A SENSATIONAL CASE.
 
 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 BY 
 
 FLORENCE WARDEN, 
 
 Author of "The House on the Marsh," "A Terrible Family?' "Adela's 
 Ordeal? "A Perfect Fool," etc., etc. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE FEDERAL BOOK COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1894, 
 
 BY 
 
 FLORENCE WARDEN. 
 [All Rights Reserved.]
 
 SRLf 
 
 MBil 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 I. A COMPLICATED CASK, 7 
 
 n. THE VERDICT, 16 
 
 HI. HUSBAND AND WIFE, 22 
 
 IV. A STRANGER'S SYMPATHY 30 
 
 V. THE LITTLE NEW HOUSE AND THE BIG OLD ONE, 37 
 
 VI. JEM 45 
 
 VII. MR. MOSELEY'S FRIEND, 52 
 
 Vni. NETELKA AS AN AUTOCRAT, 60 
 
 IX. MR. MOSELEY'S GRATITUDE, 67 
 
 X. A SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING 74 
 
 XI. AN EXCHANGE OF CONFIDENCES, . . . .83 
 
 XII. NETELKA' s CONVERT 92 
 
 XIII. POOR JEM, 99 
 
 XIV. NETELKA'S PLAN 106 
 
 XV. WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM ? . .115 
 XVI. AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION, . . . .124 
 
 XVII. A RECOGNITION 130 
 
 XVIII. LOVE-SECRETS 139 
 
 XIX. HUGH THORNDYKE'S SUSPICIONS, . . . .146 
 
 XX. A TRAGIC MISTAKE 153 
 
 XXI. A MODEL HUSBAND, 161 
 
 XXII. THE MYSTERY OF A BROUGHAM, . . . .168 
 XXIII. A VOLUME FROM THE LIBRARY, .... 176 
 
 XXIV. JEM CLIMBS A TREE 183 
 
 XXV. JEM'S ADVENTURES, 190
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAOB 
 
 XXVI. LINLEY'S LITTLE GAME 198 
 
 XXVII. A MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS, 205 
 
 XXVIII. A STARTLING PROPOSITION, .... 215 
 
 XXIX. LINLEY SCORES, 221 
 
 XXX. AN AWKWARD POSITION 229 
 
 XXXI. Two SIDES TO A BARGAIN, . . . .236 
 
 XXXII. Two MEETINGS, 246 
 
 XXXIII. TEMPTATION, 251 
 
 XXXIV. GOOD-BY, 257 
 
 XXXV. COMPLICATIONS, 266 
 
 XXXVI. KNAVES FALL OUT, . . . . . .274 
 
 XXXVII. METHOD OR MADNESS? 281 
 
 XXXVIII. LINLEY'S ESCAPE 289 
 
 XXXIX. HUGH THORNDYKE'S GOOD-BY, . . . . 296 
 XL. A JOURNEY AND ITS END, 306
 
 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A COMPLICATED CASE. 
 
 IT was at the Liverpool Autumn Assizes that the case 
 came on, and the court was crowded to suffocation, for 
 a man was on trial for his life. 
 
 But this fact alone would not have accounted for the 
 brilliant appearance of the court, every available corner of 
 which was filled with ladies who, although for the most 
 part they had arrayed themselves in garments of sober 
 coloring, yet brought with them an atmosphere of " smart- 
 ness" and an aroma of frivolity which gave a piquancy and 
 an added interest to the scene. 
 
 It was no common murder which brought these butterflies 
 of society into the close air of the Assize Court. It was 
 no common murderer, no unhappy laborer, arraigned for 
 kicking to death a drunken wife, to gaze on whose features 
 a fashionable beauty had travelled all the way from Lon- 
 don and an American heiress had hurried back from Paris. 
 
 It was a " Society case. " The man on his trial, that is 
 to say, was known at the London clubs and in the London 
 ballrooms. He was young, moreover, and if not exactly 
 good-looking, was at least "interesting." And then he
 
 8 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 was "well-connected," which counts for so much in these 
 cases. 
 
 As he sat in the dock, with his eyes for the most part cast 
 down, pale, nervous, effeminate-looking, there was only one 
 opinion as to his guilt among the ladies, at least. It was 
 summed up in the words of a portly middle-aged woman, 
 who occupied, not a seat in the court itself, but standing- 
 room in the heart of the crushing, struggling crowd be- 
 yond the barriers. When she caught sight of the prisoner, 
 she ejaculated in audible tones: 
 
 "Why, he don't look as if he could hurt a fly!" 
 
 Linley Dax, the prisoner, started at the sound of her loud 
 voice, and then looked round at the woman, as it seemed, 
 gratefully. She was right: he did not look as if he could 
 hurt a fly, much less murder, in cold blood, a fellow-man. 
 
 The crime of which he was accused was in reality a more 
 complicated one than appeared on the indictment. For 
 while this only set forth that Linley Dax, " did, on the 
 fifth day of September, 188-, wilfully and of malice afore- 
 thought, kill and murder one Henry Tucker Landon, by 
 suffocating him with carburetted hydrogen gas, at Keith 
 House, Widicombe," there was hanging over the prisoner's 
 head a secondary implied charge of having set fire to Keith 
 House on the same date, with intent to defraud two in- 
 surance companies. 
 
 The known facts of the case were that Mr. and Mrs. 
 Dax, well-dressed, well-connected persons, of undoubted re- 
 finement, had taken Keith House at the end of the previ- 
 ous year ; had brought with them some van loads of furniture 
 all the way from London, and that the prisoner had then 
 sought to insure the furniture and contents of the house in 
 different insurance offices for an aggregate sum of twenty 
 thousand pounds. In this he had been only partly suc- 
 cessful, having succeeded in obtaining two policies, in two
 
 A COMPLICATED CASE. 9 
 
 different offices, for a sum of two thousand five hundred 
 pounds each. 
 
 The insurance was effected in the month of July. 
 
 Immediately after the fire and the alleged murder, Mr. 
 Dax had sent in his claim to the insurance offices ; but their 
 suspicions having been aroused by various circumstances, 
 they disputed payment of the policies on the ground of 
 fraud. In the mean time the charge of murder had been 
 brought, and the affair of the insurance stood over, since 
 the defence to the one charge would be, if proved, a satis- 
 factory answer to the other. 
 
 The defence was that, on the date of the alleged murder 
 and of the fire, Linley Dax was in a state of health which 
 made it impossible for him to leave his room without assist- 
 ance. In support of this statement, the evidence of his 
 doctor was given. This gentleman, a man of the highest 
 reputation, swore that he had seen Mr. Dax on the morn- 
 ing of the day in question, and had found him in a state 
 of extreme physical and mental depression, so as to be, 
 in the doctor's opinion, wholly incapable at that time of 
 the exertions attributed to him on that evening. 
 
 Another witness for the defence, a servant in the employ 
 of the prisoner, deposed that Mr. Dax had remained in his 
 room long after the outbreak of the fire, from inability to 
 get down the stairs without assistance. 
 
 For the prosecution the witness chiefly relied upon was 
 another servant, named Joseph Turner, who swore that he 
 had seen his master on that very night come out of the 
 room on the ground floor where the fire had originated, and 
 had afterwards seen him go into the room occupied by Mr. 
 Landon. This witness further alleged that Mr. Landon 
 had arrived from London that day; that he had gone to see 
 Mr. Dax in the room of the latter, and that high words had 
 passed between them. He further stated, and in this he
 
 10 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 was corroborated by the evidence of other servants, that Mr. 
 Landon, after dining by himself, had retired to rest in an 
 intoxicated condition. 
 
 This evidence, if it had been considered quite trust- 
 worthy, would have gone far toward establishing the guilt 
 of the accused ; while the evidence of a housemaid who swore 
 that she had seen Mr. Dax outside the kitchen-door late 
 that night, turning on the gas at the meter after it had been 
 turned off for the night, would have been conclusive as to 
 the existence of fraud on the prisoner's part. 
 
 The weak point about this evidence, however, lay in the 
 appearance, manner, and antecedents of the witness Turner, 
 and in his acknowledged influence over the young house- 
 maid. Turner was a young man with a bad, nervous man- 
 ner and shifty eyes. He held to his story when under cross- 
 examination, but confessed to having been under notice of 
 dismissal by his master, and also to having previously ob- 
 tained a situation by means of a false character, and the 
 housemaid admitted that she was engaged to be married to 
 Turner. 
 
 The evidence of both these witnesses, therefore, carried 
 comparatively little weight, and would perhaps have been 
 altogether discredited but for the corroboration which cer- 
 tain parts of it received from outside sources. 
 
 Thus, for instance, a workman who had been engaged in 
 repapering a room on the first floor deposed to having over- 
 heard enough of the alleged quarrel between the deceased 
 man and Mr. Dax to know that the former was demanding 
 repayment of money lent to the latter, while another ser- 
 vant gave evidence to the effect that, the fire having been 
 extinguished before it reached the wing in which the guest- 
 chambers were situated, she had found the door of Mr. Lan- 
 don 's room locked, with no key in it. The inference drawn 
 by the prosecution from this circumstance was that Mr. Dax
 
 A COMPLICATED CASE. 11 
 
 had himself locked the deceased man into his room and 
 taken away the key. 
 
 / / 
 
 The above were the main outlines of the case against the 
 prisoner and of the defence raised by his counsel. 
 
 Among the most interested of the spectators was a young- 
 ish man, of a decidedly Jewish cast of countenance, who sat 
 in one of the galleries set apart at the opening of the As- 
 sizes for the grand jury. His attention appeared to be about 
 equally divided between the prisoner on the one hand and 
 a lady who sat at the solicitors' table on the other. At last, 
 after a prolonged stare at the lady, the Jew, who was very 
 well dressed and presented altogether a smart as well as pros- 
 perous appearance, turned to the man sitting beside him 
 and said : 
 
 " That's his wife, isn't it?" 
 
 The man addressed nodded. 
 
 The Jew went on, in some surprise : 
 
 " Where was she on the night of the fire?" 
 
 The other man gave him an expressive look, and accom- 
 panied it by a slight wink. 
 
 " She went away two days before, and they do say she 
 took all the most valuable things in the house away with 
 her." 
 
 "Silence in the court!" roared the usher, making more 
 noise than anybody else. 
 
 The Jew held his tongue for a little while, but he was not 
 satisfied. 
 
 " Couldn't the prosecution have made it out conspiracy, 
 and put her in the box along with him?" 
 
 The other man, who seemed to be well-informed, shook 
 his head. 
 
 "They're afraid. She's too good-looking," answered 
 he. 
 
 At this point the cross-examination of the last of the wit-
 
 12 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 nesses came to an end, and the speech for the defence be- 
 gan. Then the man who sat by the side of the Jew noticed 
 certain peculiarities in the manner of his neighbor, which 
 did not fail to rouse his curiosity. At every point in the 
 speech which told heavily in the prisoner's favor the Jew's 
 face fell, and his eyes showed plainly by their troubled ex- 
 pression that he was anxious and disquieted. Whenever, 
 on the other hand, counsel for the defence came to a weak 
 place, the countenance of the Jew grew brighter, and he 
 seemed almost to smile approval from where he sat on pris- 
 oner and counsel alike. 
 
 "One of the creditors whom Mr. Dax has 'done' in his 
 time," thought the other man, who had been one of the 
 prisoner's tradesmen, " and he's gloating over the poor 
 devil's chance of the gallows!" 
 
 At this moment the prisoner's counsel, with all the more 
 fervor that he felt the weakness of certain portions of his 
 case, dashed into a moving appeal to the emotions of the 
 jury, dwelling on the dismay with which the prisoner's 
 young wife, returning in haste to her husband's side on 
 learning the calamity which had befallen them both, had 
 heard that over the head of her husband there hung the fear- 
 ful charge of murder ! 
 
 As he came to this point in his speech, the lady, who, 
 closely veiled, had kept her head bent and had never once 
 exchanged glances with her husband, looked up at him. 
 What the meaning of that look was no one could tell, for 
 the black lace veil was the safest of masks. But the women 
 in the court looked at each other and whispered that she 
 might well be sorry for him, since but for her he would 
 never have stood in the dock ! 
 
 And a thrill passed through the feminine breasts and 
 found vent in gentle sighs, until counsel felt the very at- 
 mosphere warming toward his client, who sat with his head
 
 A COMPLICATED CASE. 13 
 
 bent, motionless except for the nervous twitching of his 
 small white hands. 
 
 So that it was with more and ever more confidence he 
 went on, growing more eloquent with every sentence, paint- 
 ing the distress of the delicately nurtured woman who loved 
 and honored the prisoner above aught else in the world, and 
 the joy, the overflowing happiness, it would give her if or 
 rather, he would say, when they gave their verdict in his 
 favor and let him go back, a free and innocent man, to the 
 loving arms of the wife he worshipped. For they were both 
 young ; the world was all before them ; their happy life to- 
 gether had but begun ; there were, so he hoped and believed, 
 many years of life and joy before them, years in which they 
 would remember the terrible trial they were now going 
 through but as a nightmare past and gone, though, by its 
 awful nature, by the lif e-and-death issues it involved, it could 
 never be forgotten. 
 
 When the speech for the defence came to an end, there 
 was an instinctive attempt at applause ; this, though quickly 
 suppressed, suggested the direction in which popular sym- 
 pathy lay. And when the prisoner's wife threw back her 
 veil, the better to scan the faces about her and to secure if 
 possible an anticipatory assurance of a favorable verdict, 
 a murmur ran round the court, as the well-informed among 
 the crowd contrasted her handsome, vivacious face, with its 
 intelligent, eager expression, with the colorless fair face, 
 delicate little womanish features, and general air of feeble- 
 ness and of weak health which characterized the prisoner. 
 And the spiteful feminine whisper ran that they had got 
 the wrong person in the dock. 
 
 The Judge's summing up was short, and was considered 
 to be, on the whole, favorable to the prisoner. He dwelt 
 upon the fact that the evidence against Dax, although there 
 was a good deal of it, came chiefly from sources which could
 
 14 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 not be called unimpeachable ; while the motive, suggesting a 
 quarrel about money matters, seemed neither strong nor well 
 established. 
 
 In conclusion, he urged the jury to dismiss from their 
 minds anything they might have heard concerning the pris- 
 oner which had no bearing on the case. 
 
 The jury then retired to consider their verdict ; and the 
 prisoner having been removed from the dock into the cells 
 below, the pent-up emotions of the crowd immediately found 
 vent in a buzz of excited comment, which, in spite of the 
 officers of the court, grew louder every moment. 
 
 The Jew turned triumphantly to the tradesman by his 
 side. 
 
 "He'll get off, sure enough! " cried he. 
 
 The other man stared. 
 
 "Why," he exclaimed in astonishment, "I thought you 
 didn't want him to! I beg your pardon, sir; but I couldn't 
 help thinking you must have some grudge against the poor 
 fellow." 
 
 The Jew stroked his thick black mustache, in the en- 
 deavor to hide a smile. 
 
 " I never saw the man before in my life," he said quietly.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE VEEDICT. 
 
 IT was one of those occasions upon which every man feels 
 the need of expansion. Everybody's business is nobody's 
 business in a double sense, for the issue of events, exciting 
 though it is, affects nobody personally. All feel that they 
 can give free vent to opinions which can no longer affect in 
 any way the fate of the accused, while they still possess all 
 the zest of prophecy. 
 
 The Jewish gentleman, therefore, and the Christian 
 tradesman grew confidential ; or perhaps it would be more 
 correct to say that the tradesman grew confidential, while 
 the Jew appeared to do so. 
 
 "Do you know him, then?" asked the latter. 
 
 " Know him ! I should think I did !" answered the other, 
 not unconscious of the distinction the acquaintance con- 
 ferred upon him. " Why, he's been in my shop twice a 
 week at least for the last ten months. And Mrs. Dax too," 
 he added in a lower tone, although the lady was no longer 
 in court to hear him. 
 
 " Ah !" said the Jew, significantly, " she looks to be twice 
 the man he is ! " 
 
 " Why, so she is," replied the other promptly. "To see 
 them come into my shop together, as I've seen them time 
 and again, the one pale, limp, complaining even the warmest 
 days of spring that it was so cold, the other full of life and 
 spirits, it was like frost and sunshine." 
 
 " And people say, don't they, that she was the moving 
 spirit in "
 
 16 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " Well, well, people can't help forming their own conclu- 
 sions, sir; can they? And servants will talk, you know, 
 sir ; and so things pass from lip to lip until there's a pretty 
 story made out that would hang a whole family.' 1 
 
 "Hang, eh?" 
 
 " If you liked to believe it all. But of course the story 
 grows." 
 
 " And how much of it do you believe?" asked the Jew. 
 " Come, now, you're an intelligent man, not likely to be car- 
 ried away by prejudice. What's your private opinion?" 
 
 " I prefer not to have one, sir." 
 
 " H'm, that sounds like a bad one. You may speak out 
 freely to me, you know, for I don't belong to this part of 
 the world; I'm a Londoner." 
 
 " Come up on purpose for the trial, sir?" asked the man 
 curiously. 
 
 " Bless your heart, no. I'm here on business, and dropped 
 in by accident to see the fun that was going. And I stopped 
 on because I was interested in the lady, from what I'd heard 
 and from what I could see. She's a very handsome wo- 
 man," he went on critically. " Lots of style and dash, and 
 knows how to dress. Look at her get-up to-day stops just 
 short of being theatrically mournful and sombre, don't it? 
 She knows how to make the money fly, I'll warrant!" 
 
 The other man grinned. 
 
 "I believe you!" said he. "She's got some diamonds 
 that would make your mouth water, and dresses well, there, 
 you should see her at Aintree on a race day ! Nothing gaudy, 
 and yet with something about her that makes all the other 
 women look dowdy. You know what I mean, sir, I dare 
 say?" 
 
 "Yes, I know the sort," nodded the Jew, knowingly. 
 " And they say, I suppose, that it was on her account that 
 her husband ran into debt to this man Landon?"
 
 THE VERDICT. 17 
 
 " Why, yes, sir, that's just what they do say," assented the 
 tradesman. " Everybody wants to know where all the money 
 went to, if it wasn't on her clothes, and her jewelry, and 
 the stylish turnout she used to drive about in." 
 
 The Jew seemed to be ticking off in his mind the various 
 items of the lady's extravagance with an interest exceed- 
 ingly strong. He scarcely noticed, so deeply absorbed was he, 
 the hush that suddenly came upon the court as the curtain 
 which hung before the door of the room where the jury 
 were sitting was drawn back, and every eye was turned in 
 that direction in the expectation of seeing the jury file in. 
 
 It was only the sergeant-at-arms, however, with a message 
 to the Judge ; and a rumor began to run round to the ef- 
 fect that the jury were unable to agree. 
 
 Everybody felt this as a personal offence, a mean trick to 
 rob him of the legitimate climax to his excitement. And 
 the murmur of tongues rose again immediately. 
 
 The Jew turned once more to his neighbor. " It's lucky 
 for the lady the insurance offices didn't prosecute!" said he. 
 
 " As it is, I suppose, sir, they'll have to pay up if the 
 jury bring it in 'Not guilty'?" 
 
 " More likely to compromise it, I think. For it seems to 
 be known that the Daxes were hard up. And if they let 
 him off on the graver charge, they would be all the more 
 likely to convict on the lesser one, just to keep the balance 
 even," said the Jew shrewdly. 
 
 The murmur of voices in the court was gradually increas- 
 ing to a hubbub. The butterflies about the bench, all of 
 whom, to a woman, thought the prisoner less guilty than 
 his wife, became less guarded in their speech, and exchanged 
 innuendoes concerning the cost of Mrs. Dax's dress and the 
 means whereby it was paid for. Yet at the same time they 
 were indulgent, recognizing the fact that Liverpool had 
 been proud of her, as quite one of the most creditable of the 
 2
 
 18 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 local products. Had she not moved in the best society of 
 Liverpool? And what could be better than Liverpool's 
 best? 
 
 Suddenly the hum of these pretty bees ceased, and in a 
 dead silence the judge returned to his seat on the bench, 
 the jury filed in and took their places in the box, and the 
 prisoner, who was by this time as pale as death and in a 
 half-fainting condition, was half-led, half-carried into the 
 dock. At the same moment the prisoner's wife, with her 
 veil down, walked with a dignified and erect carriage into 
 court, and resumed her old seat, with a graceful bend of the 
 head to the solicitor, who made way for her. 
 
 There was a moment's hush, so that a man, shutting his 
 eyes, might have fancied himself on a desert island. Then 
 the Judge addressed the jury in the well known words: 
 
 "Gentlemen, have you agreed upon a verdict?" 
 
 "We have, my lord," replied the foreman. 
 
 " Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?" 
 
 "Not guilty, my lord." 
 
 And while the prisoner burst into tears and sobbed like a 
 woman, the buzz in the court began again. 
 
 The prisoner's wife raised her veil, but she did not look at 
 her husband. She seemed to be listening, listening to the 
 hum around her, to the babble of indistinguishable words. 
 Then, when the ushers called for "Silence!" she looked at 
 them. And finally her glance fell upon one of her friends, 
 who, from the end of the bench by the grand- jury box, was 
 nodding and smiling congratulations. 
 
 And the prisoner's wife smiled back. 
 
 " How well she bears up!" thought the men. 
 
 "How brazen she is!" thought the women. 
 
 There was silence while the Judge addressed a few words 
 of rather ambiguous congratulation to the acquitted man, 
 and then the court was adjourned until the following morn-
 
 THE VERDICT. 19 
 
 ing, and the crowd began to flow out, still discussing with 
 excitement the verdict just given. 
 
 The prisoner had hardly disappeared when a rush was 
 made from the other end of the court into the street, with 
 the object of getting a look at the released man as he left 
 the building. 
 
 In the mean time Mrs. Dax was surrounded by a crowd of 
 congratulating friends, who insisted, some on shaking 
 hands only, some on giving her the meaningless feminine 
 kiss. 
 
 " So glad it's all over ! Not that there was any real need 
 to be anxious, of course; but still it was most dreadfully try- 
 ing, especially for you, dear!" 
 
 " Thank you so so much ! Yes, it was very dreadful, 
 of course, only I was so sure his innocence must be proved," 
 said Mrs. Dax, who had lifted her veil, displaying a hand- 
 some dark-skinned face, brilliant black eyes, and cheeks 
 bright with the color brought by intense excitement. 
 
 "Ah, my dear," croaked an elderly lady, who thought 
 Mrs. Dax was geting off a great deal too easily, " but even 
 innocent persons get convicted sometimes. I think you 
 take the matter altogether too lightly, and that you ought 
 to be humbly giving thanks for your I mean for your hus- 
 band's escape." 
 
 Just for two seconds the bright color in the face of Mrs. 
 Dax faded a little. 
 
 "I am thankful, indeed," she said, in a voice that trem- 
 bled slightly. 
 
 Another lady, with more feeling or more tact, broke in : 
 " Of course she's thankful, only she doesn't want to make 
 a scene for the benefit of the jurymen. It wouldn't do for 
 you to break down when you have poor Linley to comfort, 
 would it, Netelka?" 
 
 Mrs. Dax started.
 
 20 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " I I must go to him !" she faltered, with a sudden scared 
 look. And withdrawing herself with a final hasty handshake 
 from the gossiping group, Mrs. Dax walked quickly out of 
 the court, everybody making way for her as she went. 
 
 The remaining ladies looked at each other. " I shouldn't 
 like to have as much on my conscience as she has! " mur- 
 mured one of them, with piously uplifted eyes. 
 
 "Sh sh, it isn't fair to say that," interrupted another 
 lady, with a moving sense that Mrs. Dax was not given fair 
 play. " I hope we should none of us have shaken hands 
 with her if we really believed anything like that!" she 
 ended with convenient vagueness. 
 
 " I don't know. It's nice to be able to say you've shaken 
 hands with a real " 
 
 She stopped at the word which was on her lips, and fin- 
 ished with a gentle sigh: "Poor Linley!" 
 
 Then the woman who had been the only rival worth speak- 
 ing of in dress and appearance to Mrs. Dax spoke for the 
 first time. She could afford to be generous now. 
 
 "If all of it that people hinted had been true," said she 
 gravely, " I for one should have shaken hands with her just 
 the same." 
 
 And thus, some with real feeling in their hearts, and some 
 with only the feigned expression of it on their lips, the 
 group of well-dressed women melted away, as one by one they 
 got into their broughams and drove home to dinner. 
 
 Mrs. Dax found the carriage of the woman who had been 
 her rival waiting for her outside. The footman came up to 
 her with the message from his mistress that it was at the 
 service of Mr. and Mrs. Dax as long as they pleased. Her 
 lip trembled, and for the first time that day her handsome 
 eyes grew moist as she stepped inside the landau. 
 
 She drew back hastily, as there was a rush of roughs, well- 
 dressed and other, to the door of the carriage. A crowd
 
 THE VERDICT. 21 
 
 of faces, agape with coarse, hideous curiosity, instantly 
 blocked the window. "With a gesture of passionate, fierce 
 indignation, Netelka threw herself hack into the corner, 
 hiding herself as well as she could. A horrihle sound, a sort 
 of growl of execration and of baffled curiosity, reached her 
 ears. And louder than this, words, insulting, coarse, 
 angry, the expression of the pent-up feeling of the crowd. 
 
