I shall have no difficulty in doing that,” he replied laughingly. “I can go to the studio and borrow a. pencil and one of Kathlyn’s blocks, and do a little sketching.” “As you like,” said Airs Wedmore ensilv.

So after breakfast Air ißufus War16w made his way to the studio, and the first thing he saw was a convict’s cap lying on the floor under the table, where the owner had unwittingly dropped it. He stooped and picked it up, with amazement on his face. Tie looked round the room, noted the debris of the meal, the shaving requisites on the mantlepieee, and back to the cap in his hand once more.

“Uni!” he ejaculated after a time. “I think I can guess why Aliss Kathlyn was in such a hurry, and I think T will take charge of this interesting piece of evidence. AVho knows? I may yet find it useful.”

He folded the cap and thrust it into an inner pocket, and then left the studio, without troubling to look for the blocks and pencil he had required.

(To be Continued.)

CHAPTER 111. Five months after he had picked up the convict’s cap in Ivathlyn Wedmore’s studio, Rufus Warlow sat in a log cabin far up the'Yukon river, smoking, and considering a map which he himself had made. The map related to certain gold mining properties on which he had been commissioned to make an expert’s report for a group of financiers in London, and from time to time as lie glanced at it he made a note on a draft report by his side. He was quite alone, the half-breed whom he had hired to assist him having gone out on the trail of a moose in the hope of adding fresh meat to their larder. Except for the roar of burning spruce in the Yukon stove everything was silent, with the cold white silence of the North, and Rufus Warlow found the silence and the solitude more oppressive than he would have eared to own.

Suddenly lie started, the map dropped from his hand, and he gazed hastily towards the door. Somewhere outside the cabin had sounded a crack exactly like the report of a pistol. Eor a moment he .sat there with a startled, seared look on his face. Then the look passed us his mind found the explanation. A pine tree frozen to the sap by the tremendous cold had burst its heart. He laughed as he reached this explanation. “I am getting nervous,” he ejaculated aloud. “The sooner I make tracks for civilised countries the better.” He stooped and picked up the map which had fallen down from .the table to tlio lloor, and was in the act of unrolling it anew when a fresh sound reached his ears. He stayed his hands and sat perfectly still to make sure. Yes, there could be no doubt of it. There it was again—the short, quick yelping of dogs on trail. At the same moment his own dogs behind the cabin gave tongue in response, confirming bis thought, and he smiled to himself.