 "Ar-r-r-r-r! She does well to hide her face, the slut! 
 The hussy ! It's her they ought to put in the dock ! Ar-r-r-r ! 
 The thief! The murderess!" 
 
 Netelka heard these words; they fell upon her ears like 
 bullets out of a cloud of smoke. She sat up again, panting, 
 with starting eyeballs. 
 
 " Do they say that? That?" 
 
 She clinched her hands ; she set her teeth ; for no one 
 could deny this woman the attribute of courage ; she was 
 game to the last. But before she could do more than face 
 her enemies, the carriage drove on. Then Netelka drew 
 back again as the landau passed through the gates, by di- 
 rection of the police, to the prisoner's entrance. Here the 
 carriage door was quickly opened by two stalwart consta- 
 bles. In, rather than on, their arms they were supporting 
 the shivering, helpless form of the released prisoner, her 
 husband. 
 
 They put him into the carriage, shut the door quickly, and 
 told the coachman to drive on. 
 
 And for the first time since the arrest of Linley Dax, 
 husband and wife were alone together.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HUSBAND AND WIFE. 
 
 THE sky was darkening toward night and the weather 
 was turning colder as Linley Dax, a free man once more, 
 drove with his wife through the streets of Liverpool. 
 
 Ever since they had left the gates of St. George's Hall 
 there had been dead silence between them, he leaning back 
 in his corner of the big carriage, she sitting upright and 
 motionless in hers. 
 
 "Where are we going?" she said at last. 
 
 At the question, Linley gave a little sob. 
 
 "I thought you were never going to speak to me!" he 
 cried piteously. "I thought, Netta, that you hadn't a 
 word of kindness for me, after all I've gone through !" 
 
 Any one who had overheard this speech, and who had at 
 the same time been able to see the faces of husband and wife 
 and to note well their appearance and manner, would have 
 thought the poor man hardly used indeed by a cold, unsym- 
 pathetic wife, who, now that misfortune had fallen upon 
 her husband, had nothing but frowns for him and harsh, 
 heartless silence. Even after his pathetic appeal to her 
 feelings, Netelka Dax hesitated some moments before re- 
 plying. When she spoke, her voice sounded harsh, although 
 at the same time it was evident that she was trying hard to 
 express more kindness than she felt. 
 
 " I am very sorry for you, Linley, " she said. " Very sorry 
 indeed. It it must have been a dreadful, dreadful time 
 for you, as" her voice shook " as it has been for me." 
 
 At this expression of sympathy, slightly lukewarm as it
 
 HUSBAND AND WIFE. 23 
 
 was, Linley gave another sob and, drawing nearer to her, 
 thrust his hand through her arm and laid his head upon 
 her shoulder. 
 
 " Oh, oh !" he moaned, " you don't know how dreadful it 
 has been ! To begin with, the drains of the place are all 
 wrong, I'm sure. The stuffiness was something awful. 
 Then there was a rat or a mouse, or something, scrape, 
 scrape, scraping all night behind the wall, so that I couldn't 
 get any sleep. And as for the eggs they gave me, why, 
 Netta, they were twenty a shilling, I'm sure ! Ugh ! It 
 was a hole! " 
 
 Netelka listened with staring eyes. She had let Linley 
 take her hand, and he was now occupied in unbuttoning 
 the long black gloves she wore, so that he might press his 
 lips upon the delicate wrist underneath. 
 
 " Oh !" he exclaimed rapturously, not apparently heeding 
 the fact that she was receiving his caresses much as a statue 
 would have done, " you are so nice and warm ! And I'm 
 so cold. Let me put my hands in your muff, dear." 
 
 " Oh, yes!" stammered Netelka, as she unhooked the thin 
 black cord which held her muff and gave it quickly to him. 
 As she did so, she glanced at his face with a frightened ex- 
 pression. 
 
 "Don't look at me like that, Netta!" cried he, in a gen- 
 tle but aggrieved tone. "What's the matter with you, 
 dear? You are changed; you are unkind to me! One 
 would think you were sorry to have me back again !" 
 
 " Oh, no, no, " exclaimed Netelka, catching her breath. 
 
 " Give me a kiss, then, and say you're sorry for treating 
 me so badly. You seem quite cold this evening ; and you 
 know the reason why I love you is that you are never cold, 
 never in the sulks, like other women." 
 
 Netelka let him kiss her ; but this was not what he had 
 asked for.
 
 24 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " Kiss me, kiss me," he said imperiously, putting his arm 
 around her, and drawing her passive form close to his. 
 " Why are you behaving like this, Netta? What have they 
 been saying to you ? Have you lost all feeling for your poor 
 old man just because he's down on his luck?" 
 
 Netelka trembled. Turning suddenly towards him, trans- 
 formed in one moment from an icicle into a living, breath- 
 ing woman, palpitating with human passions, with tender, 
 womanly hopes and fears, she seized his arms, and holding 
 them firmly so that he could not move, she gazed into his 
 face with burning eyes. 
 
 "Linley, Linley," she exclaimed in a hoarse whisper, 
 " tell me about it. Tell me it isn't true. You know what 
 I mean," she went on hurriedly, as she saw his lips open to 
 frame the evasive little protest and exclamations with which 
 he wished to silence her. " Tell me how it happened, and 
 that what they say the dreadful things they say are not 
 true, not true!" she ended with a little shriek. 
 
 Linley shook his head wearily from side to side. 
 
 "Keally, Netta, I wish you wouldn't be so explosive!" 
 cried he, with a sigh. " What is it you want to know? Say 
 it right out and have done with it. Did I kill the man? 
 Is that what you mean?" 
 
 He spoke in a tone of almost childish surprise and impa- 
 tience, which shocked Netelka and made her shudder. It 
 seemed to throw all the burden of suspicion upon her own 
 wicked mind. She dropped his arm, and drew away from 
 him. 
 
 "Oh, Linley, don't!" she whispered. 
 
 But he persisted, bringing his face close to hers, trying 
 to meet her eyes, and drawing her hands again into his own 
 affectionately. 
 
 "Don't what? You are a silly girl! I can't make you 
 out at all. Here I had been looking forward to meeting you
 
 HUSBAND AND WIFE. 25 
 
 again, saying to myself that it would be all right when 
 I was once back with you ; that I should forget all my 
 troubles and the downright beastly time I've had. And 
 instead of that, instead of that," repeated he, working 
 himself up to a pitch of great self-pity, "you must 
 needs go and be explosive, and even what, if it were any 
 one but you, I should call downright hard and unsympa- 
 thetic." 
 
 All this time his wife was looking at him fixedly, trying 
 to disentangle the impressions of sense and reason. She had 
 argued the whole matter out with herself, brooding over it, 
 turning it about in her mind, while he was in prison. And 
 the same conclusion, no matter from what point of view she 
 approached the terrible subject, had always forced itself 
 upon her mind. Yet now that her husband was once more 
 beside her, speaking to her in the old affectionate tones, ca- 
 ressing her as before with his effeminately white hands, beg- 
 ging her piteously to be kind to him, she began to believe 
 that all her terrible deductions must have been wrong, and 
 that her husband might be indeed the innocent man the law 
 had just pronounced him to be. 
 
 This view opened out to her so suddenly, so radiantly that 
 it turned her head and made her delirious with joy. 
 
 Her husband saw, even while he was speaking in the 
 sweetest tones of a peculiarly sweet voice his words of affec- 
 tionate remonstrance into her ear, the revulsion of feeling 
 that was coming. But even he was scarcely prepared for 
 the absolute violence with which, when he ceased speaking, 
 she flung herself upon him. 
 
 " Oh, Linley, do forgive me, do forgive me," she pleaded 
 passionately. " I ought to be ashamed of myself ; I am 
 ashamed of myself, but but it all seemed to fit in so hor- 
 ribly, what I knew and what they said, that that I began 
 to think I began to be afraid "
 
 26 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "Well, we won't talk about it!" interrupted Linley ab- 
 ruptly, shivering a little. 
 
 But his wife's self-abasement was too great for her to be 
 satisfied without some nearer approach than this to a " little ? 
 scene." 
 
 She felt that her atonement must equal in intensity the 
 offence which had called it forth. 
 
 " Oh, but I must tell you, I must, and then we'll never 
 speak of it again," she cried, plucking nervously at the 
 sleeve of his coat, so that he presently gently put her hand 
 away and smoothed the cloth to counteract the damage in- 
 flicted by her fingers. 
 
 " Why not skip the stage of telling me, and come to that 
 of never speaking of it again?" he asked with a dryness which 
 in the midst of her excitement gave her a sudden chill. 
 
 It was with a manner the exuberance of which, therefore, 
 was slightly subdued that she said : " You must know how 
 it was, or else you will never be able to understand and 
 forgive me." 
 
 "Yes, yes, I'll forgive you anything, if you'll only hold 
 your tongue, now and forever, about the whole detestable 
 business," interrupted Linley in a snarling tone. " Do you 
 think I want to hear you go over the old ground again, after 
 all I've heard of it the last two days after the way I've 
 had it dinned into me, till I couldn't get any rest or any 
 peace for thinking of it, and wondering what the dunder- 
 heads in the jury-box would bring it in? " 
 
 Netelka's cheeks grew paler, and her voice, as she an- 
 swered, had lost its bright ring : 
 
 " And you won't feel a secret grievance against me for 
 believing for one moment that it was possible you might, in 
 a fit of despair " 
 
 " My dear girl," broke in Linley again, and this time his 
 tone was decidedly " nasty," " I don't care a jot what you do
 
 HUSBAND AND WIFE. 27 
 
 believe or what yon don't believe as long as you will let the 
 subject drop once and for all. I tell you I'm sick of it. I 
 don't want any explanations or apologies for thinking this 
 or that. I only want a little peace. I should think you 
 might be able to understand that, my dear," he went on 
 less snappishly, as he noted a change in the expression of 
 his wife's sensitive face. " How would you feel yourself 
 under the circumstances? Put yourself in my place." 
 
 " That's just what people have been suggesting that I 
 ought to do," said Netelka quietly. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 " That they say it has been said, that that that that 
 the that what took place was all through me, all on my 
 account." 
 
 Linley listened to this avowal with much interest. 
 
 " No do they say that?" he said, almost eagerly, his wife 
 thought. " What ! do they think I was jealous of that fel- 
 low, eh?" 
 
 " Oh, don't speak in that tone. It's too dreadful !" 
 
 "Well, what is it they say? You've been dying to tell 
 me something I don't want to hear: can't you get out some- 
 thing that I do?" 
 
 Linley spoke with some impatience, and his wife hastened 
 to satisfy him : 
 
 " They say you had got into debt through my extrava- 
 gance, and that you had borrowed from from " 
 
 "From Landon? Well?" 
 
 "And that you couldn't pay, and that you arranged to 
 defraud the insurance offices by sending me away with all 
 the most valuable things in the house, and then setting 
 setting fire to the place." 
 
 " Why, that's only the old story that's been dinned into 
 everybody's ears all these weeks !" said Linley, contemptu- 
 ously. "I've heard all this before."
 
 28 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " Well, but they say it was I who who 'put you up to 
 it. ' And and and you know, Linley, I really was sur- 
 prised to find what a lot of luggage you made me take away ; 
 and and I haven't unpacked half of the trunks yet; not 
 one of those that you packed!" 
 
 "Oh, that's all right," replied the husband with compo- 
 sure. " Where are they now?" 
 
 " At my Aunt Mary's. I wrote asking her if she would 
 take care of some things for me, and she said she would. 
 So I sent them on to her " 
 
 "Why to her, of all people? You know that she detests 
 me!" 
 
 Netelka gave a little smothered sigh. 
 
 "I didn't know whom else to send them to! You see 
 there were so many of them ; and and if I'd sent them to 
 be warehoused, I I thought perhaps " 
 
 " Yes, yes. All right. Yon did quite right," said Linley 
 hastily. " There would have been some bother with these 
 insurance fellows. You have more sense than I expected, 
 Netta. Only I'm afraid Lady Kenslow will be 'nasty.' ' 
 
 " Aunt Mary ! Oh, no. She has written me the loveli- 
 est letters telling me to come straight to her when if if 
 ever I should want a want a change," finished she, unwill- 
 ing to let her husband know that the invitation had been 
 given in the belief that Linley would be convicted, and that 
 his wife would want a shelter from the world. 
 
 Linley frowned. But as at that moment the carriage 
 stopped, he only said, " Here we are," and let down the win- 
 dow. 
 
 Netelka looked out. They were at Edge Hill Station. 
 
 " We are going straight up to town," he explained briefly. 
 " I suppose you have some money?" 
 
 " A little. Enough to take us up, but not much more," 
 answered she, with a sudden access of timidity.
 
 HUSBAND AND WIFE. 29 
 
 There was some plan in her husband's mind, she could 
 see, which gave him anxiety. He did not leave her long in 
 doubt as to what it was. 
 
 "I must see about the insurance at once," said he. 
 "They always make a fuss about paying up; but I don't see 
 how, in tne face of the verdict, they can do anything but 
 shell out." 
 
 Netelka said nothing. Her husband was usually very reti- 
 cent to her about his affairs; on this, the first occasion of 
 his entering into any sort of discussion about them, she 
 heartily wished that he would go back to reticence again.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A STRANGER'S SYMPATHY. 
 
 LINLEY had directed the coachman to drive to Edge Hill 
 Station so that they might avoid the eager crowd of the cu- 
 rious who would certainly have collected to see them off on 
 their journey if they had started from Lime Street. 
 
 As it was, however, one person at least had had the enter- 
 prise to follow them in a cab. This was the Jew, who had 
 watched the trial with so much interest from the gallery in 
 the court. 
 
 When Linley and his wife had chosen the compartment 
 they intended to travel in, and the lady had taken her place 
 in one of the two vacant corners, Linley, who was still 
 standing on the platform, felt a gentle touch upon his arm. 
 His nerves being still in a somewhat shaky condition, he 
 started and turned more deadly white than before. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said a rather guttural voice in his 
 ear. 
 
 And turning, Linley found himself almost in the embrace 
 of a dark-faced, youngish -looking man, who would have! 
 been very well dressed indeed but for the fact that he wore 
 upon one finger an enormous diamond and another in the '. 
 pearl-colored satin scarf round his throat. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said the stranger again, raising his 
 hat as Netelka leaned forward anxiously at the window of 
 the carriage, " but I was in court to-day and yesterday, and 
 I could not forbear, meeting you here like this, to congrat- 
 ulate you, sir, on your release. It was an infamous charge
 
 A STRANGER'S SYMPATHY. 31 
 
 against you I repeat, infamous. " And again he looked up 
 at the lady. " I hope you will forgive the liberty I am tak- 
 ing in speaking to you ; but really I felt so strongly that 
 it was a trumped-up case against you that I had to speak. 
 Allow me to give you my card. And if there is any way in 
 which I can ever be of service to you and and Mrs. 
 Dax" and again he raised his hat effusively to Netelka 
 " I beg that you will allow me to do so. I should consider it 
 a great favor, I assure you. " 
 
 He handed to Linley a card, on which were inscribed the 
 words "Mr. Harrington Moseley," and an address in a 
 street off Piccadilly. 
 
 " I am going to town myself by this train," continued the 
 Jew. " I do hope I shall have the pleasure of meeting you 
 again before long." 
 
 Once more raising his hat, and once more glancing at 
 Mrs. Dax, Mr. Moseley retreated and jumped into another 
 compartment, while Linley took his place beside his 
 wife. 
 
 " Who was that?" asked she, apprehensively. 
 
 "I don't know. Some Hebrew money-lender, I suppose. 
 He hoped he might be of service to me, and," added Lin- 
 ley, lowering his voice for her ear only, " he offered his con- 
 gratulations." 
 
 Netelka shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "What a horrid-looking person!" she murmured, as she 
 sat back and, shutting her eyes, pretended to sleep. 
 
 Presently Linley's voice in her ear startled her : 
 
 " I shall leave you," he whispered," at Lady Kenslow'sfor 
 a few days, until I have settled with the insurance people 
 and had time to look about me." 
 
 "And you where will you stay?" asked Netelka, solici- 
 tously; "I would rather go with you." 
 
 The idea of her husband, after the severe strain of the last
 
 32 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 few weeks, going away by himself penniless, while she would 
 have the shelter of friendly arms and a pleasant home, woke 
 all her wifely feelings. 
 
 Forgetting her suspicions, or ignoring them, she moved 
 gently a little nearer to him, and seeking his hand with hers, 
 under cover of the wrap which she had spread over the 
 knees of both, she whispered : " Oh, Linley, you must let 
 me come! You will want some comforting, won't you, 
 dear?" 
 
 Though not unresponsive, her husband shook his head 
 and adhered to his determination, giving his reason. 
 
 "I shall date my letters from Lady Kenslow's," he ex- 
 plained simply, " and you will receive and bring me the 
 answers." 
 
 Netelka was not unused to her husband's ruses, and he 
 took her silence for assent. 
 
 "And, do you know, Netta," he went on presently, still 
 in the same low voice, " that you must not be surprised if 
 you have to stay at Trewithen Street some time; for I think 
 the best thing I can do, after having had my name dragged 
 through the mire in this manner, will be to go for a trip 
 to America, or to Australia, until the beastly story has 
 been forgotten." 
 
 Netelka drew a long breath. She did not know exactly 
 what it was she felt at this suggestion : some pain certainly, 
 some bitterness, some apprehension. If she had not loved 
 Linley passionately when she married him, she had had, 
 during the four years of their married life, enough kindness 
 at his hands, enough wifely affection in her heart, to dread 
 the thought of separation. And she had obtained by this 
 time enough insight into Linley 's character to fear that, 
 once away from her, the influence she had over him would 
 die quickly out, and the separation would become a perma- 
 nent estrangement. He felt her clasp of his hand grow
 
 A STRANGER'S SYMPATHY. 33 
 
 firmer, warmer, as this disquieting thought came into her 
 mind. 
 
 "Oh, Linley," she faltered, "if you go away, you'll for- 
 get me!" 
 
 " Nonsense," said he. " You will be able to cultivate, in 
 my absence, that higher, more intellectual life I've heard 
 you say you feel such a craving for. You will be at liberty 
 to cultivate your 'aspirations' untrammelled by my Philis- 
 tinism, my dear." 
 
 Netelka flushed a little. 
 
 "I've been cured of them," she said, rather shortly, "if, 
 indeed, I ever had any," she added with something like a 
 stifled sigh. 
 
 Then the subject dropped for a while ; but before they 
 reached London he let fall a remark which showed her that 
 his mind was quite made up on the matter: he was going 
 out of the country and without her. 
 
 Linley drove his wife to Lady Kenslow's, but he did not 
 even go up to the door with her. He felt unequal, at this 
 juncture, to a meeting with Aunt Mary, who had not only 
 strongly opposed her niece's marriage with him, but had 
 avoided him ever since. 
 
 When his wife had left him, Linley drove to a quiet hotel 
 near the Strand. As he got out of his hansom, and was 
 looking at the handful of change he had left after paying 
 the man his fare, he became suddenly conscious of a He- 
 braic countenance close to his. Looking up quickly, an- 
 noyed at being caught in the act of looking anxiously at the 
 few coins he possessed, Linley frowned, and promptly turned 
 his back to the smiling gentleman, whom he recognized as 
 the Jew who had spoke to him at Edge Hill. 
 
 "Now, don't be offended, "said Mr. Moseley persuasively, 
 following him up unabashed. " I have a proposal to make 
 to you, my dear sir. As I told you before, I am very much 
 3
 
 34 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 interested in your undeserved misfortunes, and I should like, 
 if you would let me, to help you to a fresh start in life." 
 
 Linley no longer looked at him with haughtiness. There 
 was something in the Jew's manner which suggested that 
 he " meant business. " However, he would not commit him- 
 self to speech : he merely allowed himself to listen while the 
 Jew propounded his plan. 
 
 " There is a way," said Mr. Moseley, not staring fixedly at 
 Linley, but learning enough by an occasional glance, " by 
 which you could, if you pleased, do me a service and your- 
 self one at the same time. I have a furnished house at 
 Wimbledon, a very big place, a nice place, with servants 
 eating their heads off, and everything complete except a 
 master. I can't make it convenient to live there myself all 
 the week through : I like to run down now and then, and 
 very often from Saturday till Monday. And I couldn't let 
 it just at this season, even if I cared to give it up altogether. 
 Now, would you care to become my tenant, rent free, for a 
 little while, just to give you time to look about you, you 
 know?" 
 
 Linley looked at him with the frank expression of the 
 man who " wants to know." 
 
 "You're very kind," he said. But there was caution 
 rather than gratitude in his tone. After a pause, he went 
 on rather slowly and deliberately : " If, as you say, my stay- 
 ing there would really be doing you a service, I need not say 
 that it would suit me also for a little while that is to say, 
 until I have had time to look about me. For I am in a 
 state of lonely bachelorhood just now " 
 
 Mr. Moseley's start of dismay interrupted him. 
 
 Linley, looking up quickly, went on : " My wife is stay- 
 ing with relations, with Lady Kenslow, of Trewithen Street, 
 in fact." 
 
 For a few moments Mr. Moseley, looking frankly non-
 
 A STRANGER'S SYMPATHY. 35 
 
 plussed, pulled his black mustache and looked at his dia- 
 mond ring. Then he said : 
 
 " Look here ; will you come over to Scott's with me, and 
 have some champagne, and something to eat? I don't sup- 
 pose you've been in the humor to eat much to-day," he 
 added, without much tact. 
 
 Linley shivered, but he consented to the proposition, and 
 drove off in a hansom with his benevolent new friend. 
 
 Next day Linley Dax met his wife, by appointment, at 
 Charing Cross Station. He was in very good spirits, and 
 extremely affectionate. Netelka looked at him warily, not- 
 ing certain signs in his manner portending that he had 
 something to say to her that she would not care to hear. 
 
 "Well, my darling," said he with tenderness, as they 
 walked up and down one of the less crowded platforms, " I 
 think it will not be necessary for us to separate, after all. " 
 
 Without expressing premature elation, Netelka glanced 
 at him and prepared to listen. 
 
 "I've been offered the loan of a lovely house at Wimble- 
 don, a place with stables and all, so that you can have your 
 carriage again, and where we can be close to town and all 
 the fun of it, and yet not be too near to its fog and noise. 
 How do you like the idea of that?" 
 
 " But Linley, I don't understand. Where's the money 
 to come from to keep it up?" 
 
 " Didn't I tell you the place was to be lent us?" said 
 Linley impatiently. " It is to be just as if it were our own, 
 just as if we had bought the place outright. Nobody will 
 know us, and we shall be able to enjoy ourselves quietly 
 without being stared at as if we were stuffed, which we 
 should be if we were known." 
 
 " But our name it's so uncommon !" stammered Ne- 
 telka. " People would be sure to find us out. And then 
 oh! "
 
 36 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Instinctively she clasped her hands, as if in despair. 
 
 "We're going to avoid all the risk of that," anwered he 
 quietly, " by changing it. We shall be Mr. and Mrs. Hil- 
 liard." 
 
 Netelka drew a deep breath. 
 
 "And who is going to lend the house to us?" she asked 
 suddenly, after a pause. 
 
 "Oh," answered Linley very quickly, hurrying over this 
 equivocal point, " the little man who gave me his card as 
 we were leaving Liverpool. Good-hearted little chap, he 
 seems!" he ended in a would-be light tone. 
 
 Then there was dead silence. 
 
 "Well," asked Linley at last, rather querulously. 
 
 " Whatr is he doing it for?" 
 
 "How should I know?" said Linley snappishly. "He's 
 a good-natured fellow, I tell you, and he wants somebody 
 to 'keep the house warm,' as he says." 
 
 There was another pause before she asked, in a very low 
 voice : 
 
 " Won't you let me stay with Aunt Mary? You won't 
 be so very far off, at Wimbledon, will you?" 
 
 Linley's white face turned livid, as it did when he was 
 deeply annoyed. 
 
 " If I have to go to Wimbledon without you, or rather 
 if, because you will not go to Wimbledon with me, I have 
 to go somewhere else, I will never come near you again." 
 
 Again there was silence, broken by the sound of a stifled 
 sob from Netelka. Her emotion had no effect upon her hus- 
 band, unless, indeed, it irritated him. 
 
 " Well, will you come with me to Wimbledon?" he asked 
 at last in a grating voice. 
 
 " Yes of course I must." There was a plaintive note 
 of despair in the wife's submission.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE LITTLE NEW HOUSE AND THE BIO OLD ONE. 
 
 ON high ground, and close to the pleasantest part of Wim- 
 bledon Common, stands that picturesque old house, " The 
 Firs." Strange to say, there really are firs to be found on 
 the grounds which surround the house, protected from the 
 gaze of the vulgar by a very high and very massive brick 
 wall, supported by bulging buttresses, and overgrown with 
 clumps of moss and bushes of ivy. A large, comfortable- 
 looking house of mellow red brick, with a tiny turret on the 
 top, in which hung a rusty bell. ISTetelka thought, when she 
 saw it for the first time, that she could have loved the place 
 if she had come to it in happier circumstances. 
 
 As it was, her mind was too much occupied by conjec- 
 tures as to the reason of Mr. Moseley's liberality for her to 
 feel any pleasure in her new home. It was rather startling 
 to find, at the outset, that there had been misrepresentation 
 on the part of the owner ; for, while he had described it 
 as being in thorough order, with a large household of ser- 
 vants, Netelka found it inhabited only by one cantankerous 
 old woman, who had lived up to her character of caretaker 
 by neglecting the house in her charge with unmistakable 
 thoroughness. The handsomely furnished rooms were damp 
 and musty, proving that she had neither opened the win- 
 dows nor lit fires during the year and a half she admitted 
 having spent there. The mice ran about the rooms, and 
 the spiders hung their webs in the corners without interfer- 
 ence from anybody. 
 
 Netelka, the most particular of housekeepers, was ap-
 
 38 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 palled. There was so much to do that it seemed impossible 
 that anything should ever get done. Mr. Moseley had, in- 
 deed, engaged a cook, three maids, and a man-servant, " on 
 behalf," as he expressed it, "of his tenants;" but Netelka 
 had unwisely not waited for their coming. 
 
 The young wife was, in truth, so miserable as to be rest- 
 less. She had consulted her aunt about this offer of the 
 house and Linley's threat. Lady Kenslow had listened with 
 a stolid face, had offered no suggestion as to Moseley's rea- 
 sons, but had emphatically advised Netelka to go with her 
 husband. 
 
 " It is not only, my dear," she had said, " that I hold old- 
 fashioned notions that a husband should cleave to his wife, 
 and a wife to her husband. Leave the sentiment and the 
 religious obligation out of the question, you will still find 
 that in practice it works best, especially for the wife, for 
 the couple to keep together." 
 
 "Even if," suggested Netelka with hesitation, "the hus- 
 band's conduct should be such as to seem very strange, 
 and incomprehensible?" 
 
 "Even if," replied Lady Kenslow tranquilly, "his con- 
 duct should seem to his wife absolutely wrong." 
 
 There was a long silence. Netelka wondered what her 
 aunt knew or guessed concerning Linley. There had been 
 absolute silence between the two ladies on the subject of the 
 trial ; and Lady Kenslow, who had vehemently opposed her 
 niece's marriage, was now just as emphatic in her recom- 
 mendations to Netelka to stand by her husband. 
 
 "Aunt," she said presently, looking curiously at the face 
 of the elder lady, who kept her eyes upon her work, " I wish 
 you'd speak out, and tell me what you think about 
 about " 
 
 "One two three four five treble, one chain to 
 turn," murmured Lady Kenslow. " About what, my dear?"
 
 THE NEW HOUSE AND THE OLD ONE. 39 
 
 Netelka moved her shoulders impatiently. 
 
 "Well, about Linley, for one thing?" 
 
 " One double in the next chain. Why trouble your head, 
 my dear, about opinions which you might not care to hear? 
 Why not be satisfied with my advice, since you acknowledge 
 in your heart that it is good ? I say again, don't ask your- 
 self whether what Linley does is right or wrong: you have 
 chosen him to go through life with; and the world will 
 think better of you, and you will think better of yourself, if 
 you stick to him to the end. Now, don't bother me or your- 
 self by asking for any reasons, because I shan't say any more. 
 Now we'll have tea." 
 
 And this was all the comfort, all the advice,which Netelka 
 had been able to obtain from her usually sympathetic aunt. 
 
 After the first few horrible days of confusion, and mud- 
 dle, and cleaning up at "The Firs," Netelka began to see 
 that there was something in Aunt Mary's advice. She had 
 Jess time to brood over her troubles and her fears than she 
 would have had in Lady Kenslow's tranquil little household, 
 where she had no duties, and where, therefore, time had 
 hung heavy on her hands. She began to interest herself in 
 the progress the servants made toward producing order and 
 cleanliness out of chaos and dirt. 
 
 In the mean time she saw little of Linley. Sometimes he 
 would come down late in the day and spend the night at 
 " The Firs," but more often he would telegraph to tell her 
 that business detained him in town. When he did come, 
 however, he was perfectly kind and cheerful, and spoke 
 hopefully of his prospects of getting " at least something 
 out of the insurance companies ;" and lastly, she was thank- 
 ful to hear and to see nothing whatever of Mr. Harrington 
 Moseley. 
 
 Very early in her stay at " The Firs" Netelka was called 
 upon by her nearest neighbor. This was a lady of between
 
 40 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 thirty and forty years of age, with a tall, slight figure and 
 beautiful golden hair, rather girlish in her dress and decid- 
 edly old-girlish in her manner; a good-natured, restless, 
 foolish creature, for whom centuries would not have been 
 enough for her to "grow up" in. She had light eyes, ever- 
 parted lips, and a perpetual and meaningless smile on her 
 pink features. She was " so delighted" to have Mrs. Hil- 
 liard for a neighbor, " quite charmed" at finding her at 
 home, and " desperately annoyed" because her eldest daugh- 
 ter was too shy to come with her on this call. She implored 
 Mrs. Hilliard to make any use of her she pleased, and of- 
 fered to come and help her in any way that she could, and 
 ended by entreating Netelka to come in to tea. 
 
 " It's only next door, you know," she went on coaxingly. 
 " We live in that little cottage on the right, built expressly 
 to show off the size and the beauty of your big house. So 
 you really can't say no, you know, or it will look as if you 
 were giving yourself airs on the strength of the difference!" 
 
 Netelka did one afternoon avail herself of Mrs. Colliug- 
 ham's invitation. She felt lonely, and she wanted to see 
 the pretty children whom she had met out with their peram- 
 bulator, and the big girls she had heard about. 
 
 Mrs. Collingham's house was very small, very new, very 
 red, and so much broken up by turrets, and gables, and 
 Tudor chimneys, and fanciful windows of all shapes and 
 sizes that you were a little puzzled, in looking at it, as to the 
 architect's meaning. It had all the latest improvements: 
 electric bells, which had long ceased to ring, since nobody 
 ever thought of recharging them ; elaborate moulded fire- 
 places, painted with various colors, which didn't "go with" 
 anything else in the rooms; and a charming heating appa- 
 ratus for the bath (a new patent which exploded every win- 
 ter with the utmost regularity). 
 
 In spite of Mrs. Collingham's entreaties that Mrs. Hil-
 
 THE NEW HOUSE AND THE OLD ONE. 41 
 
 liard would "not stand upon ceremony," but come in just 
 when she felt inclined to do so, Netelka could not but be 
 conscious of a certain scurrying and bustling, of a certain 
 excitement and general sense of something having hap- 
 pened, which always characterizes the arrival of a visitor 
 at a small house filled by a large family. Netelka wished 
 that she had not taken Mrs. Collinghm at her word, but 
 that she had waited for the " first and third Thursdays" in- 
 scribed on that lady's card, when she would have found the 
 housemaid with a clean cap, the pail and sweeping-broom 
 hidden away in the cupboard, the children locked in the 
 nursery, and the whole establishment wearing an air of state 
 befitting the occasion. 
 
 As it was, she could not help feeling that she was in the 
 way when she heard them wake up Major Collingham from 
 his nap and bundle him out of the drawing-room, while she 
 was stepping over a baby in the hall. 
 
 Mrs. Collingham, however, was so unfeignedly glad to 
 see her that Netelka soon recovered from the slight feeling 
 of embarrassment occasioned by these untoward accidents, 
 and the Major having re-entered the room after brushing 
 his dyed hair carefully over the bald space on his head, they 
 all chatted very pleasantly about nothing in particular until 
 tea was brought in. 
 
 Then, unluckily, another regretable incident occurred. 
 Major Collingham had just woke up sufficiently to begin 
 telling one of his best stories, when the door of the back 
 drawing-room was burst open, and a tall and remarkably 
 pretty young girl dashed ungracefully in. She was in walk- 
 ing-dress, and had evidently come in from a struggle with 
 the wind, which had blown the pretty light brown hair into 
 her eyes, and whipped her fair cheeks until they glowed 
 like the centre of a pale pink rose. 
 
 "Oh, mamma, what do you think?" she began.
 
 42 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 But suddenly perceiving a stranger, she stopped short, 
 with a frightened look on her face, and then turned and 
 disappeared with the celerity of a rabbit popping into its 
 hole. 
 
 Major Collingham jumped up angrily. 
 
 "Keally, Marion, that girl is an absolute idiot! Why 
 don't you teach her to behave like a civilized person? I 
 shall go and fetch her back and make her apologize." 
 
 His wife sprang up and stopped him as he was going to- 
 ward the door, while Netelka begged him not to speak to 
 his daughter on her account. 
 
 " She is only shy ; I was just the same myself when I was 
 a girl, and can feel for her." 
 
 "But she has no business to be shy: it's ill-bred," said 
 the Major, not yet calm. " As for you, Mrs. Hilliard, I am 
 quite sure that you were never shy in the sense that that 
 girl is. I don't know what's come over her lately," he went 
 on to his wife. " She goes mooning about the place with- 
 out a word to say for herself, starts when she is spoken to, 
 and behaves like a Zulu altogether." 
 
 "My dear, don't be hard upon her," returned his wife, 
 with some mysterious nods and looks, some directed to her 
 husband, and some to the visitor. " She will get all right 
 in time, I've no doubt. You know what started the mis- 
 chief, and how resolutely I set my face against what you 
 did at the time." 
 
 "I haven't the least idea what you mean," snapped the 
 Major, who did not mind snubbing his wife in the intervals 
 of paying wearisome compliments to the beautiful guest. 
 " What mischief ? And what did I do? And at what time?" 
 
 Mrs. Collingham cast up her eyes, and glanced, with a 
 simper, at the other lady, as much as to say, " What dull 
 creatures these men are, to be sure!" Then with a shrug 
 of the shoulders she said :
 
 TEE NEW HOUSE AND THE OLD ONE. 43 
 
 " My dear, she's in love, or thinks she is, which comes to 
 the same thing. You know how often I've told you that 
 we women must have some amusement, or we get into mis- 
 chief. Well, you didn't provide the amusement; and so she 
 fell in love, as I say, with one of those fast young fellows 
 who used to come down to 'The Firs' last year, before the 
 place was shut up." 
 
 Netelka blushed at this reference to her new home, and 
 Mrs. Collingham turned, with birdlike rapidity, to ex- 
 plain. 
 
 " Oh, such dreadful people there used to be at your house ! 
 Impossible people, don't you know ! So that one could only 
 shut one's eyes and pretend not to know they were there." 
 
 " My dear Marion, what nonsense you talk ! Don't you 
 see you're making Mrs. Hilliard quite uncomfortable?" in- 
 terrupted her husband. "I don't deny," he went on, with 
 a change to his " irresistible" manner, " that the change of 
 tenants is very much for the better; but really the people 
 who were there before were not so bad as my wife makes 
 out. A little go-ahead perhaps, but nothing more." 
 
 His wife began to laugh affectedly. 
 
 "A little go-ahead! I should think so! When it comes 
 to a house being filled with a party of young men from Sat- 
 urday till Monday, who keep the shutters shut and play 
 cards all Sunday, and who, when they are seen in the 
 grounds, look anything but sober ; and when it ends by the 
 house being shut up by the police, I should think you would 
 call the visitors a little go-ahead, wouldn't you, Mrs. Hil- 
 liard?" 
 
 But Netelka had no reply ready : this revelation opened 
 out to her view such alarming possibilities that she was 
 struck dumb. However, the Major prevented any pause. 
 
 " Shut up by the police ! What nonsense ! You listen to 
 any gossip that's going. I'm sure some of the lads who
 
 44 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 used to come down were awfully nice fellows, and even the 
 Jew Moseley was not a bad sort. He's your landlord, isn't 
 he?" 
 
 And he turned to Mrs. Hilliard. 
 
 "I believe so. Yes," stammered Netelka, as she rose 
 to go. 
 
 When she was gone, Mrs. Collingham reproached her 
 husband mildly, and he reproached her viciously, with hav- 
 ing frightened away their guest. 
 
 " She looked quite frightened when you bounced up from 
 your chair as you did," said Mrs. Collingham in her flip- 
 pant, flighty tones of assumed girlishness. "And I was 
 so anxious to make a good impression upon her, for she 
 dresses so charmingly, and there are so few nice people 
 about!" 
 
 " It was your own confoundedly silly talk about the peo- 
 ple who lived there before that frightened her," growled 
 her husband. " Nobody likes to think the house they lived 
 in has been no better than a gambling-hell. And what you 
 said was enough to have frightened her away, if the house 
 hadn't been definitely taken." 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed his wife triumphantly, "you admit its 
 real character now, do you? Ttien you used to be angry 
 with me for objecting to your going in and losing your 
 money. I knew the people who kept the place were noth- 
 ing better than card-sharpers!" 
 
 And in the wrangle which followed about the few pounds 
 the Major had lost over baccarat at "The Firs, "the subject 
 of the daughter was forgotten.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 JEM. 
 
 NETELKA went home with her heart full of forebodings. 
 "A gambling hell!" This word rang in her ears. Did 
 Harrington Moseley propose to start it again, with his new 
 tenants flourished in people's eyes as a blind? This expla- 
 nation of his spontaneous generosity seemed to her only too 
 probable a one. She looked forward to Saturday with dread. 
 True, she had already passed two Saturdays undisturbed by 
 visits either from Harrington Moseley or his friends, or 
 even by the presence of her husband. But she could not 
 expect this state of things to continue. 
 
 When the next Saturday did come round, a break in the 
 monotony occurred very early in the day. Netelka had fin- 
 ished breakfast in the pretty low-ceilingedroomatthe back 
 of the house, when a disturbance in the garden attracted 
 her attention and brought her to the window. There was 
 a great noise of scuffling and screaming, of shouts in a child's 
 voice, of excited whispers in that of a young woman. Then 
 a flying figure passed before the window, and Netelka rec- 
 ognized the pretty, gawky girl of whom she had caught such 
 a very fleeting glimpse when she called at "Maisonette." 
 This was the name of Major Collingham's fantastic little 
 house. 
 
 Netelka opened the window and went out upon the ter- 
 race so as to cut off the retreat of the intruders, who were 
 beating the bushes in the corner, and entreating, command- 
 ing, imploring some unseen creatures to " Come out, come
 
 46 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 out !" Miss Collingham had her head in a laurel bush, and 
 her little brother was deeply imbedded in a yew tree. 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked Netelka gently. 
 
 A crimson, startled face turned on the instant to look at 
 her, while the small boy, less troubled with shyness, ex- 
 plained : 
 
 " It's my guinea-pigs. They've got loose and come under 
 your fence, where it's broken down at the bottom, where 
 Mr. Waller used to get through." 
 
 " Sh sh, Willie, how dare you !" cried Miss Collingham, 
 trying to be dignified, but succeeding only in being con- 
 fused and angry. "I'm very, very sorry," she stammered, 
 pushing back the loose fair hair which her hurried move- 
 ments were constantly shaking down into her eyes and over 
 her cheeks. 
 
 " Are you? I'm not," said Netelka smiling. " I've been 
 dying to make your acquaintance, and I heartily thank the 
 guinea-pigs for giving me the opportunity. Come inside, 
 both of you, and I'll have the guinea-pigs caught and taken 
 back to their home while we talk, and while Willie" she 
 passed her hand through the boy's tangle of curly hair 
 "eats a piece of cake." 
 
 Miss Collingham still looked frightened ; but it was evi- 
 dent, from the expression of her ingenuous young face, that 
 the charm of Netelka's manner had begun to work. She 
 allowed herself to be gently led into the drawing-room, while 
 Willie followed with the preternatural solemnity of a boy 
 who is taken by surprise. He was about eight years of age, 
 tall, thin, and rather pretty. It was evident that he was 
 ready to follow wherever his sister led. 
 
 Once shut into a room with her victim, Netelka found 
 her conquest easy. Miss Collingham was soon chatting and 
 smiling at her ease. 
 
 " And now tell me," eaid Netelka at the first pause, " why
 
 JEM. 47 
 
 you resented so strongly my call at 'Maisonette' the 
 other day?" 
 
 "Eesented!" cried Miss Collingham, aghast. "I never 
 resent anything: I don't believe I could if I tried. I ran 
 away as I did because because oh, because I'm an idiot!" 
 
 "No, you're not. Did I frighten you?" 
 
 Miss Collingham laughed. 
 
 "Yes and no." 
 
 "Why yes?" 
 
 " "Well, you dress so beautifully, for one thing," said Miss 
 Collingham, with a glance of admiration at Netelka's morn- 
 ing-gown of chocolate cashmere, with suggestions of palest 
 pink silk and a knot of creamy old lace at the throat. 
 " And you have such an air of being of being somebody. " 
 
 "Very pretty. And now, why no?" 
 
 " Oh, I wasn't really frightened, because you smiled as if 
 you meant it, and not as if you only must. I wanted to 
 know you, but I wanted to know you by myself, like this, 
 and not just to have to shake hands and be silent before 
 papa and mamma." 
 
 Netelka was interested. The girl did not look very happy, 
 she thought. So, when Willie had finished his cake, she dis- 
 missed him to look after his guinea-pigs, but asked the girl 
 if she could stay a little while. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I can if I like. I haven't really anything in 
 particular to do, unless mamma suddenly takes it into her 
 head that the children shall do some lessons, or that she 
 wants to go out shopping." 
 
 "Do you play or sing?" said Netelka, throwing open a 
 little cottage piano that stood in one corner. 
 
 " I do, after a fashion," answered Miss Collingham, " and 
 that's the answer I must give to everything. I've never been 
 taught anything thoroughly," she went on, with a sigh. 
 " You see, one can get a smattering of everything cheaply
 
 48 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 enough ; but to learn anything thoroughly one wants time, 
 and care, and money." 
 
 " And haven't you had the time and the care, if not the 
 money, spent on you?" 
 
 " I might have had I should have had, if my mother 
 had lived," answered the girl sadly. " And the money too. 
 I have money of my own, my mother's money, and my trus- 
 tees make me a very good allowance. But it all goes, it al- 
 ways has had to go, on " 
 
 She stopped suddenly, and became crimson as she remem- 
 bered that she was dropping into confidences which she had 
 no right to make to a stranger. 
 
 Netelka was shrewd enough to guess the truth. The 
 young girl's allowance was not spent on her education, and 
 not on her dress certainly: it was dribbled away in the ex- 
 penses of a badly managed household when, easily enough, 
 it had been coaxed out of her good-natured little hands. 
 
 Netelka patted her hand and laughed at her. 
 
 "Never mind," she whispered; " /won't tell in fact, I 
 won't even understand unless you like. But I must make 
 a condition: it is that you will come in and see me some- 
 times. I'm very lonely here; and since you think I dress 
 so beautifully, perhaps I could help you with your dress too. 
 I'm not at all a bad milliner, and perhaps I can be of use 
 to you in some way with your needlework, if you have much 
 of it to do." 
 
 " Much of it !" echoed Miss Collingham. " I should think 
 I had ! I have to mend all the children's clothes that is, 
 when they get mended at all. I don't know whether you 
 understand how things have to be done in a small house- 
 hold, Mrs. Hilliard. I don't suppose yon do. But the nurse 
 has to wait at table and answer the door, and the cook has 
 to fill up her time doing the rooms, while mamma fidgets 
 about all over the house, hindering them in their work; and
 
 JEM. 49 
 
 papa complains that he doesn't get enough attention. But 
 I ought not to tell you of these things. I didn't mean to, 
 and I didn't want to; but you've wheedled it all out of me. 
 I think you're a sort of witch, Mrs. Hilliard." 
 
 " I confess I wanted to steal your confidence, dear, if I 
 couldn't get it by fair means," said Netelka. " By the bye, 
 you haven't told me your name, your Christian name. " 
 
 To her surprise, Miss Collingham looked at her with an 
 expression compounded of horror and of entreaty. 
 
 "Don't. Oh, please don't ask me!" Then, as Netelka 
 looked unfeignedly astonished, the girl suddenly buried her 
 face in her hands, laughing almost hysterically. "It's 
 silly; yes, I know it's silly. But oh, how would you like to 
 be called Jemima?" 
 
 The question was a thunderbolt certainly. Netelka 
 sighed. 
 
 " It is rather dreadful, dear. Why did they do it?" 
 
 " Oh, it was a great-aunt, the one my money came from. 
 But if they'd given me my choice, which of course they 
 couldn't, I would have said, 'Give the money to anybody you 
 like, and let me have a proper name!' There's no way of 
 changing a Christian name, is there?" she asked despon- 
 dently. 
 
 " I don't know whether one could do it by act of Parlia- 
 ment," answered Netelka. "I think, dear, you'll have to 
 be content with a change of surname only." 
 
 But Miss Collingham started up melodramatically. 
 
 "Never," she said emphatically. "I'm never going to 
 get married." 
 
 It was not the usual empty assertion of the girl of eigh- 
 teen who has quite made up her mind not to die an old 
 maid. 
 
 Netelka remembered Mrs. Collingham's words, and the 
 remark made by Willie about the broken fence. 
 4
 
 50 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "Not," suggested she, archly, in a very low, insinuating 
 voice, " if Mr. Waller were to ask you?" 
 
 The girl started burst into tears. 
 
 "Who who told you? At least of course they don't 
 care at home ; nobody cares ; they only laugh at me. But, 
 oh, Mrs. Hilliard, you won't tease me, will you? I've been 
 so miserable ever since!" 
 
 " Poor child !" said Netelka, gently caressing the down- 
 bent head. " Tell me all about it." 
 
 Miss Collingham raised her pretty tear-stained face, with 
 some fire. 
 
 "Yes, I will, I will tell you. You won't laugh at me; 
 besides, I don't care if you do. He was one of the gentle- 
 men who used to come down here the oftenest before this 
 house was shut up. And I know he was very well off, or 
 that he was going to be when his father died, and that they 
 made him play cards and bet so that he might lose his 
 money. Yes, yes, it is true," she went on, perceiving a 
 sudden shrinking on Netelka's part. " I know that they 
 encouraged him to do everything that was wrong and fool- 
 ish so that they might get hold of him and ruin him. I 
 I expect they have pretty nearly done it by this time," she 
 added bitterly. " When I last saw him, nearly eighteen 
 months ago, before the house was shut up, he looked a wreck, 
 and he seemed so miserable it made me cry to look at him." 
 
 "You have heard from him since?" asked Netelka. 
 
 Jem shook her head. 
 
 "No," she said sadly. "It was I who cared so much for 
 him, not he for me. And I have remembered, you see, 
 while he, of course, has forgotten." 
 
 She was crying very quietly, and Netelka did not quite 
 know what to say to comfort her, knowing, as she did, that 
 to persuade a lover of the unworthiness of the loved one is 
 no consolation.
 
 JEM. 51 
 
 So they sat in silence, Jem in the cretonne-covered arm- 
 chair facing the window, Netelka on the white-skin hearth- 
 rug in front of her, caressing the girl's hands and looking 
 steadily at the fire. 
 
 They had been in this position for some minutes when 
 the door opened and the man-servant came in with a salver. 
 
 " Letters?" asked Netelka in surprise. 
 
 "A telegram, ma'am." 
 
 Netelka sprang up, finding it difficult to repress the ex- 
 citement she felt. The telegram was directed to " Hilliard, 
 The Firs, Wimbledon Common," and she tore it open, sup- 
 posing it to be for her from her husabnd. 
 
 But she was wrong. The message was evidently intended 
 for her husband, and the words were these : 
 
 " Come down to-night with Harrington and one or two more. 
 
 " GERALD WALLER. " 
 
 Netelka cast an anxious glance at the girl as she crushed 
 np the paper in her hand.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ME. MOSELEY'S FBIENDS. 
 
 NETELKA felt that the blow which she had long been ex- 
 pecting had fallen at last. This Gerard Waller, the sender 
 of the telegram, was of one the old set who had made " The 
 Firs" too hot to hold them eighteen months ago. It was 
 evident, from the fact that this message was addressed to 
 Linley, that her husband was a party to Moseley's plan. In 
 the midst of her anger and consternation, she remembered, 
 with a shiver, that the pretty, innocent girl in front of her 
 was in love with this man Waller; and for a moment Ne- 
 telka forgot her own anxieties in solicitude for Jem. 
 
 A moment's reflection told her that it would be better not 
 to let the girl know of the young man's visit just yet. Ne- 
 telka thought she would make his acquaintance first and 
 see what sort of man she had to deal with, for she had 
 quite made up her mind that no harm should happen to the 
 girl if her utmost efforts could prevent it. 
 
 She dismissed Jem, therefore, telling her that her hus- 
 band was coming down that day, and that she must make 
 preparations for him ; and before she had been long alone 
 another telegram, this time from Linley himself, confirmed 
 the first: 
 
 "Expect two to luncheon, and five to dinner, and to stay till 
 Monday. Am bringing wine, fish, game, and fruit. 
 
 " LINLEY. " 
 
 It was with a heavy heart that the young wife busied her- 
 self with the household duties entailed by this newsj and
 
 MR. MOSELET'S FRIENDS. 53 
 
 when she saw, from the window of the library, a hansom 
 drive up in which she recognized Harrington Moseley sit- 
 ting beside Linley, there was no joy of welcome in her face 
 as she went to meet her husband. 
 
 She fancied, even as he said, " "Well, my dear, how are 
 you? You're looking very well," and kissed her, that she 
 detected in his manner a coolness which foreboded the es- 
 trangement she had begun to feel was inevitable. The 
 next moment Mr. Harrington Moseley, who was close be- 
 hind Linley, wearing a smile of obsequious deference, di- 
 verted her attention to herself. 
 
 " I hope you will forgive me for obtruding myself upon you 
 at such short notice, Mrs. Hilliard," he said. " But indeed 
 if you are angry, you must blame your husband, who was 
 kind enough to invite me to come down with him." 
 
 If Linley's eyes had not been upon her, Netelka would 
 have been very curt ; as it was, a cold look of warning on 
 her husband's face made her stammer out that Mr. Mose- 
 ley was welcome. 
 
 "You are very kind," said the Jew as effusively as if her 
 welcome had been warmer. " But indeed I should not have 
 dared to come and inflict myself upon you if Hilliard had 
 not invited a few livelier folk than I to mitigate the bur- 
 den of my society." 
 
 Netelka reddened angrily. This veneer of extreme def- 
 erence towards her, when she knew that she was only one 
 of the pawns in his game, was nauseating in the extreme: 
 she thought she would have preferred open impertinence. 
 
 Her powers of civility were not at that time put to any 
 severe strain, for Linley, who seemed by no means to crave 
 the society of his wife, carried Harrington Moseley off to 
 the billiard-room, where they remained until the luncheon- 
 bell rang. 
 
 In the mean time Netelka had decided upon a plan of ac-
 
 54 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 tion. She must first get her husband by himself and make 
 an appeal to him. If he should oppose a gentle and placid 
 obstinacy to her entreaties, as she thought probable, she 
 would then try the Jew himself, using a firmer tone with 
 him than she dared to employ with her husband. 
 
 At luncheon she began to pave the way to her intended 
 remonstrance. 
 
 " Who are these people who are coming down, Linley?" 
 she asked, with an appearance of spontaneity which deceived 
 Moseley, at all events. " I do hope they are quiet, and that 
 they don't want much entertaining. I am old-fashioned 
 enough to like a peaceful Sunday, you know." 
 
 " Oh, the men who are coming down won't interfere with 
 you," said Linley. "They can entertain themselves." 
 
 Here Harrington Moseley broke in : 
 
 " That is just a husband's off-hand way of putting it, 
 Mrs. Hilliard. The real facts of the case are that the 
 friends who are coming down appreciate the charm of la- 
 dies' society quite as much as we do ourselves. A house 
 without a lady in it is, to my mind, like a man without a 
 soul." 
 
 " Even the man without a soul has his good points, 
 though," put in Linley, with a certain appearance of hos- 
 tility toward herself which Netelka noted with consterna- 
 tion. " At any rate, he is neither squeamish nor small- 
 minded : he does as he pleases, and he lets other people do 
 as they please." 
 
 His snarling tone frightened his wife into silence. She 
 was not beaten, however, and as she looked down in silence 
 at the tablecloth, she pressed her lips together firmly in a 
 manner which did not escape the notice of the shrewd lit- 
 tle Jew. When she looked up again, she caught him in the 
 act of directing a warning frown at Linley. 
 
 She rose from the table, fully determined to encounter
 
 ME. MOSELEY 'S FRIENDS. 55 
 
 both her husband and Moseley in single combat before the 
 arrival of the guests: but they were two to one, and they 
 defeated her. She told her husband, in a low voice, that 
 she should like to speak to him for a few minutes, and he 
 told her she might come to him in the library in a quarter 
 of an hour, when he had finished writing his letters. At 
 the end of the fifteen minutes, however, when Netelka went 
 in search of him, she found the library deserted, and a 
 sealed-up note addressed to herself lying on the table. 
 
 For a few moments she dared not open it, but sat staring 
 at the little square of white paper until it danced before her 
 eyes in a mist of tears, and grew into a great white sheet 
 which shut out the whole room from her sight. 
 
 At last she opened it and read the following words: 
 
 " MY DEAR NETELKA : 
 
 'It gives me a good deal of pain to find you so unsympathetic as 
 you have seemed to be since my arrival this morning. I don't think 
 I have troubled you so much with my society lately that you should 
 treat me as if I were the most terrible of bores. It has cut me to the 
 heart. Where is a man to look for kindness and sympathy in a time 
 of misfortune if not to his wife? You seem also to be doing all you 
 can to turn against us the the one friend who has held out to us a 
 helping hand. How can you expect that Moseley will go on showing 
 us the same magnificent hospitality if you won't even be civil to him, 
 or be ready to welcome his friends ? As for your ' quiet Sunday, ' you 
 shall have it, believe me. Don't interfere with our guests (remem- 
 ber they are yours too) , and their amusements, and nobody will inter- 
 fere with you. By the bye, they are not strangers to me : I know 
 thtm all, and they are very good fellows, especially this Gerard Wal- 
 ler, whom I insist on your treating with proper civility even if you 
 should run so short of it that you haven't enough to spare for the 
 rest, and particularly for your husband. 
 
 " I have gone out to avoid a scene. I shall always go out to avoid 
 scenes. 
 
 " Your affectionate husband, 
 
 "LrcoEY. "
 
 56 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Netelka did not cry. She sat for a very little while with 
 the letter in her lap, staring out at the big lignum vitae, 
 whose big brushlike boughs were nodding against the win- 
 dow-panes in the wind. Then she got up quickly and went 
 out of the room with a brisk step, determined to forget her 
 trouble in occupation, so that she might not become de- 
 moralized by excessive grieving before the tussle began. 
 
 When there was nothing more to be done in the way of 
 superintending the arrangements for the accommodation of 
 the expected guests, Netelka wrapped her head and shoul- 
 ders in a shawl of cream-colored China crape and went out 
 into the grounds. 
 
 The daylight was already fading, and she feared that Mr. 
 Moseley's friends might arrive before his return. To put 
 off the evil moment, therefore, of her enforced introduc- 
 tion to these highly objectionable young men, and in par- 
 ticular to the odious Gerard Waller, she took a basket in 
 her hand and went to the chicken-house to look for eggs. 
 She roamed about by herself until it was quite dark, and 
 until she began to feel very cold. In the mean time she had 
 heard the noise of an arrival, and guessed that she would find 
 the quiet Sunday party in possession on her return to the 
 house. 
 
 This return she delayed until she began to shiver; and 
 then hoping to get to her room unobserved by the quietest 
 way, she entered by an anteroom which had formerly been 
 used as a schoolroom, but which was now merely a store- 
 room for tennis racquets, targets, fishing-rods, and such 
 things. 
 
 The room was unlighted, and she had to grope her way 
 to the inner door. This door led into the smoking-room, 
 and Netelka heard a strange voice on the other side. 
 
 " Doesn't seem eighteen months since we were last here, 
 eh?" asked one voice.
 
 MR. MOSELEY'S FRIENDS. 57 
 
 " No. It's jolly to be back again. "Wonder if we shall 
 have the old times over again?" said another rather deeper 
 voice. " Moseley seems a bit funky about it: he's been im- 
 pressing upon me that we've got to behave well at first, at 
 any rate. He says he's really let the place to some highly 
 respectable people, who mustn't be shocked." 
 
 On hearing the voices talking, Netelka had recrossed the 
 anteroom, with the intention of getting out on to the ter- 
 race and entering the house by another way. But just out- 
 side the French window there now stood an enormous bull 
 terrier, at the sight of which she uttered a little exclama- 
 tion of horror. She did not know what to do. On the one 
 hand, she dared not pass the dog, who growled and put his 
 paws up against the glass at her approach ; on the other 
 hand, she did not wish to introduce herself into the assem- 
 bly in the smoking-room. In the moment's pause during 
 which she remained undecided, she heard another scrap of 
 dialogue within. 
 
 All the young men were laughing heartily ; and a voice 
 she had not heard, a pleasant, fresh young voice, broke in: 
 
 "Respectable! Ha, ha, ha! That's very good. That's 
 awfully good, that is. That man Hilliard is the tenant, the 
 respectable tenant. Of course I may be wrong, but some- 
 how I don't think he will subject us to very great restraints. " 
 
 "But there's a wife he's got a wife, it appears; no end 
 of a shrew, by what I can make out. It's she we've got to 
 be so careful about. Some old shrew he's married for her 
 money, I expect." 
 
 " Well, we'll kill her off for him, if he behaves himself," 
 said another voice. " In the mean time you must be civil 
 to the old lady, Waller." 
 
 "Oh, I'll be civil to the old hag," answered the pleasant 
 voice again. 
 
 Netelka held her breath. She was amazed at the audac-
 
 58 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 ity of these creatures ; and in the midst of the anxiety 
 and annoyance she was suffering, a ray of amusement flashed 
 into her mind at the surprise that was in store for them. 
 An old hag, an old shrew, was she? She smiled to herself; 
 and, having found the handle of the door, and turning it 
 quickly, she opened the door and walked in among them. 
 
 A thunderbolt a bombshell an earthquake: these 
 things, any of them, might have surprised the group in 
 the smoking-room, but not so greatly as did the appearance 
 of the lady. She had expected to make some impression 
 by virtue of the undeniable and undenied good looks which 
 gave her prestige wherever she went. But her coquetry 
 was more than satisfied by the effect she made. 
 
 Out of the three young men who formed the group, two 
 had been sitting, or rather lounging, in full view of the 
 door, each with a cigarette between his lips and a half- 
 emptied glass within easy reach. These two sprang up, 
 speechless, on her entrance, looking at her as if she had 
 been a messenger from another world. One of these men 
 was over six feet high, broad and muscular-looking, with 
 a young face, which betrayed no superfluity of brains in its 
 possessor. The second was shorter, a spare and rather 
 mean-looking young fellow, who appeared to have no 
 marked individuality. 
 
 The third member of the party was stretched on the 
 sofa with his face to the wall, and all that could be seen of 
 him was a head of curly fair hair. This one, Netelka 
 guessed at once, was Gerard Waller. 
 
 " What's the matter with you fellows?" he asked lazily, 
 noting the sudden silence and not troubling himself to turn 
 round. 
 
 Still there was a moment's pause, and then Netelka ut- 
 tered a little laugh. 
 
 The man on the sofa turned his head. Then, slowly,
 
 MR. MOSELEY'S FRIENDS. 59 
 
 without removing his gaze from the lady's face, he got up 
 and bowed. 
 
 Netelka, having made her effect, used her opportunity to 
 the utmost, and said, with a chilling little bend of the head 
 and a rather supercilious smile : 
 
 " Pray, don't let me disturb you. I am only the old lady 
 you've got to be civil to!" 
 
 And tranquilly unwinding her shawl and putting it over 
 one arm, she swept through the room into the house, quite 
 conscious that she had bereft the three guests of Mr. Mose- 
 ley of every sense but that of overpowering astonishment.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 NETELKA AS AN" AUTOCRAT. 
 
 NETELKA went on her way with as much surprise in her 
 heart as she had left behind her among the occupants of the 
 smoking-room. This Gerard Waller, against whom she had 
 begun by conceiving a violent prejudice, had proved to be no 
 such scowling, dark -faced villain as she had imagined him, 
 but a decidedly prepossessing person. Under the middle 
 height, of slender and boyish figure, with a beardless face, 
 of which the principal features were a pair of large light- 
 blue eyes, a short nose, and a humorous mouth, Gerard look- 
 ed even younger than his years. Netelka at once decided 
 that, of the three young men she had to deal with, he was the 
 most striking personality ; and she knew that, if she were 
 going to take the stand she intended, it was upon Gerard 
 that she must first try her hand. 
 
 She was so much interested to find the enemy less repel- 
 lent than she had expected that when she came down, 
 dressed for dinner, into the drawing-room, her face had lost 
 the worried, anxious look which it had worn since the trial. 
 She had made up her mind to make an active protest that 
 very night against the gambling, for which she was sure the 
 company had assembled. And if Linley would not give her 
 an opportunity of making it to him, she would make it to 
 the whole assembly. 
 
 The decision had given a little extra color to her cheeks, 
 a little more brilliancy than usual to her black eyes. 
 
 She found the whole party for her husband and Moseley 
 had now returned waiting for her in the long, pleasant
 
 NETELKA AS AN AUTOCRAT. 61 
 
 room, where deep window-seats and real cosy corners (not 
 the modern upholsterer's misnamed imitations) invited to 
 enjoyment of book or tete-a-tete. The young men had all 
 put on evening dress in her honor, and all wore that look 
 of excited expectancy which is the proper tribute to the ar- 
 rival of a beautiful woman. 
 
 There was a lull in the talk, and all heads were turned 
 in her direction as she entered, looking her very best in 
 black velvet, with large sleeves of orange colored silk, 
 veiled with black lace. 
 
 Gerard, who was the nearest to the door, offered her a 
 chair. But she would not sit, being conscious, perhaps, 
 that she looked more regal and therefore more likely to 
 create the impression she wanted with her train sweeping 
 the ground behind her as she moved. 
 
 Mr. Moseley could not conceal his terribly evident admi- 
 ration. Netelka felt that she wished that he would not 
 smile so much as he almost ran forward and told her that 
 she looked like a queen. 
 
 "And that is exactly what I intend to be," said Netelka 
 significantly, letting her eyes rest for a moment on his 
 smirking face with great gravity. "And I mean to rule 
 with a sceptre of iron." 
 
 Then she caught Gerard's light blue eyes fixed upon her. 
 He had his hands still on the back of the high chair he had 
 offered her. 
 
 "It's not a good beginning," said he, "to refuse your 
 throne." 
 
 " Why not? Doesn't it show a gracious modesty, and a 
 wish to enjoy myself amiably among my subjects?" 
 
 " I didn't see it in that light," said Gerard. " It looked 
 to me too much like independence. And independence in 
 a sovereign in these radical days is not to be tolerated for 
 a moment. In fact, you've got to understand, your majesty,
 
 62 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 that you're a queen only as long as your subjects please: 
 that we will bow and kiss your hand most loyally as long as 
 you do just what we choose, just as we choose ; but that the 
 moment you do the smallest thing we don't like, it's all up 
 with your sovereignty." 
 
 Netelka laughed, and so did the others, who were listen- 
 ing. They were all conscious, perhaps, that there was a 
 little more than mere idle chatter to fill up the time in the 
 combat of wits. Indeed, Netelka's retort to her represen- 
 tative subject made her husband frown. 
 
 " Perhaps I shall risk my crown in one grand coup" said 
 she, " and see whether there is not more loyalty latent in 
 my people than they themselves imagine. " 
 
 " Count upon one sword !" cried Gerard, as he sprang to 
 the hearth-rug, snatched up the brass poker which was 
 never meant to poke, and held it above his head with a the- 
 atrical air. 
 
 At this Arthur Sainsbury, a giant of six feet three, with 
 boisterous manners, a laugh which could be heard in the 
 nezt county, and the intelligence of an infant, snatched up 
 the hearth-broom and ranged himself by the side of his 
 friend. 
 
 " Count upon two !" roared he, throwing into the fire- 
 place the cigarette, which was his distinguishing badge. 
 "Sam, get out of the way, unless you mean to enlist 
 too!" 
 
 These last words were addressed to the third member of 
 the trio, a hollow-chested, languid little person, with black- 
 lustre eyes and lack-lustre wits, who was leaning against the 
 mantelpiece in an attitude which he believed to be as effec- 
 tive as he knew it to be uncomfortable. Before Sam could 
 make up his mind how best to get out of the difficulty which 
 his uproarious friend had forced upon him, Arthur seized 
 him by the shoulders in the manner of a clumsy Newfound-
 
 NETELKA AS AN AUTOCRAT. 63 
 
 land puppy, who knocks down the master he wishes to ca- 
 ress, and thrust the tongs upon his unwilling friend. 
 
 "Confound your tomfoolery!" growled Sam, furious. 
 "Don't you ever mean to grow up, you young idiot?" 
 
 Arthur answered with a roar of laughter. He was a 
 perfect specimen of the drawing-room or upper middle- 
 class "'Arry," who delights in noise and rough play, and 
 honestly believes that it is only fogies of the most oppressive 
 kind who do not share his own taste for the simple recrea- 
 tions of violent movements and deafening noise. 
 
 " All right, old chap, don't be sulky," he cried, inflicting 
 upon Sam a slap 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 conversa- 
 tion 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 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, than set them all quarrelling for the right 
 to escort her, Netelka led the way into the dining-room. 
 
 Netelka sat between Moseley and Gerard. Conversation- 
 ally, dinner was a failure. Gerard tried to begin a conver- 
 sation with her, but Mr. Moseley's interruptions, taking 
 for the most part the form of stilted compliments, pre- 
 vented 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.
 
 64 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 In the drawing-room she found that a long table had been 
 placed in 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 chairs to the table. 
 
 " By whose orders has this table been placed here?" asked 
 she peremptorily. 
 
 "By Mr. Moseley's, ma'am," answered the man, who had 
 at first looked as if he intended to be less than respectful, 
 but whose manner instantly changed to deference at the 
 sound of her voice. 
 
 " Take the table away at once," said she in incisive tones. 
 
 The man changed color and hesitated. Then he said in 
 a tone which was respectful still, but quite as determined as 
 her own : 
 
 "I dare not, ma'am, without my master's orders." 
 
 "Is Mr. Moseley your master?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am." 
 
 Netelka did not falter for a moment. She turned, swept 
 out of the room, crossed the hall to the dining-room, and 
 threw open the door. 
 
 The younger men were by this time very merry, and all 
 were laughing heartily when she entered. 
 
 A dead silence fell upon them all, however, when they 
 turned and saw her face. She was quite white from fore- 
 head 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 Sainsbury let a dessert-knife fall, with a little crash, 
 upon his plate. 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 
 iounded new and strange to herself. 
 
 " Mr. Moseley," she said, addressing the Jew, who imme-
 
 NETELKA AS AN AUTOCRAT. 65 
 
 ditely rose, " your servant I don't know his name he is 
 a man 1 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 out 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 speaking all the men in the room had 
 risen one by one and were listening, in the subdued man- 
 ner of mice just out of reach of the cat, to her words. But 
 as soon as she had finished, Linley, 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 asked, 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 know 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 draw- 
 ing-room, if you can manage to be amiable. If not, let us 
 see no more of you to-night." 
 
 All the other men in the room had begun to move un- 
 easily, for Linley's manner was so cold, so cutting, as to 
 make his words brutal in the extreme. 
 
 " No, no, Hilliard," remonstrated Moseley, "you mustn't 
 talk like that to a lady. If Mrs. Hilliard objects to card- 
 playing in her drawing-room, she shall certainly not be an- 
 noyed 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 face 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 gave his wife a little, contemptuous push 
 5
 
 66 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 from him. Slight as the movement was, the manner in 
 which he made it reminded those present of the way in 
 which a bad master kicks a dog. There was a sort of gasp 
 from them all, and Gerard sprang forward with his face 
 aglow. Moseley caught his 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 you are my 
 host or not, I'll knock you down!" 
 
 He would have carried the threat into immediate execu- 
 tion if Linley had not retreated nimbly to the other side 
 of the table, while Netelka, very much frightened, allowed 
 Sam Teale, at a sign from Gerard, to lead her out of the 
 room.
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 MR. MOSELET'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 whom 
 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 helpmeet 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 affec- 
 tionate, refusing to believe any of her own fears ; at an- 
 other, 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, wo- 
 man-like, 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 na- 
 ture of his connection with Harrington Moseley than any of 
 his other actions. The young wife felt as if her heart was 
 broken. She was losing, in spite of herself, both her love
 
 68 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 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 
 thrown her back upon herself, with a calm recommendation 
 to do her duty. 
 
 Duty.' The word was a mockery. 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-hell? 
 The small party assembled this evening was only the thin 
 end of the wedge, Netelka 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 before, her mother had been 
 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. Mose- 
 ley that Mrs. Hilliard would be kind enough to see him for 
 a few minutes. Netelka walked across the room to her glass. 
 She saw a pale, almost haggard, face, out of which a pair of 
 hungry black eyes stared at her curiously. She snatched 
 up a handkerchief and rubbed her white cheeks until the 
 friction brought back some of the hue of life to them. 
 Then she went downstairs. 
 
 In the hall, reclining against the oaken balustrade, stood 
 Mr. Moseley. The light from the colored lantern above 
 him fell upon him, making a grotesque pattern upon his 
 white shirt-front. Netelka thought tbat his face, with its 
 long, hooked nose, looked like a hideous gargoyle. She 
 was quite sure of it as soon as he smiled. 
 
 "Ah, Mrs. Hiliard," he exclaimed with effusive amiabil- 
 ity, throwing away his cigarette as soon as she was within
 
 MR. MOSELEY'S GRATITUDE. 69 
 
 a few steps of him, " this is kind. I do hope I have not 
 disturbed you. You look tired. I am very angry with 
 Linley, very angry," he went on in the same breath. 
 
 Netelka could not bear this man, and commiseration from 
 him seemed to her an insult. She answered coldly : 
 
 "He was right; my husband was quite right. I have no 
 business to interfere with the amusements of your guests, 
 Mr. Moseley." 
 
 "My guests! Oh, no, not mine. You and Linley are 
 my tenants," he answered hastily. "I am only here as a 
 guest, like the rest. If I thought you looked upon me as 
 anything else, I would not come here at all." 
 
 Netelka scarcely repressed a contemptuous smile. 
 
 " Very well, Mr. Moseley, we will say my guests, if you 
 like. I have no right to interfere with the amusements of 
 my husband's guests, who are mine also. If I disapprove 
 of them, my only course is to go away." 
 
 Then she saw that the Jew's face could wear an expres- 
 sion much uglier than his smile. 
 
 "You would go away turn your husband out of his 
 home!" 
 
 Netelka shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " He hasn't shown much appreciation of the home as yet. 
 He has been here four days in three weeks!" 
 
 " That was not his fault you know that, Mrs. Hilliard. 
 He has had business to attend to in town with the insur- 
 ance companies, for one thing. But we need not argue 
 about that. Ask him whether he wishes you to go away." 
 
 The words were a menace, Netelka knew. Before she 
 could make any reply, however, Mr. Moseley 's tone sud- 
 denly changed and became almost servile in its obsequious- 
 ness: 
 
 " Now, my dear Mrs. Hilliard, why are we talking as if 
 we were on the verge of a quarel, when what I wanted to
 
 70 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 see you for was to thank you very heartily for having just 
 got me out of a most unpleasant position." 
 
 Netelka could not forbear a glance of astonishment as he 
 went on : 
 
 " It was that young "Waller who insisted on playing bac- 
 carat to-night. I could easily have dissuaded the other two 
 lads, but Waller is pig-headed, and is not got over so easily. 
 If you hadn't put your foot down, he would never have 
 left the card-table until some time on Monday morning: 
 you see I know him." 
 
 " Then you might have known better than to bring him 
 down here," retorted Netelka quickly. 
 
 "That was Linley's doing; it was, I give yon my word. 
 He took a fancy to the young fellow and invited him down, 
 and then the invitation to Waller's two chums followed as 
 a matter of course. That's the whole story. I knew what 
 would happen, but I could do nothing. I hadn't even time 
 to warn you. But if I'd only known what a courageous 
 stand you would make, I should have done my best to get 
 Linley to invite Waller down here before to-day. " 
 
 Perhaps Netelka looked rather incredulous. At any 
 rate, Mr. Moseley went on with more emphasis than 
 before : 
 
 " I tell you I should have done my best to get Waller to 
 come down here before," he repeated, gently moving his 
 hand to catch the effect of the lamplight on his diamond 
 ring. " I must tell you that I am greatly interested in that 
 young man, interested in more ways than one. Now he is 
 ruining himself by his passion for gambling, and nobody 
 has yet been able to check him in it. He is losing his 
 health besides his money over the card-table you can see 
 for yourself that he looks as if he was in consumption al- 
 ready. A few more years of the same pace would finish him. 
 If you can keep him away from the cards and I'm sure
 
 MR. MOSELEY'S GRATITUDE. 71 
 
 that a lady of your fascinations can do so if she chooses 
 why you'll be the salvation of him, body and soul." 
 
 Netelka listened attentively. She was rather touched by 
 Mr. Moseley's story, but at the same time she doubted 
 whether he was disinterested enough for her to believe his 
 statements implicitly. He seemed in earnest, certainly; 
 but she was too sceptical to answer him in the same tone. 
 
 " You should get his friends, his relations to look after 
 him," she said rather shortly. "You can scarcely have 
 brought him down here in the expectation that I should do 
 so." 
 
 Mr. Moseley was not quite sure whether he had offended 
 her or not. At any rate, he felt that extreme humility was 
 his best plan. 
 
 " Don't be angry, pray. Don't let me turn you against 
 the poor fellow. I thought you would like to know that 
 you might use your feminine influence for good upon a fel- 
 low-creature, that was all. If I have seemed obtrusive or 
 presumptuous, I beg you to forgive me and to forget what 
 I have said." 
 
 He took a step back, with an obsequious bow, as if un- 
 willing to detain her any longer. But after a little hesita- 
 tion, Netelka detained him by a gesture. 
 
 "I want to ask you a question, Mr. Moseley." 
 
 He had rushed back to her side with great nimbleness, and 
 was leering at her affectionately over the banisters. 
 
 " A thousand, if you like. To obey you is an honor, 
 Mrs. Hilliard." 
 
 " I won't test your patience so far. I have heard of the 
 reputation this house had eighteen months ago, Mr. Mose- 
 ley. Is it to have the same again?" 
 
 For just the third part of a second Mr. Moseley looked 
 as if, in a better light, he might have blushed. Then he 
 said serenely :
 
 72 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Hilliard, it was just to avoid such a dan- 
 ger that I asked you and your husband to do me the favor 
 to stay here. That is the truth I give you my word. I 
 was glad, very glad to be able to oblige him, mind, by offer- 
 ing him a home when he did not know where to go. But I 
 won't deny that I had that other selfish motive. You see, 
 a house without a lady in it is not a home. Now I'm a 
 bachelor, and I have no intention of marrying. I find that 
 all the nicest ladies," and he looked at her with an expres- 
 sion which was meant to be very eloquent, " are married al- 
 ready. "When I used to come down here, therefore, it was 
 always just a bachelor party, and there was no one to keep 
 the boys in order, so they got a little out of hand, don't 
 you see? Your presence has changed all that. The refin- 
 ing influence of your sex " 
 
 Netelka took up his speech and finished it for him. 
 
 " Did not prevent your servant from putting out the bac- 
 carat-table in the drawing-room," she said dryly. 
 
 "He will know better another time," returned Mr. Mose- 
 ley, imperturbably. 
 
 " Of course if you really mean what you say, since my 
 husband is satisfied for us to stay here, I am ready to re- 
 main with him," said Netelka slowly and thoughtfully, and 
 making no pretence of being grateful for Mr. Moseley 's hos- 
 pitality. " But I tell you frankly that, if your friends want 
 to make this a gaming-house, or if Linley's friends do, for 
 that matter, I shall go back to town and stay with my own 
 relations." 
 
 Harrington Moseley listened in an attitude of deeply re- 
 spectful attention. But Netelka could not help thinking 
 that he bent his head so very low, not out of pure civility, 
 but with the wish to hide from her the malicious smile on 
 his face. 
 
 When she finished speaking there was a slight pause, dur-
 
 MR. MOSELEY 'S GRATITUDE. 73 
 
 ing which he kept his head still bent, as if waiting for fur- 
 ther speech on her part. At last he said : 
 
 "You are very suspicious, Mrs. Hilliard, I see. But you 
 will soon see that you do me and your husband, too, the 
 cruelest injustice." 
 
 " I hope so," said Netelka curtly, as she turned and went 
 upstairs again. 
 
 She heard no voices in the drawing-room, and she was 
 afraid that if she went straight into that apartment Har- 
 rington Moseley would follow her, and that she would have 
 to endure his society for an indefinite time. But as soon as 
 she reached the top of the staircase she began to wonder 
 what had become of the rest of the party : whether they had 
 yet left the dining-room, and if so, where they had gone to. 
 She had heard Moseley return to the dining-room ; so, know- 
 ing herself to be now safe from a further tete-a-tete with 
 him, she went down the stairs again and stole very softly 
 into the drawing-room. 
 
 The baccarat-table had been removed. 
 
 She stood still, staring at the place it had occupied, with 
 doubt in her eyes. 
 
 Where was the table now? Where were the cards? 
 
 As she asked herself these questions, and as thoughts of 
 the scene in the dining-room and of her still more recent 
 talk with Harrington Moseley crowded into her mind, an 
 overwhelming sense of her utter powerlessness, of the ease 
 with which they could laugh at her little outbursts of pre- 
 tended authority and go their own way in spite of her, rushed 
 into her mind. She drew a long quivering sigh ; her lips 
 began to tremble, and, crossing the room quickly to a low 
 chair that stood beside a revolving bookcase, she laid her 
 head uncomfortably down upon it and began to cry.
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 A SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING. 
 
 " Oh, don't, don't ! Now leave off, leave off at once, I 
 say ! I should never have thought it of you, and you a queen 
 too ! For shame, for shame !" 
 
 Netelka started violently, and instead of looking round 
 at the disturber of her peace, turned her head hastily away 
 from him, and began to dry her eyes hastily on the flimsi- 
 est nothing of a pocket-handkerchief a piece of finest cam- 
 bric four inches square, with an imposing border of old 
 Mechlin. 
 
 She knew that the voice was Gerard Waller's, and her first 
 thought was mainly to escape from him. But there was a 
 kindly tone of warm humanity in the words and an inde- 
 scribably comforting cheeriness in the voice, which made her 
 pause. She was awkward in her confusion for it is un- 
 doubtedly confusing to be caught, not red-handed, but red- 
 eyed ; and the flimsiest of pocket-handkerchiefs slipped out 
 of her fingers and fell on the floor. She put down her hand 
 to pick it up, but Gerard was too quick for her. He was 
 down on his knees in a moment, and before her fingers 
 touched the carpet he had snatched up the pocket-handker- 
 chief and was regarding it with bewilderment and admira- 
 tion. Netelka held her other hand over her eyes ; but she 
 peeped through them, and could watch him at her ease. 
 
 "Do you often cry?" asked he, still on his knees. 
 
 "No. Why?" 
 
 " Because if you do, you ought to provide yourself with 
 some thicker pocket-handkerchiefs," said Gerard gravely.
 
 A SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING. 75 
 
 "I don't believe you've shed more than two tears (there's 
 always so much more fuss than real cry about a woman's 
 crying), and yet this handkerchief (if you call it a handker- 
 chief) is wet through." 
 
 Netelka put out her hand. 
 
 " Well, at any rate you can give it me back. " 
 
 Gerard walked away on his knees until he was about a 
 foot farther from her. Then he sat back on his heels and 
 went on gravely with his lecture. 
 
 "I think," said he very deliberately," that I'll keep 
 the handkerchief for the present as a pledge of your good 
 behavior." 
 
 "But you have no right to. It's mine!" 
 
 "How do I know that?" asked Gerard solemnly. "I've 
 only your word for it; and I've not known you long enough, 
 to be able to estimate the exact value to be attached to your 
 assertions. Mind, I'm not saying you are telling an un- 
 truth ; far from it. I merely say that I have no proof of 
 the contrary." 
 
 "Whose do you think it is, if it's not mine?" asked Ne- 
 telka, rather amused. 
 
 " That also I am not in a position to determine. One 
 thing I'll swear, though," he went on more cheerfully as 
 he held the pocket-handkerchief up to the light, " that it 
 isn't a man's. No member of my sex would be so insane 
 as to use a pocket-handkerchief with so many holes in 
 it." 
 
 "Holes in it! Where?" 
 
 "All over the edge." 
 
 " Those are not holes. They are in the pattern of the 
 lace." 
 
 " They are holes, all the same. Just look at the situation 
 you place yourself in by having such a ridiculous thing for 
 a pocket-handkerchief. If you wanted to cry any more,
 
 76 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 yon would have to borrow mine almost a stranger's ! Fancy 
 that!" 
 
 "But I'm not going to cry any more," said Netelka. 
 
 " Then why don't you take your hand away from your 
 face? I knew you were not crying. You've been watch- 
 ing me through your fingers, to see that I didn't hurt the 
 pocket-handkerchief by breathing on it too hard. But why 
 pretend ? It's no use. I've given you all the sympathy I had 
 to spare, and now I've used it all up. I say again, why 
 pretend?" 
 
 "I'm not pretending. I'm keeping my hand up because 
 my eyes are red." 
 
 Gerard chuckled. 
 
 "I knew that," said he softly. "If I were a fellow 
 who paid compliments, if I were Major Collingham, 
 next door there, or any one but my own manly and 
 honest self, in fact, I might be tempted to remark that 
 you could afford to be seen even with your eyes red. 
 But never mind. I promise faithfully to turn my head 
 away while you go over to the glass and see if you're all 
 right." 
 
 But Netelka sat up, uncovered her eyes, and turned to 
 face him with an expression in which there was a little 
 dignified astonishment at his presumption. 
 
 "Do you know," she said, "that you are taking a very 
 great liberty in talking to me like this?" 
 
 Gerard's face changed, and he got up quickly from his 
 knees. 
 
 "I hope you don't mean that really?" said he. There 
 was a moment's silence, and he went on : "I don't think 
 you do. But if so, then I can only beg your pardon, and 
 and take myself off." 
 
 He backed a few steps on his way to the door, and Netelka 
 looked up. If there was in her mind one lingering doubt
 
 A SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHINQ. 77 
 
 as to the sort of reply she should make to him, this glance 
 decided her. 
 
 She saw a beardless young face not a handsome one cer- 
 tainly, but attractive beyond measure to eyes able to read 
 the indications given there of the mind within. Gerard's 
 light blue eyes were shrewd as well as kindly, and the ex- 
 pression in them as he waited for the lady's answer was one 
 of pity mingled with respect. 
 
 Netelka shivered and turned her head sharply away. 
 Then, as she heard him take another step toward the door, 
 she raised her hand to detain him. 
 
 "That's a threat, I suppose," said she, trying to keep up 
 the light tone of their previous talk. 
 
 But there was an unmistakable tremor in her voice. Ger- 
 ard came back again. 
 
 " No," said he, with affected gravity. " I'm not so con- 
 ceited as you think. I can conceive the possibility of your 
 finding me an insufferable nuisance, I assure you." 
 
 Netelka looked at him frankly and laughed. 
 
 "Well, /can't." 
 
 He heaved a preposterous sigh of relief. 
 
 "That's all right." 
 
 Netelka got up and crossed the room to a great square 
 looking-glass, which filled an immense space of the wall 
 opposite to one of the latticed windows. 
 
 " You see you were right after all. It is really no dis- 
 grace to be found out by a person of so much penetration. 
 I am going to see how I look." 
 
 Gerard watched her from the middle of the room with 
 great interest as she rearranged the hair on her forehead 
 with a few deft touches, and unfastened a diamond crescent 
 brooch in the front of her dress to replace it more effec- 
 tively. 
 
 " That does look better," said be reflectively, with his head
 
 78 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 on one side. " I thought it was just right before, but it is 
 decidedly better so. Here is your fan. You dropped it 
 near the door when you came in." 
 
 He took it out of one of his pockets as he spoke. Netelka 
 looked at the fan and then at him, with a blush. 
 
 " Were you in the room, then, when I came in, watch- 
 ing me?" 
 
 " I must confess that I was." 
 
 Netelka frowned a little. 
 
 " What did I do? I don't like to be watched when I think 
 I'm alone." 
 
 " Of course not. Nobody does. Nobody's conscience is 
 clear enough. I will show you what you did : I will copy 
 you exactly. You stand there, in that window recess, just 
 up the one step, and peep through the curtain. That's 
 what I did. I have no sense of honor. I watch and I lis- 
 ten whenever there's anything interesting to see or to hear: 
 so I warn you to be on the lookout. Now, are you ready?" 
 
 " Quite," said Netelka, taking her place behind the cur- 
 tain. 
 
 Gerard went out of the room and returned in a moment, 
 entering the room with a tragedy stride and an expression 
 of exaggerated anxiety. He stopped short just where Ne- 
 telka had stopped, dropped the fan, clasped his hands, and 
 looked up at the ceiling. Netelka came forward, shaking 
 her head. 
 
 " I didn't do that," she said decidedly. " You have read 
 in books that women do that, but they don't, you know." 
 
 " Well, the action is expressive, if conventional ; and I 
 didn't see my way to getting enough intensity of expression 
 into my face to make the clasped hands and the upturned 
 eyes unnecessary." 
 
 Netelka suddenly grew serious. 
 
 u You ought not to laugh, however ridiculous I looked,"
 
 A SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING. 79 
 
 she said gravely, "for what I felt was on your account 
 more than on anybody else's." 
 
 Gerard raised his eyebrows, looked down on the ground, 
 and gave a little mocking bow. 
 
 " You're very kind, I am sure," said he. 
 
 " Ah," sighed Netelka, as she seated herself on alow set- 
 tee and looked at the fire, " it is I who am insufferable now !" 
 
 Gerard did not immediately reply. When he did, it was 
 to murmur in a conventional tone, " Not at all, I assure 
 
 you." 
 
 "It is I," went on Netelka, "who am taking a liberty 
 now." 
 
 "Are you? I shouldn't have found it out by myself." 
 
 Already there was a little constraint in his tone, as if he 
 knew what it was in her heart 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 seen in 
 her eyes. It was a pleading, earnest expression, almost pas- 
 sionate in its intensity. 
 
 " But you will find it out if you stay here so much as a 
 minute longer, for I shall take a real liberty, a great lib- 
 erty. 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 the door, with a very definite expression of 
 defiance on his mouth. Then he glanced again at the lady, 
 and changed his mind. 
 
 He began by heaving a deep sigh. 
 
 "I'll stay," said he, "and I'll listen. But that's as far 
 as I will undertake to go, and I hope you will consider that 
 is enough of a concession. Not only will I not promise to 
 give up doing anything I like, but I promise, to start with, 
 that I won't give it up."
 
 80 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Netelka sighed in her turn, but cheerfully; for if the wo- 
 man who hesitates is lost, surely the man who listens is lost 
 too. 
 
 "Sit there," said Netelka, indicating a chair at a short 
 distance. 
 
 But Gerard began to be refractory at once. 
 
 "No, "said he. "I don't like that chair. It's a wo- 
 man's chair, made for showing off a lady's dress. 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 all round the room slowly, sitting down on 
 all the chairs in succession, throwing back his head and set- 
 tling his arms in each, as if determined to find one which 
 should be perfectly comfortable in all respects. 
 
 "Never saw such a lot of chairs!" he murmured de- 
 spondently in the course of his tour. "This one's a nice 
 height, but the back's too short. And this one," as he tried 
 the next, "would be perfect if it only had arms." 
 
 He wanted to tire out Netelka's patience, to make her 
 laugh, and to restore the conversation to the level of friv- 
 olity 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 antics, but waited tranquilly until he 
 stood before her once more. 
 
 *' I think I'll settle upon this," said he, as he dragged for- 
 ward a little light Algerian seat, made of two crosspieces 
 of wood with a skin slung between, " because it looks so jolly 
 uncomfortable. Even if what you say to me shouldn't make 
 me feel sorry, I think I can manage to look sorry if I sit 
 on this long enough." 
 
 Again the humorous blue eyes sought hers, but found no 
 answering expression of amusement in Netelka's black ones.
 
 A SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING. 81 
 
 On the contrary, when she smiled, it was with a look of in- 
 finite sadness. 
 
 " I don't want to make yon sorry," said she. " To begin 
 with, I don't know whether you have anything to be sorry 
 for, but I want to persuade you to give up baccarat." 
 
 " Why?" 
 
 " Because it's a thing that can do no good to anybody, 
 and that may do a great deal of harm." 
 
 " To me in particular?" 
 
 "Ye es, I think so." 
 
 "Again why?" 
 
 Netelka looked rather taken aback. She had spoken upon 
 an impulse, a not inexplicable impulse; but she 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 found that the light blue eyes were 
 a little nearer to her, looking up into her face 
 
 "Never mind," said he gently. "You are quite 
 right, even, though you can't explain. When you say 
 'baccarat,' you let 'baccarat' stand for a lot besides, don't 
 you?" 
 
 "Well, I suppose I do." 
 
 " Let us talk it out, then. Would you be bored to death 
 if I told you all about it, and myself, and how it all came 
 about? You could preach to me ever so much better if you 
 knew all about me, couldn't you?" 
 
 "I'm afraid it wouldn't do you much good." 
 
 " Well, it would do me good to tell you. You see it's 
 so much time saved from baccarat." 
 
 " Go on, then. " 
 
 The wind was rising, beating the evergreens against the 
 tiny-paned modern-mediaeval windows. The candles with 
 which the room was lighted flickered a little in the draught. 
 6
 
 82 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Gerard drew his uncomfortable seat closer to the fire, and 
 sitting with bent head, and his hands clasped loosely to- 
 gether, he told her his story, while the firelight threw 
 strange shadows on his face and brought unsuspected fur- 
 rows into view.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 AN EXCHANGE OF CONFIDENCES. 
 
 THERE was a seductive charm in the long, 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 confidential tone of an old friend. 
 
 Even while she listened to him she was 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 miser- 
 able 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 was the son of 
 an ironmaster, and that he was born near Middlesborough, 
 that he was now twenty-three years of age, and that he was 
 reading for the Bar, when it occurred to him that the atten- 
 tion of his hostess was wandering. He stopped short, and 
 sat up. 
 
 " 1 am boring 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 some- 
 thing else at the same time." 
 
 " Is it a secret?" 
 
 Netelka hesitated.
 
 84 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "Hardly that," she said at last. 
 
 And then she looked at him with a peculiar expression, 
 which made Gerard smile. 
 
 "Might one be permitted to hazard a guess?" asked he. 
 
 "One might." 
 
 " Then were you wondering just a little to find yourself 
 sitting cosily here by the fireside listening like an old friend 
 to the maunderings of a fellow whom a few hours ago you 
 had never seen?" 
 
 Their eyes met frankly, and they both laughed. 
 
 " Something like that, perhaps. " 
 
 Gerard 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 had heard about you, just enough to 
 make me expect some one quite different. They talked as 
 if " 
 
 Gerard pulled himself up very suddenly, as it flashed 
 through his mind that the lady's husband was one of the 
 two persons who had spoken to him about her, and that the 
 impression Linley had given him was of some horrid old 
 cat of whom he himself was afraid. The moment he hesi- 
 tated, Netelka, greatly interested, snapped him up : 
 
 "As if what?" 
 
 " Oh, as if you were so very, very prim, and and partic- 
 ular. They quite frightened me. I thought, well, I think 
 I had got it into my head though they certainly never said 
 that that 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, broke, off, and laughed again. 
 Netelka laughed too. 
 
 " No, I'm still on the right side of fifty by let me see 
 twenty-eight years."
 
 AN EXCHANGE OF CONFIDENCES. 85 
 
 "Oh," said Gerard with interest. "Twenty-two. Then 
 yon are just a year older than I am. " 
 
 Netelka thought that there was perhaps a shade too much 
 camaraderie in his tone ; for it was essential to her plans 
 that he should have for her the most absolute, nay, almost 
 crushing, respect. He must not be allowed to think that he 
 was near enough to her own age to be able to " talk her 
 over" to his own views on the gambling question. 
 
 " It doesn't count like that, though," she said with great 
 solemnity. " For a woman of twenty, for instance, is quite 
 ten years older than a man of the same age. You know 
 that is admitted." 
 
 "Who admits it?" asked Gerard rather flippantly. 
 
 " You have got to admit it," retorted Netelka; "and 
 to admit, therefore, that I have the authority of a person 
 nine years older than yourself." 
 
 She was not quite satisfied with the demure little look he 
 gave her; but he said "All right," and asked if he should 
 go on with his story. 
 
 It was short, and easily told. His father had been a man 
 of few domestic tastes, harsh and irritable at home. His 
 mother had been an angel, about whom Gerard did not care 
 to talk much even now. She had died when he, her only 
 child, was ten, and from that time until he was twenty-one 
 he had been more or less miserable. His father had never 
 married again, but had got his own sister, a harsh and Puri- 
 tanical woman, to keep house for him. Gerard had been 
 taken from school when he was only seventeen, and had been 
 in the office of one of his father's friends at Middlesbor- 
 rough until he reached the age of twenty-one. 
 
 " Then I broke loose," said Gerard rather savagely. " My 
 father had enjoyed himself in his time, and I was not going 
 to spend all the best years of my life in a hole I hated. My 
 father, I must tell you, is one of the richest men in those
 
 86 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 parts, and there was no need for me to keep my nose to the 
 grindstone. I had a short and sharp tussle with him, and 
 at last I got him to consent to my coming up to London to 
 read for the Bar. I'm 'eating my terms' now. He 
 wouldn't have given way even then, but that he saw that, if 
 I didn't come away with his permission, I should come 
 away without it." 
 
 Gerard was speaking in the dogged tone of a person with 
 a grievance. Netelka at once stood up for the absent 
 father. 
 
 ",I don't think," she began, with all the authority of 
 the nine years' superior dignity to which she had laid claim, 
 " that you have any right to speak as if you were ill-used. 
 No doubt your father 'kept you to the grindstone,' as you 
 call it, because he thought it best for you . I can under- 
 stand that thoroughly business-like habits must be necessary 
 in a man who will some day be the owner of a great deal of 
 property. " 
 
 Gerard shook his head. 
 
 " I don't think myself that was his chief object," said he; 
 " at any rate, if it was, he defeated his own end, for the 
 experience I had has disgusted me with the desk forever. 
 I don't care if the whole concern comes to grief or not: I'll 
 never go back to that hole as long as I live. " 
 
 "Not to see your father?" 
 
 " I run up now and then to see him, and when I do he 
 just gives a grunt when he sees me and goes on reading his 
 book or his paper. And to show his sense of my deficien- 
 cies, he only allows me a hundred and fifty pounds a year 
 to live upon." 
 
 " A hundred and fifty pounds a year!" echoed Netelka in 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Yes. It pays for my boots and gloves, and there is 
 something left toward neckties."
 
 AN EXCHANGE OF CONFIDENCES. 87 
 
 " It ought to make you economical," said Netelka, doubt- 
 fully. "But " 
 
 The word was expressive, but the tone was more so. 
 Gerard looked at her and then at the hearth-rug. 
 
 " But it doesn't," said he, simply. " My expenditure in 
 ready money, that is without counting debts during the 
 last two years has been about two thousand five hundred 
 a year." 
 
 "But how," asked Netelka, more shocked than puzzled, 
 though she seemed to be both, " do you manage to spend just 
 two thousand three hundred and fifty pounds more than you 
 have?" 
 
 " Oh, it's easy enough ; too easy, in fact. By the help 
 of the much-maligned Hebrew race, these little things 
 can be done quickly enough at a certain price, of 
 course. " 
 
 Netelka drew herself up. Her face had grown grave and 
 rigid. 
 
 " It's horrible!" she said under her breath. 
 
 The exclamation did not refer to the story she had just 
 heard, but to one which she read between the lines: of Mr. 
 Harrington Moseley's financial assistance to this young fel- 
 low, of her husband's assistance to the Jew, of her own in- 
 voluntary share in the arrangements of these two. 
 
 "Why horrible?" 
 
 Netelka made no answer. She got up from her chair and 
 walked to the fireplace, where she moved one of the can- 
 delabra from one side of the mantelpiece to the other. 
 
 " Is it the candle-light that's horrible?" 
 
 "Yes," answered she readily. "The draught from the 
 window makes them gutter." 
 
 "Oh, I see." 
 
 Gerard had not been born in the North country for noth- 
 ing; and he understood more than he pretended to. He
 
 88 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 was wise enough, also, to be satisfied with the explanation 
 the lady chose to give him. 
 
 There was a long silence, at the end of which Netelka, 
 who had been occupying herself with that never-failing re- 
 source in cold weather, the fire, addressed him again, with 
 some suddenness: 
 
 " Have you no sister?" 
 
 " No. I had one, but she died of consumption, I be- 
 lieve. They thought I should go off like that too. I'm 
 always being told even now that I ought to be careful." 
 
 "And are you?" 
 
 " Of course not. One may as well die one way as another. 
 If I am to choose between living in a hothouse on tea and 
 toast till I am eighty, and dying at five-and -twenty after 
 enjoying myself thoroughly for four years, I would choose 
 the latter without hesitation." 
 
 "That is very selfish," 
 
 " How is it more selfish than eighty years of coddling 
 oneself, and throwing oneself into a panic about every puff 
 of fresh air that reaches one?" 
 
 "And isn't there a happy mean between those two?" 
 
 " Not for me. A mean there may be, but not a happy 
 one." 
 
 " Then you find your happiness entirely in selfish enjoy- 
 ment?" 
 
 " Entirely. So does everybody. We're all selfishly in- 
 tent in getting all the enjoyment we can out of life all, that 
 is, who are not intent on talking the enjoyment out of life 
 for other people. There are only those two classes. Some- 
 times they overlap, and result in the man who finds his en- 
 joyment in depriving other people of theirs." 
 
 " Of course it's amusing to hear you talk like that, but 
 it's all wrong, and you know it. Those of us who don't live 
 for others in any way are mere brutes."
 
 AN EXCHANGE OF CONFIDENCES. 89 
 
 " Not at all. Those who live for others, as you call it, find 
 their enjoyment in doing so, don't you see? They think 
 they are unselfish, but they are nothing of the kind: they 
 are merely satisfying their own instincts. It seems unkind 
 to say so, but I maintain that the unselfishness usually as- 
 cribed to your sex is a delusion. It is a pleasure with you 
 ladies to make martyrs of yourselves ; to give up the most 
 comfortable chair and to mend socks until your eyes ache : 
 it gives you the feeling that you are playing the part of a 
 beneficent Providence to the rudderless creature, man. 
 Now, ain't that true?" 
 
 "Perhaps," assented Netelka smiling. 
 
 Gerard went on more emphatically: 
 
 " The beneficent Providence idea is at the root of all al- 
 truism. I sincerely trust, Mrs. Hilliard," he went on, with 
 a twinkle in his eye, " that I have succeeded in disabusing 
 you of the notion that in trying to 'do good,' as I believe 
 it is called, to any member of the grosser sex, a woman does 
 anything but indulge the instinct for playing beneficent 
 Providence to somebody?" 
 
 But the smile on Netelaka's face had gradually faded. 
 She rose from the hearth-rug, sighing. 
 
 " I understand what you mean," she said very gravely and 
 sweetly. " You desire that I shall not Jet my form of self- 
 ishness interfere with yours. Well, just for to-night I will 
 try. But I warn you not to enjoy yourself selfishly over 
 baccarat in this house, or I shall have to enjoy myself self- 
 ishly by stopping your selfish enjoyment, or by leaving the 
 house to indulge other forms of selfish enjoyment else- 
 where." 
 
 Their eyes met again. An expression of touching seri- 
 ousness in those of the woman brought a flash of sympathy 
 into those of the man. Gerard sprang up and stood close 
 beside Netelka, looking suddenly shy.
 
 90 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " Are you in earnest?" asked he. " Does it really matter 
 to you?" 
 
 " Matter ! Oh !" Netelka was half crying, " I should think 
 it does! It is simply too dreadful to see all of you playing 
 into the hands of this Jew, and and throwing away money 
 just to benefit him!" 
 
 Then she turned away her head, blushing painfully, re- 
 membering that her own husband must share the blame of 
 Mr. Moseley's proceedings. Gerard noted the blush, and 
 probably guessed the cause. At any rate, he took a lighter 
 tone in answering her. 
 
 "Don't you give rather a superstitious reverence to 
 money?" he said. "Why shouldn't we spend it as we 
 please? And why shouldn't we pay for anticipating the use 
 of it, if we like? Don't you know that money can't pass 
 from one hand to another without benefiting some one? 
 And that spendthrifts have their appointed mission in the 
 world?" 
 
 "Ah, but what will you do when the money's spent? 
 Isn't it absurd to risk years of poverty for the sake of a few 
 months of extravagant waste? Oh, if you knew what it is 
 to be miserably, miserably poor, if you knew what it 
 makes people ready to do, you wouldn't risk it, I am 
 sure!" 
 
 The words died away on Netelka's lips. Her color 
 changed from rosy pink to ashen gray. The hand she had 
 raised in earnest gesticulation fell down at her side. A 
 great tear appeared in her dark eyes. 
 
 Gerard turned his head quickly, following her glance. 
 Linley, fair, pale, effeminate-looking as ever, had come with 
 his light, womanish step and his little mincing manner, 
 into the room. He had come as far as a little side-table, on 
 which stood some books and porcelain figures. 
 
 " Ah ! Here you are, Waller. We've all been wondering
 
 AN EXCHANGE OF CONFIDENCES. 91 
 
 what had become of you. You have been much missed 
 in the smoking-room." 
 
 Gerard was not easily taken at a disadvantage. He an- 
 swered imperturbably : 
 
 " I thought you were all coming in here, or I certainly 
 should not have obtruded myself upon Mrs. Milliard. I 
 shall have to ask you to intercede with her for me for hav- 
 ing bored her to death." 
 
 "She doesn't look bored," said Linley in his gentlest 
 tones. 
 
 His face betrayed nothing whatever. He might have been 
 the gentlest, sweetest-tempered, most harmless little man 
 in the world but for his wife's expression of consternation 
 and alarm. It " gave him away," as Gerard said to himself. 
 
 " Netta, my dear," went on Linley in the kindest and most 
 persuasive of tones, " you mustn't sit up any longer. These 
 lads will be up smoking and telling pointless stories till two 
 or three in the morning, so that they will be too tired to 
 come down, like decent people, in time for church. But you 
 are not to put yourself out on their account : let them go 
 their own way and look after their own souls." 
 
 Gerard had by this time shaken hands with Netelka, and 
 followed his host's suggestion to the extent of walking to 
 the door. There he paused a moment, and looked back. 
 
 And he saw Linley emphasize his last words to his wife 
 with a very expressive frown.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 NETELKA'S CONVERT. 
 
 THE morning's thoughts are so different from those of 
 the night ! Netelka had gone to bed heartbroken, despair- 
 ing, believing that her attempted remonstrance with Gerard 
 Waller had been thrown away, and that her husband was so 
 deeply displeased with her that a final rupture with him 
 was imminent. She had been awake when Linley came up- 
 stairs to bed at three o'clock in the morning, but she had 
 feigned sleep to avoid a conversation which she feared. 
 
 When her early cup of tea was brought, however, and she 
 saw the sun streaming in between drawn window-curtains, 
 and her husband gave her a morning kiss with seraphic 
 cheerfulness, Netelka found, with surprise, that her views of 
 life were not the same as on the previous night. It was 
 not that she had forgotten the incidents of the evening, but 
 that she was now able to persuade herself that they might 
 bear a less tragic interpretation than the one she had put 
 upon them. 
 
 What harm was there in card-playing among friends? 
 And what proof had she that the stakes they played for 
 would have been so high as to shock her? She began to feel 
 ashamed of her interference in the dining-room, and a blush 
 tingled in her cheeks as she thought of her unavailing ap- 
 peal to Gerard Waller. 
 
 How he must have laughed at her! She told herself that 
 he had probably related to his friends, Sam Teale and Ar- 
 thur Sainsbury, the story of her little sermon. It must,
 
 NETELKA'S CONVERT. 93 
 
 she thought, have seemed particularly piquant and amusing, 
 coming, as it did, from the wife of the man who had asked 
 him and his friends down here with the promise, expressed 
 or implied, of a long and uninterrupted gambling bout! 
 
 As she sipped her tea her husband's voice startled her. 
 
 "Well," said he cheerfully, "what are you so serious 
 about?" 
 
 She was sitting by the fire in her dressing-gown, and she 
 turned, with a rapid change of color. She had drawn back 
 the curtains of one of the windows very softly, and the light 
 of the winter sun streamed on her face. 
 
 Linley laughed softly. 
 
 " Did I frighten you?" asked he gently. 
 
 "Yes, rather. I thought you were asleep." 
 
 Linley laughed again. He seemed in the sweetest of hu- 
 mors this morning. 
 
 " Mustn't go to sleep again, or I shall be late for church," 
 said he. " And with the house full of those devil-may-care 
 young scapegraces, it behooves us to set a specially good ex- 
 ample and to be specially careful of our reputation with 
 our neighbors." 
 
 "Oh, yes," assented Netelka, not quite knowing how to 
 meet a mood so unexpected. 
 
 And then she was silent. When he next spoke he star- 
 tled her again, for he had wrapped his dressing-gown round 
 him and was speaking close to her ear. 
 
 " Look here, Netta, my dear," said he in a caressing tone, 
 " I want to speak to you. I have been worrying myself, 
 darling, because I seemed rather harsh to you last night." 
 He took her hand, and played with it softly with his own 
 delicate white fingers as he spoke. " You see, dearest, it was 
 rather trying now, wasn't it? to have my wife, my own 
 wife, addressing my guests as if they were swindlers, and 
 forbidding them to enjoy themselves in the way they pre-
 
 94 A SENSATIONAL CASK 
 
 f erred? Surely, my dear, if I were satisfied that they should 
 amuse themselves with a game at cards, that ought to have 
 been enough for you. Don't you think so? I can't tell 
 you what a painful effect it had upon me to find you sud- 
 denly acting as if you and I were two opposing forces, in- 
 stead of being, as we have always been, the best of friends. 
 How was it, dear, that you came to act so? Tell me come, 
 come, tell me how it was!" 
 
 Netelka trembled, between hope and fear, as she looked 
 into her husband's countenance, her passionate eyes trying 
 to read the pale, calm face. But the blue eyes kept their 
 own secrets; the small mouth, small enough for a woman, 
 with its pale, bloodless lips, smiled and told her nothing. 
 
 " I I oh, Linley, I am sorry I spoke as I did ; very sorry ! 
 But I was puzzled, troubled. I have heard things about 
 this house, Linley, heard that it was a place where gam- 
 blers used to come. And I thought how could I help 
 thinking? when I found that the same men were coming 
 down here that used to come before, that Moseley was de- 
 ceiving us, and that he only wanted us to come to this place 
 to give it an air of respectability by pretending that we 
 were his tenants, while really he meant to carry on the 
 place in the old way !" 
 
 Linley, who was kneeling beside her chair, holding her 
 hand in his, and kissing it from time to time with demon- 
 strative affection, listened with the deepest attention. At 
 the end, however, he laughed rather bitterly. 
 
 "An air of respectability!" echoed he. " When we are 
 the hero and heroine of a gorgeous scandal! of a cause 
 celebre." 
 
 " But people don't know that!" whispered Netelka, with 
 a shiver. " And if they did oh ! if they did, Linley 
 wouldn't they be sorry for us, and not harsh to us? You 
 know you were acquitted, Linley," she went on rapidly,
 
 NETELKA'S CONVERT. 95 
 
 clasping his hands so tightly that her fingers left their marks 
 in livid patches on the white skin. " I often wish they 
 hadn't persuaded us to change our name, Linley. It looks 
 as if as if " 
 
 " No, it doesn't," broke in her husband, rather pettishly. 
 " It doesn't look like anything but what it is an attempt to 
 shield ourselves from the horrible publicity a case of that 
 kind involves. You don't know the world as well as I do, 
 nor how ready people are to think the worst. Why, if 
 you'll believe me, there are hundreds of people about, in 
 spite of the verdict, who think " 
 
 "Oh, don't, don't!" 
 
 Perhaps, if certain awful doubts had not occasionally 
 thrust themselves into her own mind, Netelka would not 
 have been so much shocked at this suggestion. As it was, 
 she clutched her husband's hands and clung to them, as if, 
 by the force of her wifely affection, she could thrust out and 
 destroy the horrible suspicion. 
 
 "Ah, well," said Linley, with composure, "it is as I say, 
 I assure you. Those infernal insurance companies, for in- 
 stance, have been awfully difficult to deal with, and I have 
 had to accept a compromise, which leaves me precious 
 little when the expenses of that beastly trial are all paid. 
 It's a shame that a man shouldn't be able to get compen- 
 sation in these cases when he's proved innocent, after 
 being put to all that expense ! If it hadn't been for the 
 little Hebrew, goodness only knows how we should have 
 scraped along. Of course he expects in return that he can 
 bring his friends down here; and to judge by the way you 
 seemed to be getting on with that young Waller, you don't 
 object to that yourself!" 
 
 Netelka blushed deeply, recalling the scowl with which 
 Linley had interrupted her tete-a-tete with Gerard on the 
 previous night.
 
 96 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "Were you angry, Linley?" she asked quickly. "Did 
 you think I had made friends with a stranger too quickly?" 
 
 " Oh, no, no, dear me, no, child," answered her husband 
 at once, with a laugh. " I am not of a jealous disposition, 
 I thank Heaven; and I should as soon think of doubting 
 the purity of an angel as of believing you capable of indis- 
 creet conduct." 
 
 Netelka looked puzzled. 
 
 " Then why " 
 
 "Why did I dismiss you so curtly last night? Well, I 
 thought, from some words I heard as I came in, that you 
 were preaching. Now I can't stand being preached to my- 
 self, and I don't care to have my guests preached to either; 
 for you must understand, my dear, that whoever Harring- 
 ton Moseley likes to bring down here, is my guest and 
 yours. There, now, go and dress: I don't want to preach 
 any more." 
 
 "Oh, Linley," whispered Netelka, almost sobbing, "if 
 you will only be kind to me, and not leave me days and days 
 by myself, and tell me things gently, and not with those 
 cold eyes you sometimes look at me with, you will find there 
 isn't anything, anything, that I won't do for you without 
 a word !" 
 
 Linley gave her a hasty kiss, assured her that he loved her 
 and trusted her, and should do so to the end of his life, and 
 told her again to dress quickly, and not to be late for 
 church. 
 
 They breakfasted by themselves, the young men failing, 
 as Linley had predicted, to put in an appearance so early 
 after their late night. Then they walked soberly to church 
 together, arriving in good time, before the bells had ceased. 
 Linley had already secured sittings, more, probably, for the 
 opinion of his neighbors than on his own account. He 
 himself occupied the inner corner of the pew, with a very
 
 NETELKA'S CONVERT. 97 
 
 large church service and a handsomely bound hymn-book, 
 both of which looked new. 
 
 Before they had risen from their knees after the " Confes- 
 sion," a third person entered the pew quietly, whose loud 
 breathing betrayed that he had had to " run for it." 
 
 And Netelka, turning her head as she rose, saw the curly 
 head of Gerard Waller. 
 
 She looked rather astonished, in spite of herself. 
 
 " I've had no breakfast. Aren't I good?" he whispered, 
 as he stood up. But after this frivolous and unpromising 
 beginning, he maintained a beautiful solemnity of demeanor 
 throughout the whole of the service, joining in the hymns 
 with a pleasant light tenor voice, and not looking about 
 him more than in reason. 
 
 When they came out of church, Gerard shook hands with 
 Linley and his wife, and as Linley was seized by Major Col- 
 lingham, Gerard walked on with Netelka. 
 
 "The worst of going to church is," he explained cheer- 
 fully, as he took her books, " that it makes one so abom- 
 inably conceited for the rest of the day. I haven't felt so of- 
 fensively cocksure of my own merits for two years." 
 
 "Why did you come, then? Without your breakfast, 
 too." 
 
 " That's a pretty way to talk to your own convert !" cried 
 Gerard, reproachfully. "I expected to find you over- 
 whelmed with joy to learn that your sermon had taken such 
 good effect. I've not only given up card-playing, but given 
 you the church attendance in. Oh!" he exclaimed, below 
 his breath, with a change to a dismal tone, "here's old 
 mother Oollingham bearing down upon us! Can't we run 
 round a tombstone and hide? I do so hate to have my 
 mind disturbed by frivolous people of that sort when I'm 
 coming out of church!" 
 
 "No, you can't escape," said Netelka in the same low 
 7
 
 98 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 voice. " But there's some one with her whom you won't be 
 so anxious to escape from !" And Netelka glanced at Jem, 
 who, with a bevy of small brothers and sisters around her, 
 was looking very pretty, very ill-dressed, and shyer than 
 ever. 
 
 But Gerard only said, " I don't know. Jem's a nice girl, 
 but we had our flirtation out the year before last. My 
 goodness! She's lankier than ever." 
 
 Then the Collinghams came up with them.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 POOR JEM. 
 
 WHEN the party from the little house joined the party 
 from the big house, the greetings on the one side, at least, 
 were of the most effusive kind. Mrs. Collingham kissed 
 Netelka as a matter of course, and shook hands with 
 Gerard as if he had been for years the benefactor of herself 
 and her family. 
 
 " My dear Mr. Waller, this is a delightful surprise ! Do 
 you know it was only the day before yesterday that I was 
 saying to the Major that it was an age since we had seen 
 you, and that I was sure you had forgotten all about us!" 
 
 "As if that was likely! As if it was even possible, Mrs. 
 Collingham," said Gerard politely. "And as for your 
 thinking of me the day before yesterday, my devotion to 
 you exceeds yours to me, for I was thinking of you only 
 this minute. How do you do, Miss Collingham?" 
 
 Jem, paralyzed with shyness, not knowing whether she 
 was most happy to see him again or miserable because she 
 was no longer "Jem," gave him her hand with that painful 
 girlish constraint which passes for either frigidity or rude- 
 ness, replied that she was quite well, and relapsed into 
 silence. 
 
 Netelka would have walked on with Mrs. Collingbam, 
 leaving the two young people together, but neither Jem 
 nor Gerard desired this, so they all jogged on uncom- 
 fortably in a straggling line, and passed out of the church- 
 yard gate holding such conversation as they could.
 
 100 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "And now, my dear Mrs. Hilliard," said Mrs. Colling- 
 ham, coaxingly, " I want you to do me a great favor. When 
 you called the other day my husband was half-asleep, and 
 he complains that I didn't let him have a chance of talk- 
 ing to you. Now, am I asking too much if I beg you to 
 come in this afternoon just for a cup of tea and a chat? 
 It will be nothing more, you know; one can't ask people 
 to do anything on Sundays out here; this isn't quite like 
 town, you know! And one doesn't want to scandalize 
 one's neighbors!" 
 
 Netelka explained that she could not very well come, as 
 there were friends of her husband staying in the house. 
 But Mrs. Collingham overruled this objection. She would 
 be delighted to receive as many of Mrs. Hilliard's guests 
 as cared to come. 
 
 "And you, of course, you, Mr. Waller," she continued, 
 turning coquettishly to Gerard, "are a very old friend." 
 
 Gerard heaved a meek sigh. 
 
 "I am but a lonely and helpless bachelor," said he, 
 "without any will of my own. lam as a lamb in the 
 hands of my hostess : I will go wherever she will let me 
 follow her." 
 
 "There," said Mrs. Collingham, turning to Netelka, 
 "now you must come. I shall get your husband's permis- 
 sion. He will be able to entertain his friends by himself 
 for an hour, I'm sure. They can smoke to pass away the 
 time." 
 
 And Mrs. Collingham skipped back to her husband and 
 Linley, leaving Gerard, Netelka, and Jem to go on to- 
 gether. Then Gerard amused the ladies with accounts 
 of the fearful struggle he had had to get to church in 
 time, and affected to be so hungry that he had to steal 
 stray leaves from the bay trees and other evergreens which 
 stood within reach inside the gardens they passed, fright-
 
 POOR JEM. 101 
 
 ening Jem into the belief that he was poisoning him- 
 self. 
 
 Netelka found an opportunity before they reached their 
 respective homes of exchanging a few more words with 
 Mrs. Collingham. She thought that lady must be ignorant 
 of the kind of guests to whom she was extending such a 
 liberal invitation. 
 
 " They are rather a rackety set, these young fellows my 
 husband has brought down with him," she said to the elder 
 lady in a tone too low to reach the ears of their husbands. 
 " My husband doesn't much care what his friends are like 
 as long as they are lively. " 
 
 "Why, that's just like me!" chirped Mrs. Collingham 
 effusively. " I always say that the one thing I beg of 
 people is that they shall not bore me." 
 
 "But," suggested Netelka, feeling conscious of the ab- 
 surdity of her having to give such a warning to a matron 
 ten years older than herself, "they are hardly the best 
 possible companions for a pretty young girl like Miss 
 Collingham, are they?" 
 
 But Mrs. Collingham received the hint in a manner 
 which irritated Netelka beyond measure, for she assumed 
 the easy irresponsibility of perfect confidence. 
 
 " Now, do you know, dear Mrs. Hilliard, I do think you 
 make such a mistake in assuming that because a girl is 
 young she must necessarily be foolish, and that because a 
 man is young he must necessarily be bad ! I assure you I 
 have no such fears myself. A well brought up girl can 
 be trusted anywhere. I know I could when I was un- 
 married, and I have every confidence that my girls will be 
 the same. So pray don't give yourself any qualms of con- 
 science on Jem's account, but bring your friends, whoever 
 they are, and we will make them welcome." 
 
 On reaching "The Firs," Netelka gave the invitations
 
 102 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 she had received to Arthur Sainsbury and Sam Teale, both 
 of whom were smoking cigarettes with an up-all-night look 
 on their faces. Netelka thought that tea next door might 
 keep them out of mischief for the afternoon, at least. 
 Harrington Moseley, as Netelka had expected, preferred to 
 remain at "The Firs," having, so he said, some letters to 
 write. Linley excused himself also. It was too cold, he 
 said, to go from one house to another just to have a cup 
 of tea which he could enjoy just as well where he was. 
 
 So the party for " Maisonette" consisted of Netelka and 
 the three young bachelors. It was not a very successful 
 entertainment. Nobody talked freely except Mrs. Colling- 
 ham, who chattered gayly to the three young men, who 
 seemed to retire into their shells under the influence of her 
 irrepressible vivacity, and the Major, who monopolized 
 Netelka, telling her tedious stories, and paying her tedious 
 compliments. And all the while that she tried to listen 
 she was haunted by two things: the first was the look of 
 humorous gravity in Gerard's eyes which she found fixed 
 upon her whenever she turned her head in his direction ; 
 the second was a startling appreciation of the difference 
 between the Major's generation, which paid and accepted 
 such compliments, and her own. 
 
 As for Jem, she poured out the tea, and she answered 
 when she was spoken to. But she did not seem to be en- 
 joying herself even when Netelka contrived, by a change 
 of seat, to leave Gerard sitting next to the young girl. 
 
 When Netelka suggested that she must not leave her 
 husband by himself any longer, all her bodyguard rose as 
 one man, with indecent haste to get out. Mrs. Colling- 
 ham, however, who had not perceived that the entertain- 
 ment palled upon them, tried to engage them all for her 
 " afternoon" on the following Saturday. 
 
 "We shall be livelier then," said she buoyantly, evi-
 
 POOR JEM. 103 
 
 dently not conscious that they were anything else now, 
 "for I've got some people coming who can do things: 
 sing, and recite, and play the mandolin. And there will 
 be more of us." 
 
 Arthur Sainsbury and Sam Teale began with indecent 
 haste to make an excuse. Mrs. Collingham, telling them 
 playfully that they were "very wicked to abandon her," 
 then turned impulsively to Gerard, who shot a glance at 
 Netelka, and then looked modestly down on the floor. 
 
 " I should only be too delighted to come, Mrs. Colling- 
 ham," he said in a demure, little boy's voice, "but I don't 
 know whether I shall be here next Saturday. I couldn't 
 get back to town very well the same evening, and " 
 
 Again he glanced, shyly, or rather with an affectation 
 of shyness, at Netelka. His two friends laughed heartily 
 for the first time since their appearance at "Maisonette." 
 
 " Oh ho!" cried Arthur, speaking at last with his natu- 
 ral overwhelming boisterousness, and with a laugh that 
 shook the teacups, " we wouldn't be so ill-mannered as to 
 ask for an invitation, would we? Mrs. Hilliard, don't 
 ask him, don't let him come, if he goes on his knees." 
 
 " I shouldn't ask him if he had that most inconvenient 
 habit, certainly," answered Netelka laughing. "A man 
 takes up so much more room on his knees than on his feet, 
 you know ; and the position is ungraceful in modern dress. 
 But if he wants very much to come to Mrs. Colling- 
 ham 's " 
 
 " I do, I do !" interpolated Gerard in a little plaintive 
 voice, which somehow failed to carry conviction to the 
 minds of his two friends. 
 
 "Why then," continued Netelka, "I shall be obliged to 
 promise that, if he gets the requisite number of good-con- 
 duct marks during the week," and she gave Gerard a 
 significant look, to which he replied by a sanctimonious
 
 104 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 look upward and shake of the head, " to ask him down 
 from Saturday to Monday." 
 
 " I thought my beautiful behavior would find its reward 
 sooner or later," said Gerard meekly. " I thank you both, 
 ladies, from the very bottom of my heart, for your kind- 
 ness to a simple, friendless country lad, all alone by him- 
 self in big, wicked London." 
 
 Then Netelka had to get out with her bodyguard as 
 quickly as she could, for Sam and Arthur were so much 
 tickled by the whole affair that their correctness of con- 
 duct was no longer to be depended upon; and she was 
 afraid that their spasms of laughter and the looks they 
 cast at Gerard would presently strike, even in Mrs. Col- 
 lingham's simple mind, a suspicion of their good 
 faith. 
 
 As she looked rather anxious, Gerard acted as her lieu- 
 tenant, and restored some sort of order to the little force 
 until the door of " Maisonette" was shut, and they were 
 safely on the road home. Then they all broke into the 
 cruellest laughter. 
 
 " So glad you've enjoyed yourself so-o much, de-ar!" said 
 Arthur sweetly to Sam. 
 
 "Oh, it was quite too, too charming, and so awfully, 
 awfully sweet of you to bring me!" said Sam to Arthur. 
 
 " And didn't our little Gerard behave himself well, de-ar? 
 And wasn't he quite a credit to us?" went on Arthur. 
 
 " And didn't he show up the behavior of his two chuckle- 
 headed companions?" chimed in Gerard. 
 
 And then Arthur and Sam took each other's hands and 
 skipped along in a juvenile manner as far as the door of 
 "The Firs." 
 
 " Oh, very well, now I know what you do as soon as you 
 come out of a house where everybody has done his best to 
 entertain you, and treated you a great deal better than
 
 POOR JEM. 105 
 
 you deserve," said Netelka severely. "You will burlesque 
 me like that to-morrow!" 
 
 "They won't, unless they want their heads punched!" 
 cried Gerard hotly. 
 
 "Oh, you're different," said Sam, soberly. 
 
 " And you needn't talk about punching people's heads, 
 Waller," snapped Arthur, "for, as far as Mrs. Hilliard goes, 
 we are all on the same side." 
 
 And they all entered the house in the friendliest mood, 
 cemented, as is the way with poor humanity, by their 
 common feeling against the unlucky Mrs. Collingham.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 NETELKA'S PLAN. 
 
 WHEN Netelka had taken off her hat and come down, 
 dressed for dinner, she found Arthur and Sam, in a state 
 of the wildest high spirits, in the drawing-room. She 
 could hear Arthur's boisterous laugh, indeed, long before 
 she reached the room. As she entered, the two rushed up 
 to her, both talking at once, and laughing so much at the 
 same time that they were at first quite unintelligible. 
 Then they became suddenly silent, and bowed their heads 
 low before her. 
 
 " Why, what have you done to yourselves?" asked Netelka, 
 conscious that there was some difference in their appear- 
 ance besides that caused by their each wearing an enor- 
 mous bouquet of hothouse flowers as a button-hole. 
 
 After a little more spasmodic laughter, they drew her 
 attention to the fact that they had curled their hair. 
 
 "And I shouldn't like to have to do it every day, like 
 you ladies," said Arthur. "I've burned my fingers and 
 I've singed my hair." 
 
 "But why did you do it?" asked Netelka, whom the 
 lads had infected with their own merriment. 
 
 "Well, you see," said Sam, "we couldn't stand being 
 cut out by that fellow Waller. He stole a march upon us 
 by going to church, so we thought we would have recourse 
 to more worldly arts to make an impression." 
 
 "And we trust," said Sam, drawing himself up and 
 linking his arm in Arthur's with the air of a man who has
 
 NETELKA'S PLAN. 107 
 
 distinguished himself, "that we have succeeded. Waller 
 may be better than we are, but can you honestly say that 
 he is handsomer?" 
 
 They both struck attitudes of great elegance, and Netelka, 
 who had begun on that day to remember that she was 
 young, laughed till she cried. 
 
 In the midst of their mirth, Netelka presently observed 
 that a slight change came over the faces of the two young 
 men. It was not a very great change, nor a very definite 
 one, but it was sufficient to cause her to make a sudden 
 effort to recover her gravity. Turning away from them in 
 order the better to effect this, she saw that her husband had 
 entered the room. And instantly their laughter died away. 
 Yet she did not know why. The fun they had been en- 
 joying was of the most innocent, not to say childish, kind, 
 and Linley was certainly no Puritan. But there was some- 
 thing in his personality, whether it was excessive refine- 
 ment, or lack of humor, or some other factor, adverse to 
 laughter. His presence seemed to dry up the springs of 
 merriment, and to remind them all unpleasantly that they 
 were making fools of themselves. 
 
 It seemed that he felt this, and was annoyed by it. 
 
 "Well, what's the matter? I'm not a bogey, am I? 
 Go on, go on!" said he irritably. 
 
 "There's nothing to go on with," exclaimed Arthur. 
 " Sam will make an ass of himself, and he's just getting 
 over it, that's all." 
 
 But they were sobered, and Linley knew it, and only 
 the entrance of Harrington Moseley and Gerard prevented 
 him from becoming rather disagreeable. 
 
 " We're not going to be shuffled off to the smoking-room 
 to-night that is, not if you will have anything to say to 
 us," said Arthur to Netelka. "You will have us to amuse 
 as well as Waller."
 
 108 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Netelka agreed to this, although she was afraid of meet- 
 ing some opposition, or at least disapprobation, from Mose- 
 ley. She was astonished and puzzled to find, however, 
 that both the Jew and Linley seemed well satisfied with 
 the arrangement. Netelka, therefore, was not left long 
 alone in the drawing-room after dinner. The three young 
 men followed her very quickly, but without either her 
 husband or the Jew. 
 
 "Aren't the others coming?" asked she, when she could 
 make herself heard during a moment's cessation of Arthur's 
 noisy talk and laughter. 
 
 "No, we've got a blessed respite," explained Arthur. 
 
 And then he blushed and stammered, and drew atten- 
 tion by his clumsy confusion to the awful mistake he had 
 made, of which he had been reminded by a surreptitious 
 thump in the back from Sam. 
 
 "I I mean," he explained neatly, "that that that 
 we shall enjoy their society all the more afterward, if if 
 they don't make themselves too cheap now." 
 
 And then Arthur retired into the background and rolled 
 up his eyes. 
 
 "Well, what are you going to do?" asked Netelka. 
 " Can you sing?" 
 
 "/can," replied Arthur quickly, "at least I can sing as 
 well as I can do anything else. And I like singing " 
 
 " Because it enables you to bawl even louder than when 
 you are talking," Gerard finished for him. "Never mind, 
 you may sing. It will take you off our hands." 
 
 "But it will take Mrs. Hilliard off your hands too," re- 
 torted Arthur serenely, " because I can't play my own 
 accompaniments. " 
 
 They passed an evening which Netelka found curiously 
 pleasant, considering the intellectual and artistic level at 
 which both music and conversation were kept by the pres-
 
 NETELKA'S PLAN. 109 
 
 ence of Arthur, who bawled sentimental songs, to his own 
 entire satisfaction, in a voice hoarse with smoking. He 
 had obtained permission for them to smoke, and he did not 
 scruple to pause even in the middle of a word for a puff at 
 his cigarette. 
 
 " It's ever so much jollier than it used to be two 
 years ago to come down here," Arthur remarked, when 
 they were bidding Netelka good night. "There used 
 to be such a rackety lot down here," pursued he, taking 
 no notice of the derisive laughter of Sam and Gerard. 
 "One couldn't enjoy one's self quietly like this: it was 
 all cards, cards, cards, and losing one's money from 
 morning till night, and night till morning again. 
 Whenever you like to have me down here, Mrs. Hilliard, 
 I don't mind coming. I can't say more than that, can 
 I?" 
 
 "Shut up, Arthur, if you can't express yourself better 
 than that," said Sam loftily. 
 
 Gerard, who had been enjoying himself more quietly 
 than the rest, got a word with Netelka while the other two 
 had a short altercation. 
 
 " I never enjoyed myself so much in my life," he said 
 simply. " You make the place what a home ought to be, 
 but never is, as far as I can make out. I may come down 
 again on Saturday, may I not?" 
 
 "Why, yes, I thought that was settled," answered Ne- 
 telka. " I'm looking forward to it quite as you say you 
 are, I assure you." 
 
 " I I I " stammered Gerard, and stopped. 
 
 Before he could get any further with his broken sen- 
 tence, Linley and Harrington Moscley came in, and every- 
 body grew a little more prim of manner and conventional 
 of speech. 
 
 "Now, mind," said Netelka imperiously, in a low voice
 
 110 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 to Gerard, " you are to make these boys go off to bed with- 
 out any card-playing, you understand?" 
 
 "Your wishes are commands, madam," replied Gerard 
 with a burlesque solemnity which allowed her to see that 
 she would be obeyed. 
 
 The next morning the whole party, including Linley 
 himself, went up to town, and Netelka missed them dread- 
 fully. It was hardly her fault that she did not miss her 
 husband more than the others. Linley was, however, par- 
 ticularly affectionate to her at parting, and Harrington 
 Moseley expressed to her his conviction that her " gentle 
 feminine influence" would be the salvation of the three 
 young men, and particularly of Gerard Weller, who was," 
 he added, with a solemn shake of the head, " on the high 
 road to ruin." 
 
 Netelka shivered, and watched them all drive away in 
 the cab, which had been ordered for the purpose, with a 
 painful uneasiness. The Jew's words, if they had been 
 uttered by any one else, would have given her unmixed 
 pleasure: coming from him, they filled her with suspicion. 
 She had never liked or trusted Harrington Moseley: she 
 was sure he was making " a good thing" out of the ex- 
 travagance of these young men. What was the reason, then, 
 for his being so genuinely delighted, as he felt sure he was, 
 at her keeping them from the cards? 
 
 The week passed slowly and uneventfully for Netelka, 
 the principal occurrence of any importance being a change 
 for the worse in the weather. On Thursday the sun went 
 in, on Friday the snow came, and on Saturday the wind, 
 snow, and bitter cold made it impossible to do so much as 
 put one's head outside the window. Netelka expected a 
 telegram to say that nobody was coming, and she was as- 
 tonished when a cab drove up in the afternoon containing 
 her husband, Moseley, and Gerard Waller. Gerard had a
 
 NETELKA'S PLAN. Ill 
 
 bad cold and was looking very ill, and the Jew, to do him 
 justice, was full of solicitude on his account, and expressed 
 much annoyance at his having ventured out of the house 
 in such weather. The young fellow himself, however, 
 made light of his condition, and only hoped, as he said to 
 Netelka, that she would forgive him for presenting himself 
 when he was such a pitiable object. 
 
 He was in the morning-room, sitting by the fire and 
 shivering in spite of the warmth, when he said this. 
 Netelka had just brought to him with her own hands a 
 tumbler of hot brandy and water. 
 
 "Drink this," said she imperiously, "and then I really 
 think I shall order you straight to bed." 
 
 " I think you'd better, if I'm to drink that," said Gerard. 
 " I don't want to tell you all my secrets until I feel dis- 
 posed to do so. Of course I ought not to have come, I know 
 that; I shall be nothing but a nuisance, but but " 
 
 He helped himself out of a difficulty he felt by a drink 
 of the brandy and water. 
 
 "You won't be able to goto the Collinghams' !" said 
 Netelka in a tone of despair. 
 
 " No. That's one comfort. " 
 
 "But Jem! Don't you know I have made a plan for 
 you to marry Jem?" 
 
 " That's very kind of you I" 
 
 "Well, don't you like it?" 
 
 Gerard took another drink, and appeared to be consid- 
 ering. 
 
 "On the whole, I think I do," he said at last. He 
 paused a little, looking at the fire. " I shall have to be 
 down here a great deal, if I carry ont your plan ! Have 
 you considered that? When I'm down here, I shall feel 
 bound to call upon you. Won't you begin to find me a 
 bit of a bore?"
 
 112 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "No, indeed, I shan't." 
 
 "Then," said Gerard, "the plan of campaign is already 
 determined upon. It only remains to wait for open weather 
 to begin the siege." 
 
 He had to wait longer than he expected, however. His 
 cold got so much worse that they thought it well to send 
 for the doctor that night, and he prescribed a stay in bed 
 for a few days and the utmost care. Gerard had an attack 
 of pneumonia, through which he was tended by trained 
 nurses. All the time his illness lasted, both Linley and 
 Harrington Moseley remained at "The Firs," and the 
 latter suffered the most acute and genuine anxiety. 
 
 Netelka was quite touched by this, and on the first oc- 
 casion that Gerard appeared downstairs again she men- 
 tioned it to him with the remark that she felt quite ashamed 
 of herself for having done the Jew an injustice in not 
 having credited him with nearly so much feeling as he 
 possessed. 
 
 But Gerard laughed. 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Hilliard," said he, "I don't doubt that 
 his solicitude was genuine enough. My death before my 
 father's would mean a loss to him of between seven and 
 eight thousand pounds." 
 
 Netelka took this statement in silence. She was getting 
 used to the ways of financiers. 
 
 Linley and Harrington Moseley, although, to do them 
 justice, neither of them showed any genuine love for the 
 society of the other, had been pretty constant companions 
 during the last few days, and it had become evident to 
 Netelka's sharp woman's eyes that there was some scheme 
 hatching between them. On the night of the day on 
 which Gerard was declared convalescent Linley woke his 
 wife up to tell her something. 
 
 In the weak light of the little oil lamp which burned all
 
 NETELKA'S PLAN. 113 
 
 night, Liuley's face looked grotesquely ugly and distorted, 
 Netelka thought, as she sat up in bed with a start. 
 
 " Don't look as if I'd frightened you !" cried Linley, pet- 
 tishly. He had grown so irritable of late that a hasty 
 movement or an exclamation would annoy him. "Waller 
 and Moseley and I had a long talk to-night after you left 
 the dining-room. " 
 
 "Yes," answered she, "I noticed that you were a long 
 time before coming into the drawing-room." 
 
 "We were discussing an arrangement that somebody 
 suggested. This young Waller, you know, is by no means 
 strong, and he doesn't get properly looked after, living in 
 chambers in town." 
 
 Linley paused, expecting that his wife would guess what 
 his proposition was. But if she did so, she made no 
 sign. 
 
 "Well?" she asked presently. 
 
 "Well, how would you like it if we let him come and 
 stay with us for a little while at any rate until the cold 
 weather is over? You like him, don't you? You seem to 
 get on with him capitally!" 
 
 "Yes. I like him very much," answered Netelka, who 
 hardly knew why the suggestion did not please her. " But 
 how can he stay here, Linley, when you are hardly ever 
 here yourself?" 
 
 " Oh, if we carry this arrangement into effect, of course 
 I should stay here all the time." 
 
 Netelka's face fell still more. It was rather hard, she 
 thought, that it wanted some inducement of this kind to 
 make her husband stay with her. However, there had not 
 been enough confidence lately between husband and wife 
 for her to care to tell him so. 
 
 "Well, don't you like the idea?" asked Linley impa- 
 tiently, after a pause. 
 8
 
 114 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " Ye-es," she answered doubtfully. "At least, I should 
 if_if 
 
 " If what?" 
 
 "If Mr. Moseley didn't!" 
 
 "What an absurd prejudice you have against him! It's 
 most ungrateful of you too, for he has a great admiration 
 for you !" 
 
 Netelka said no more. But her dreams that night were 
 haunted by her vague presentiments of evil.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 WHERE DOES THE MONET COME PEOM? 
 
 FOUR months had passed since Gerard Waller took up his 
 residence at "The Firs," and winter was giving way to 
 spring. 
 
 A new era of pleasant, easy life seemed to have been in- 
 augurated for everybody by that arrangement. Linley 
 stayed at home, pottered about the grounds, and in and out 
 of the hothouses and greenhouses, and was nearly always 
 good-humored and amiable. Mr. Moseley came down very 
 often, but he spent most of the day writing letters, or pro- 
 fessing to do so, in a room which had been set apart for him 
 for that purpose, and he never came down to breakfast. 
 
 As for Gerard, he did not look like the same man. The 
 unhealthy pallor, which had distinguished him on his first 
 arrival, had disappeared ; he had the appearance and ways 
 of a big boy, and he went about the place whistling softly 
 to himself all day long, as happy as a bird on a tree. He 
 was very lazy, certainly, and required a good deal of alter- 
 nate coaxing and threatening to get him to do the amount 
 of hard reading which, he was fond of explaining, that prep- 
 aration for the Bar made necessary. It was becoming more 
 and more difficult to induce him to go up to town to eat 
 what he called the "harmless necessary" dinners; and he 
 didn't care a bit when Netelka reproached him with being 
 tied to her apron-string. 
 
 Not that Netelka had any reason to complain of him. 
 He was at her beck and call all day long, openly worship- 
 ping the ground she trod on in so straightforward and un-
 
 116 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 affected a manner that Linley and Harrington Moseley only 
 laughed at him, and the only person who felt any qualms on 
 the subject of his devotion was the object of it herself. For 
 Netelka, while professing, like others, to treat him like the 
 boy he looked, knew very well that he was a man, and that 
 the attentions he lavished ostentatiously upon her were a 
 cloak to feelings which he wished neither to probe nor to 
 analyze. On the whole, she hardly knew whether she had 
 been happy or not during the last four months. If she had 
 been the frivolous flirt that in her girlhood's days she had 
 been considered, she would have been entirely happy, for 
 she had all the money she wanted, a beautiful home, no end 
 of attention, and a return, in appearance at least, of the af- 
 fection her husband had shown her in the early days of their 
 marriage. 
 
 It was this last fact alone which enabled her to leave un- 
 answered the questions which would arise in her mind as to 
 the means by which they were able to maintain a large es- 
 tablishment like that of " The Firs" without any apparent 
 source of income. To her timidly expressed questions on 
 this point Linley had made answer, in the dry manner she 
 did not like, that the insurance companies had " behaved 
 pretty decently, on the whole." And then Netelka made a 
 mental calculation proving that to justify them in their 
 present expenditure the insurance companies must have 
 paid them about five times the amount for which they were 
 insured. 
 
 But she did not dare to say this to Linley. 
 
 She was sitting beside the fire in the morning-room one 
 afternoon in March, knitting interminable shells in nasty 
 fluffy white cotton that made you sneeze if you stayed long 
 in its neighborhood. Gerard was singing softly to himself 
 at the piano, to an original accompaniment played with one 
 finger, supported by an occasional chord with the left hand.
 
 WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM? 117 
 
 Presently Netelka, who had been silent for some time, let 
 her hands drop into her lap. 
 
 "Where's Mr. Moseley?" she asked suddenly. "Have 
 you seen him to-day? Do you know whether he's gone back 
 to town?" 
 
 "Why trouble your head about him?" said Gerard. " I 
 never do. Isn't Linley with him?" 
 
 She shook her head. Then, after another little pause, 
 she said : 
 
 " Linley's gone to a sale where there was to be some old 
 china. You know how frantic he is about old china. If 
 he'd been Esau, he would have sold his birthright for a 
 teapot, and been delighted with his bargain." 
 
 " Well, it's consistent of him to like old china," said Ger- 
 ard with condescension. " I always think he is like a Dres- 
 den figure himself he's so neat, and so smooth, and has 
 such pretty little white hands and pretty little pink nails, 
 and he's so afraid of being touched." 
 
 " It's very rude of you to talk like that about my hus- 
 band," said Netelka sharply. 
 
 "No, it isn't rude. What harm is there in a neat bit of 
 description like that? He's always saying worse things of 
 me. He used to say I looked like putty." 
 
 "Well, he couldn't say that of you now." 
 
 Gerard got up from the piano and stood before her on 
 the hearth-rug, contemplating himself in the glass above the 
 mantelpiece with an air of stern criticism. 
 
 "Putty!" said he at last, meditatively. "No, I don't 
 think he could. On the other hand, don't you think that 
 that slightly haggard look I had gave me a more intellec- 
 tual appearance than I have now?" 
 
 "Very likely. I don't think I've given to the subject 
 the consideration it undoubtedly deserves." 
 
 " You are severe, madam, this afternoon. Linley's been
 
 118 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 cross, I suppose; and as you don't dare to visit your resent- 
 ment upon him, you make me the scapegoat. That's it, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 Now Gerard had been observing Mrs. Hilliard's face un- 
 der cover of his idle chatter, and he saw that something was 
 wrong. He had no desire at all to force her confidence : 
 on the contrary, he dreaded it. But he saw it was coming. 
 
 "Gerard," she said with a suddenness which would have 
 disconcerted him if he had not been prepared for some sen- 
 sational onslaught, "did you hear a noise last night?" 
 
 Gerard continued to look at himself in the glass, and care- 
 fully flattened down a curl of his wavy hair above his right 
 ear. 
 
 "Noise! What noise?" 
 
 Netelka sprang up excitedly. 
 
 " There, you did hear it, I know. I can tell by the way 
 you answer me. Don't imagine that carefully careless man- 
 ner deceives me, for it doesn't. What was the noise? 
 Now, what was it? Was it Harrington Moseley quarrelling 
 with Linley, or " 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Hilliard, I give you my word I haven't 
 the least idea what it was. I did hear a slight noise, but I 
 didn't trouble myself to inquire what it was; and if I were 
 you, I shouldn't worry myself about it either." 
 
 "Ah! I can't take things like that. I must know." 
 
 Gerard slid down into a seat and shook his head at her 
 with a pretence of playfulness which had in it a touch of 
 very genuine seriousness. 
 
 " That is so like a woman ! No woman is ever satisfied 
 just to be happy and leave the rest alone! There's more 
 truth in the story of 'Bluebeard' than in all the histories 
 of England that ever were written. It happens every day." 
 
 "It's of no use to talk to me like that!" said Netelka 
 restlessly, while a flush rose in her cheeks. " I'm not a
 
 WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM? 119 
 
 child: I don't ask questions for the sake of asking; I ask 
 only when I must have an answer." 
 
 " But why? There is always some question or other one 
 can make one's self unhappy by asking, and more unhappy 
 still by getting an answer to ! Ask as many questions as you 
 like when you are unhappy ; then it fills up the time. When 
 you are happy, or fairly happy, be content to exist, and 
 don't worry yourself until you're obliged to. That's what 
 I do. And that's why I've left off looking intellectual, and 
 grown plump and bovine." 
 
 There was a pause. Then each stole a glance at the other, 
 and their eyes met. 
 
 Then Netelka moved with quick steps toward the door. 
 
 " How explosive you are this afternoon ! Where are you 
 going to now?" 
 
 " Down to the shops. I want some more cotton. I think 
 I can be back before tea." 
 
 "You can't if you walk. Have the carriage round?" 
 
 " No," answered she decidedly, her face clouding, " I pre- 
 fer to walk. " 
 
 Gerard followed her to the door, where she stood for a 
 few moments, as if she had not yet quite made up her 
 mind. 
 
 " Why do you never use the brougham now? A few 
 weeks ago you were delighted with it. It was the 'dearest 
 little thing in the world,' and you said you never would 
 walk any more. That was while it was the new toy, I sup- 
 pose?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Netelka coldly. "That was it. Now 
 I'm tired of it, and, "she looked at Gerard quite fiercely, 
 " I'm going to have it sold." 
 
 Gerard raised his eyebrows and looked down. 
 
 "Of course it is no business of mine," said he, looking, 
 however, disappointed and displeased, " but I think it's a
 
 120 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 pity. Linley will only spend the money you save on Wor- 
 cester plates and Crown Derby mugs." 
 
 "So he can, if he likes," retorted Netelka. "At any 
 jt j 
 
 She was almost hysterical, and Gerard, very much dis- 
 tressed himself, took her hand and led her back to the chair 
 she had occupied. 
 
 " Go on with the fluffy shells," said he gently. " I'll go 
 and get the cotton. And when I get back, Linley will be 
 here, and the tea, and you'll feel ever so much better." 
 
 By this time Netelka had wiped away two tears which she 
 had caught in the act of rolling down her cheeks, and had 
 assumed a staid and matronly demeanor. 
 
 "I shan't feel better," she said, with dogged dignity, 
 " because I'm quite well now. I have something to say 
 to you, Gerard. The Collinghams will be here this 
 evening -- " 
 
 "Oh, bother the Collinghams! At least I mean 
 they're awfully nice people, of course, and Jem's a dear 
 girl, and I adore her, and I fully intend some day to lay 
 my hand and heart at her feet. But -- " 
 
 "I won't have you talking in that flippant manner about 
 her," said Netelka. "Jem is a very, very nice girl, and a 
 great deal too good for you, and I won't have you playing 
 with her affections. Either you must propose to her and 
 have done with it, or else you must -- " 
 
 "Not propose to her and have done with it," suggested 
 Gerard with great buoyancy. " And if I choose that al- 
 ternative?" 
 
 "Why, then," said Netelka gravely, "I shall think that 
 you have behaved in a very dishonorable fashion, a fashion 
 which I had thought impossible in you !" 
 
 There was a pause. Gerard wanted to tell her that Jem 
 understood the situation better than she thought, better
 
 WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROM? 121 
 
 than she did herself, in fact. But this would have led to 
 other explanations upon which he must not venture. He 
 was above all things anxious to let things remain in all 
 respects as they were: change could only be for the 
 worse. 
 
 "It doesn't do to rush these things," he said at last, with 
 an assumption of a meditative manner. " I have heard you 
 say twenty times that marriage should not be entered upon 
 hastily. Then why do you wish to make me transgress your 
 own law?" 
 
 " Oh, I want to see things settled, that's all," said Netelka, 
 restlessly. "Linley and I were talking about this last 
 night." 
 
 She did not add that Linley was- strongly opposed to the 
 idea of Gerard's engagement to Miss Collingham, and that 
 it was a vague suspicion founded upon this opposition which 
 made her so anxious for the engagement to become a defi- 
 nite thing. 
 
 Not unnaturally Gerard, ignorant of her real reason, 
 found for himself what seemed for him a probable one. 
 
 " If I'm becoming too much of a nuisance here if, with- 
 out exactly wanting to get rid of me, you begin to feel that 
 it is time I took myself off why, then, of course, it's easy 
 enough to settle something. I haven't yet given up my 
 chambers, and " 
 
 " Yes, that was it. That's what I meant, of course," said 
 Netelka under her breath. 
 
 She was at work again upon one of the shells, and her 
 fingers were moving quickly but clumsily, her hook catch- 
 ing in the thread at every other stitch, with lamentable re- 
 sults. Her head was bent down, so that Gerard could not 
 see her face ; but there was answer enough in her attitude, 
 in her hurried movements, in her broken voice, to one part 
 of his question.
 
 122 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " Don't yon want me to go, then?" 
 
 He said it below his breath, bending to try to catch sight 
 of her face. 
 
 She did not answer at once. She tried to seem so much 
 occupied with her work that she had no spare attention to 
 give to him ; and indeed he could see for himself that she 
 had got her cotton into a terrible tangle. 
 
 As he stood in the same attitude beside her, Netelka saw, 
 without raising her head, that the door, which she had left 
 ajar, was pushed gently open. She looked up then and saw 
 Linley retreating without noise. 
 
 She sprang up at once. 
 
 " Linley ! Linley !" she called out, and Gerard made way 
 for her as she ran to the door, seized her husband by the 
 arm, and brought him back into the room. His face was 
 pervaded with a tranquil joy, and in his hand he held a 
 Dresden group, not particularly pretty, but unmistakably 
 antique. 
 
 " What were you trying to run away again for?" asked 
 Netelka abruptly, as soon as she caught him. 
 
 " To avoid the very rush at me you are making now," re- 
 plied he promptly, as he gently tried to shake her off. " One 
 of your impulsive movements might do irreparable damage. 
 You are so terribly robust, Netta ! Just look at the fingers 
 and the leaves even the tree is quite perfect, a most un- 
 common thing in a piece as old as this. Look at the 
 mark." 
 
 And he turned it upside down for the admiration of the 
 company, who gazed politely but with calmness. 
 
 Gerard, however, saw that, however calm she might man- 
 age to be on the subject of the china, Netelka was on the 
 verge of an outburst of emotion of a more serious kind. He 
 glanced at her for his orders, and she gave him a look which 
 he understood to be a signal to go.
 
 WHERE DOES THE MONEY COME FROMt 123 
 
 "I must make haste and get that cotton, Mrs. Hilliard," 
 said he, "or I shall keep dinner waiting." 
 
 He went out, and Linley, who tried to escape, but could 
 not, was left alone with his wife, who was in one of those 
 terribly emotional humors of hers which he found so trying 
 to his nerves.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION. 
 
 LINLEY looked quite frightened. 
 
 " Well, good-by, dear ; I must go and lock this up before 
 I dress for dinner," said he as he tried to follow Gerard out 
 of the room. 
 
 But encumbered by his treasure, he could not move fast 
 enough to escape from his wife, who laid a determined hand 
 on his arm, which forced him to stop, lest in the struggle 
 to get away his group should be broken. 
 
 " Wait one moment, Linley," she said in a choking voice, 
 " I want to speak to you I want to speak to you." 
 
 "Well, well, what is it? I do hope you're not going to 
 make a scene," said Linley pettishly. " Won't it do 
 some other time, when I haven't got my china to look 
 after?" 
 
 "No," said Netelka, "I must speak now. I haven't al- 
 ways the courage, but something you did just now has 
 screwed me up," and her eyes flashed. "Why did you try 
 to slip out of the room just now?" 
 
 Her husband turned upon her with an irritable frown : 
 
 " Well, you seemed to be carrying on a very interesting 
 conversation with Waller. I thought I might be in the 
 way." 
 
 Netelka withdrew her hand quickly from his arm, rais- 
 ing it at the same time with so much passion in her face that 
 Linley flinched, as if he thought she was going to strike 
 him. She saw his movement and, her mood changing sud- 
 denly, she burst into tears and turned away sobbing.
 
 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION. 125 
 
 Again Linley thought he saw an opportunity of getting 
 away, and he moved hurriedly to the door. Again she in- 
 tercepted him. 
 
 "I haven't said what I wanted to say yet, Linley," she 
 wailed plaintively, in a broken voice, " and I must say it. 
 What is this you are doing? Don't you care for me at all 
 any longer? How am I different from what I was when you 
 used to be kind to me, and fond of me? What could I have 
 done to please you more than I have done? Oh, Linley, 
 tell me ! I am so miserable I feel as if my heart was break- 
 ing!" 
 
 Linley assumed an expression of deeply injured inno- 
 cence. 
 
 " Why, what does all this mean? What on earth have you 
 got to complain about? Haven't you got everything in the 
 world you can wish for?" 
 
 " No, I haven't. I would give up everything I had to be 
 happy with you again. But you won't let me. Linley, 
 don't you know the dangers you put me in? Can't you see 
 that this Gerard " 
 
 She stopped, not liking to go on. Linley would not un- 
 derstand. 
 
 "What's the matter with him? He's the dearest lad in 
 the world, and I'm sure you have nothing to complain of 
 in his conduct to you. You're talking in a very silly way, 
 Netta. I should never insult you by doubting your discre- 
 tion, or the influence for good you have most certainly ex- 
 ercised on this young fellow." 
 
 Netelka shivered with disgust. As he made this some- 
 what canting speech, she felt that she hated her husband. 
 She was thrown back upon herself, and did not know how 
 next to attack him. 
 
 Before she had recovered herself, the man-servant en- 
 tered the room with a note on a salver.
 
 126 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Netelka, to whom the note was addressed, opened it and 
 read the following words: 
 
 " Mrs. Collingham regrets that she cannot fulfil her engagement 
 to dine with Mrs. Billiard this evening, as after the disturbance out- 
 side 'The Firs' last night, Mrs. Collingham feels that it is not a 
 house to which she would care to go with her daughter. " 
 
 Netelka, who had taken care to remain near the door, 
 handed the note to her husband. Her hand shook as she 
 did so. He snatched it angrily, ran his eyes over the lines, 
 then crumpled the paper up, and going to the fireplace 
 inserted the ball of paper carefully between the bars and 
 watched it burn. 
 
 He was not at all put out, however. 
 
 " Silly old canary !" murmured he softly. " Why doesn't 
 she go to bed at proper hours, as all sensible women do, and 
 then she wouldn't be disturbed!" 
 
 " What was the cause of this disturbance?" asked Ne- 
 telka hoarsely. 
 
 " Oh, nothing, nothing at all. Moseley brought a friend 
 down, a young fellow who took too much champagne and 
 kicked up an awful row as he went out. I was afraid he 
 would wake you." And Linley looked at her out of the cor- 
 ners of his eyes with a peculiar expression, watchful, curi- 
 ous, and mistrustful. " However, thank heaven, you've got 
 some brains in your head, and are not scared so easily as our 
 vivacious friend next door." 
 
 There was dead silence for a minute. Linley, seeing that 
 she was bent upon detaining him yet a little longer, made 
 the best of it, sitting down and hugging his china group. 
 His wife was looking at him steadily. 
 
 "I did hear a noise," she said at last, in a whisper. 
 " But but it sounded like half a dozen voices at least, and 
 I heard some one say that he had been cheated/"
 
 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION. 12? 
 
 "Oh, stuff!" said Linley gently. "Keally, Netta, if 
 you're not worse than old Mother Collingham, you're just as 
 bad ! Now, my dear, I don't want to quarrel with you, but I 
 can't stand this sort of thing. Pray, did you hear any 
 more?" 
 
 "N-n-n-no," said Netelka, trembling. 
 
 Linley got up, and this time she let him go to the door 
 without further molestation. She thought he seemed re- 
 lieved by her answer. He gave her a frosty little kiss, and 
 spoke more cheerfully. 
 
 "Now don't find any more mares'-nests, and don't take 
 silly fancies into your head, or I shall begin really to think 
 that I don't care for you so much as I used to. Kiss me, 
 dear." 
 
 Netelka obeyed without warmth, and Linley trotted off 
 quite happily, removing a little dust from the fingers of one 
 of his china shepherdesses as he went. 
 
 Mr. Moseley was in the drawing-room when Netelka en- 
 tered the room dressed for dinner ; and she noticed that for 
 the first time he was rather curt in his manner to her. 
 When she asked him point-blank whether he had not some 
 noisy visitors on the previous evening without her knowl- 
 edge, he frowned, and said shortly that he must refer her 
 to her husband for any information she wanted about the 
 guests in the house. 
 
 Netelka turned away from him without further remark, 
 and she saw in the glass that he looked at her with suspi- 
 cion and anxiety. 
 
 When Netelka retired to her room that night, she had 
 determined to satisfy herself of the truth or falsehood of 
 certain suspicions she had formed without any aid but that 
 of her own eyes and ears. So she put on her dressing-gown 
 and sat by the fire until she saw by her watch that it was 
 two o'clock. Then she opened her door very softly and
 
 128 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 stole along the corridors of the old house, in the direction 
 of Mr. Moseley's rooms. 
 
 The building was a rambling structure, loudly praised 
 by visitors for its picturesqueness, and as loudly condemned 
 by the inmates for its draughtiness and inconvenience. The 
 two rooms which had been set apart for Mr. Moseley's use 
 were in one of those substantial additions to the original 
 dwelling which Netelka called the "afterthoughts." They 
 were connected with the main building by a long room 
 which, being a thoroughfare from one part of the house to 
 the other, had fallen out of use except for that purpose. 
 All these rooms, therefore, were now kept locked up, and 
 no one ever visited them in Mr. Moseley's absence except 
 the head housemaid, an elderly person who had been in Mr. 
 Moseley's service before, who kept them dusted and in order. 
 
 To this locked door, therefore, Netelka now came. She 
 tried the handle ; then she knocked. No one came. But 
 she heard the hum of voices, and an occasional burst of 
 laughter. She was not going to play eavesdropper ; she 
 knocked again. Finally she rattled the handle of the door. 
 She now felt certain that there was a gambling party going 
 on, and she meant to break it up if she could, or at least 
 to disturb the gamblers. Whatever came of her interfer- 
 ence, she was not going to allow men to be cheated under a 
 roof which was nominally hers. But this locked door threat- 
 ened to put an insuperable obstacle to the carrying out of 
 her plan. 
 
 At last she gave up the attack on this side as hopeless, and 
 remembering that there was a misused bedroom from which 
 a view could be obtained of the windows of all three of the 
 locked-up rooms, she turned aside and opened the door of 
 a room on her right hand. 
 
 The room was small, and smelt musty from long disuse. 
 Netelka went to the window, and saw the confirmation of
 
 AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION. 129 
 
 her fears. The blinds of the largest of the three rooms were 
 drawn down, but it was evidently well-lighted, and the shad- 
 ows thrown upon the blinds showed that the room must be 
 full of people. It was worse than she had feared. She 
 threw up the window-sash : below her was an outbuilding, 
 the roof of which would form a dangerous but not wholly 
 impracticable footway between the room she was in and 
 the long passage-room in which the gambling was going on. 
 
 With some difficulty she got out upon the leads. They 
 were wet and slippery from recent rain, and it was only by 
 the utmost caution that she could keep herself from sliding 
 from them to the ground below as she crawled along. 
 
 She had got under the window she wished to reach, and 
 was stretching up her hand to grasp the sill, when she heard 
 a sound behind her, and saw that the window by which she 
 had got out had been shut by some one. It was at the same 
 moment that she discovered that she could not reach the 
 ledge of the window above her. 
 9
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 A BECOGNTTION". 
 
 IT was a moment of extreme danger for Netelka when, 
 her feet npon the slippery leads and her hands trying in 
 vain to get a strong grip on the window-ledge above her, 
 she heard the window through which she had come close. 
 
 Her heart seemed to leap up within her ; her brain reeled. 
 What had she done for her husband to treat her like this? 
 She could not doubt that it was Linley who had shut the 
 window; indeed, a minute later she heard his voice and 
 that of the Jew in altercation in the room above her. 
 
 The fact was that Moseley and Linley had both heard 
 her knocking at the door, and that when she retreated her 
 husband had followed her and watched her daring descent 
 upon the roof outside. To do the Jew justice, he had been 
 rather disgusted when Linley pulled down the sash. 
 
 "No," he had said, "leave the poor little woman alone. 
 She can't get in at the other window, as she wants to do. 
 Leave the way open for her to come back. She's a mis- 
 chievous little puss, but she's done us a good turn, after 
 all, with Waller, and besides hang it, man, she's your 
 wife after all." 
 
 But Linley was looking livid, with a cold anger quite 
 unlike the Jew's more human impatience. 
 
 " Let her break her neck !" said he between his closed 
 teeth. " I'm sick of the long faces she pulls at me now, 
 and of her prattle about devotion and duty. H'm ! pretty 
 devotion ! It will land us all in prison some day, if we 
 don't look out!"
 
 A RECOGNITION. 131 
 
 In the mean time a faint cry from the subject of their 
 discussion made it evident that there was no time to be 
 lost in making up their minds what to do. The Jew broke 
 away from Linley, and re-entering the long passage-room, 
 threw open the window and looked out in assumed aston- 
 ishment. 
 
 "Good gracious!" he exclaimed. " Mrs. Hilliard ! How 
 did you get out there?" 
 
 She made no answer: she was indeed growing faint and 
 giddy, and help had only come just in time to save her 
 from a dangerous fall. She heard, without quite under- 
 standing, a few rapidly uttered sentences in voices which 
 seemed familiar to her. Then she felt herself drawn slowly 
 up, being able to offer only a little assistance to her res- 
 cuers. And when she came entirely to herself, she discov- 
 ered that she was in the passage-room, and that the face 
 nearest to her was that of Arthur Sainsbury. 
 
 She had not seen either Arthur or Sam Teale for some 
 time, and she was at once struck by a change in Arthur's 
 appearance. He looked older, and he looked more dissi- 
 pated than he had done. 
 
 Netelka sprang up, and putting her hand to her head, 
 remembered the object she had had in making her rash 
 expedition. The door of the inner room was ajar: she ran 
 across to it, and threw it open before any one could stop her. 
 The sight which met her eyes was so surprising that for a 
 few seconds she stood in the doorway motionless and dumb. 
 
 Instead of the long card-table, surrounded by a party of 
 excited gamblers, she saw about a dozen gentlemen seated 
 about the room in the easy attitudes of the smoking-room, 
 each with his cigar, his pipe, or his cigarette; three or 
 four small tables, bearing all the paraphernalia necessary 
 for the concoction of any drink they might fancy. Nothing 
 like the big card-table she had imagined was to be seen.
 
 132 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Those members of the party who were near enough to 
 the door to see her rose, as if in surprise. That broke the 
 spell. For some of them were bad actors, and her quick 
 feminine instinct then revealed to her that the little scene 
 before her had been carefully prepared for her benefit. 
 
 There was nothing for her to do, however, but to retreat 
 with a muttered apology. As she turned, she met the 
 Jew's black eyes fixed upon her with amusement and 
 mockery, while behind him Linley stood, with an expres- 
 sion upon his face which chilled and frightened her. 
 
 Harrington Moseley was disposed to be jocular. 
 
 "I suppose, my dear Mrs. Hilliard, that you thought 
 we were up to some mischief, and wanted to keep an eye 
 upon us. But it's lucky for you that we kept an eye upon 
 you, isn't it?" 
 
 " I quite appreciate your kindness, and I thank you," 
 said Netelka rather ungratefully as she bowed to him and 
 left the room. 
 
 She did not see Linley again until the following morning 
 at breakfast time, when his manner was no more genial 
 than on the previous night. Netelka had had time to 
 think over what she had seen and heard, and she resolved 
 to make another attempt to win from Lady Kenslow some 
 more palatable advice than she had received on the last 
 occasion. Linley approved her proposal to go up to town 
 with so much heartiness that Netelka thought he would 
 like to get rid of her by allowing her to remain with her 
 aunt. 
 
 On leaving the house, she had to pass " Maisonette" on 
 her way to the station. Mrs. Collingham's note had only 
 distressed her, because it confirmed her own suspicions, and 
 because it put an obstacle in the way of Gerard's meetings 
 with Jem : she did not care enough for the lady herself to 
 be troubled by any airs she might choose to give herself,
 
 A RECOGNITION. 133 
 
 or by any view of " The Firs" that she might choose to 
 take. 
 
 Netelka, therefore, scarcely glanced at the fantastic win- 
 dows of the little house as she went by, and she thought 
 it better to take no notice of a loud rapping at one of the 
 windows which she knew must be the work of Jem. 
 
 Before she reached the station, however, she became 
 aware that she was being pursued by a flying figure. Hav- 
 ing no wish to embroil Jem with her stepmother, and 
 being, moreover, late for her own train, Netelka still paid 
 no heed to the pursuer, but presently quickened her own 
 pace as she saw that the signals were down for the Water- 
 loo train. She just managed to jump, panting, into the 
 nearest first-class compartment, when she heard a loud 
 girlish voice cry out, or rather scream : 
 
 "Wait! oh, do wait!" 
 
 "Come along, Miss! Time's up!" cried the guard. 
 
 The next moment Jem, gloveless, breathless, and all but 
 hatless, jumped into Netelka's compartment and sprawled, 
 gasping, on the opposite seat. 
 
 "I I I know you're disgusted! I know you don't 
 want to see me or any of us any more," she panted out, 
 in jerks, as the train moved on. " But I couldn't help it. 
 I felt I must see you, and so here I've come. And I 
 haven't even paid my fare, and I've only got a shilling!" 
 
 She looked pathetically pretty, with her blue eyes full 
 of tears, her fair hair shaken loose about her face, and a 
 wistful expression about her little open mouth. 
 
 " Never mind the fare," said Netelka, smiling. " Do you 
 mean that you only got in to see me?" 
 
 "Yes, that's it," exclaimed Jem. "I've thought of 
 such a lot of things, things I felt I must say to you. And 
 now I've forgotten them all, even if I dared to say them." 
 
 Netelka was moved by the girl's earnestness, and the
 
 134 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 tears came into her own eyes. Jem could not see this, 
 however, for her eyes were cast down by this time, and 
 she was struggling with the shyness to which she was so 
 painfully subject. 
 
 " Of course, of course, you'll laugh at me, if you don't 
 think me awfully impertinent," said Jem, turning scarlet 
 as she approached the delicate matter. " But when mamma 
 wrote that note, I felt as if I must slap her." 
 
 " Well, it was very good of you to feel like that," said 
 Netelka, smiling. 
 
 " Oh, no, it wasn't. It wasn't good at all. It was just 
 natural, that's all." 
 
 "Well, it's natural in you to be good." 
 
 Jem took no notice of this remark, which she took to 
 be a mere frivolous compliment unworthy of attention. 
 , "You didn't mind it! Say you didn't mind!" she cried 
 earnestly, seizing Netelka's hand, and looking intently 
 into her face. 
 
 " I can truly say that I did not," answered Netelka, 
 "except that I was afraid we might see no more of 
 you." 
 
 " Did you mind that, really? At any rate, you can't have 
 minded it as much as I did. I was frantic about it. But 
 you needn't mind mamma: she's so impulsive; she'll do the 
 craziest things on the spur of the moment, things she 
 could tear her hair for afterward." 
 
 "My dear, she was quite right." 
 
 "No, she wasn't. Oh, I beg your pardon; of course I 
 know it's rude to contradict, but you mustn't mind the 
 things I do and say, because I'm a wild Indian as far as 
 proper behavior is concerned. But how can it be right to 
 throw over your friends when anything unpleasant happens 
 to them?" 
 
 Netelka looked at her, rather startled. Jem took the
 
 A RECOGNITION. 135 
 
 seat beside her and gently caressed one of the lady's deli- 
 cately gloved hands in her own uncovered fingers. 
 
 " Oh, we know a good deal more about it than you do, 
 I'm sure," said Jem, mysteriously. " You see the cabs and 
 the broughams stand on our side, not yours. You couldn't 
 see them for the trees." 
 
 " Cabs and broughams !" 
 
 " Yes. Every night. "We have known for a long time 
 that it was just the same sort of people coming down that 
 used to come down before. Papa says it's a club, and that 
 very rich men and very well-known men come. And mam- 
 ma has known all about it, and has been quite ready to shut 
 her eyes, on the chance of meeting some of the great people, 
 as we met young Lord Orpington at your house the other 
 night. Only when it came to the disturbance there was 
 last night, she took it into her head that she ought cer- 
 tainly to stand upon her dignity. She'll be all right again 
 in a day or two in fact, she's coming round now, and 
 she'll pretend to have forgotten all about her note, you see 
 if she doesn't!" 
 
 Now Netelka, although she had not known all this before, 
 was not surprised to hear it. She knew that a great many 
 of the men whom Harrington Moseley brought down to 
 dine at " The Firs," and whom he called his " swell friends," 
 belonged to a class which does not choose its intimates from 
 men like the Jew, although it profits by their financial as- 
 sistance. And she had often asked herself, when these 
 gentlemen bade her good-night, whether they were really 
 going to catch the last train to town as they pretended, or 
 whether they were going to join other " friends" of Har- 
 rington Moseley upstairs. 
 
 She had remained silent for some moments, when Jem's 
 voice, speaking very softly, roused her from the abstraction 
 into which she had fallen.
 
 136 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "Why do you look like that, if you don't mind?" 
 
 "I do mind; I mind very much chiefly on your ac- 
 count." 
 
 "Mine?" 
 
 "Yes, yours and Gerard's. You won't be able to see so 
 much of each other." 
 
 Jem laughed rather mockingly. 
 
 "He won't care, as long as he can see some one else!" 
 she said rather timidly. 
 
 "Do you mean me, child?" 
 
 " Of course I do. It's plain enough that he doesn't 
 trouble his head much about anybody else. It's quite 
 natural, and I don't mind, because it's you, and you won't 
 do him any harm, only good. You see, you can keep him 
 away from gambling and the things that hurt him: I 
 couldn't. I'm not jealous." 
 
 " You mean that you've got tired of him in your turn?" 
 
 "No. I don't mean that at all. I like him just as 
 much as ever. And if you were a wicked coquette, I 
 should be jealous. But you are not, and I love you, and 
 those are reasons enough for me." 
 
 Netelka kissed her. 
 
 "You're an odd girl," she said, "and I don't quite 
 know what to make of you. And now what am I to do 
 with you when we get to Waterloo? Shall I send you 
 back, or what?" 
 
 " I wish you could take me on with you wherever you're 
 going," said Jem wistfully. "Mamma is very cross to-day, 
 and I should be so glad to be out of the way for a little while." 
 
 "But what would she say if she knew that you were 
 with me?" 
 
 Jem chuckled. 
 
 " She'd be delighted. It would bridge over the way to 
 making it up after her note."
 
 A RECOGNITION. 137 
 
 But Netelka thought this was too optimistic a view to 
 take, and when they got out at Waterloo she was still won- 
 dering what argument she could use to induce Jem to re- 
 turn home. Jem was at that period of life when irresolu- 
 tion alternates with fits of perverse obstinacy, and it was 
 one of the obstinate fits that was on her now. 
 
 Netelka hesitated to take the girl on with her to her 
 Aunt Mary's, since Lady Kenslow's susceptibilities would 
 certainly be offended by the introduction to her of a young 
 lady with untidy hair, a shabby jacket, and no gloves. 
 Some of these defects might be set right, certainly. But 
 there would remain enough of the untamed savage about 
 poor Jem's manner and appearance to produce a bad im- 
 pression upon the calm-mannered, carefully dressed woman 
 of the world. To think a way out of the difficulty, Netelka 
 took the young girl to the book-stall, and considered the 
 situation while her eyes ran mechanically over the covers 
 of the current literature of the day. 
 
 A hissing whisper from Jem made her start. 
 
 "That gentleman over there knows you, I'm sure!" 
 murmured Jem. 
 
 Netelka was conscious that she blushed, and that her 
 breath came more quickly. The trial flashed into her mind, 
 and without looking at the man indicated by Jem, she 
 walked away in the opposite direction. Jem was surprised. 
 
 "You didn't look at him!" said she, as she came up 
 with Netelka. " Why do you walk away like that? I'm 
 sure he isn't a stranger; he must be some old friend. And 
 he has a nice face," she added, ingenuously. 
 
 "Oh," said Netelka, with an affectation of indifference, 
 " I don't want to be delayed now by talking to any old 
 friends. I I " 
 
 She stammered, and stopped in her speech, and the color 
 suddenly left her face, even to her lips.
 
 138 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " Netelka ! Netelka ! Ah, I was sure it was you !" 
 Instinctively Jem fell back a step as the stranger came 
 up, for there was something in his voice which told her 
 that this was not an ordinary meeting between two old ac- 
 quaintances. 
 
 "Hugh!" faltered Netelka. And there came up from 
 her heart to her lips a very faint cry, only just loud 
 enough to reach the ears of the man himself and Jem, but 
 plaintive enough to bring tears to the young girl's eyes 
 by its note of bitter pain.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 LOVE-SECRETS. 
 
 JEM retreated discreetly to the book-stall, and read the 
 title of all the papers, while at the same time she took in, 
 by furtive glances, every detail of the appearance of the 
 unknown gentleman who called Mrs. Hilliard by her Chris- 
 tian name, and whom she called by his. 
 
 He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a bronzed 
 and ruddy complexion, fair hair touched with gray about 
 the ears, and mild blue eyes. He was about five-and- 
 thirty years of age, but looked older, and he wore the un- 
 definable and unmistakable look of one who has been 
 " roughing it" for a long period. 
 
 " This is lucky," said he, with the slight hesitation of one 
 who is not sure that he has got the word. " I thought 
 I don't know why I thought so, but I did think that you 
 were up in the North still. You are married, are you not?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Netelka briefly; "didn't you know?" 
 
 She turned her face quickly up towards his, full of 
 anxiety. 
 
 " Well, yes, I did know that. But I want to know a lot 
 more. Are you happy?" 
 
 He looked searchingly down into her face, and Netelka 
 blushed uneasily as she felt that he read in her eyes a truer 
 answer than her lips gave him. 
 
 " Happy ! Of course I am. Did you ever know me to 
 be anything else?" 
 
 "In the old days no," said Hugh Thorndyke, senti- 
 mentally.
 
 140 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 He had been in love with Netelka in those old days, but 
 had gone away without asking her to be his wife because 
 he had believed her to be a coquette, who flirted with him as 
 she did with half a dozen others, without heart enough to 
 care for any one of them. He had told himself often enough 
 since then that he had been too hasty ; but this was when 
 there were thousands of miles between them. And before 
 he had made up his mind whether he should write to her 
 or not, the brief mention of her marriage had reached 
 him. 
 
 " Well, the new days are the same as the old as far as I 
 am concerned," said Netelka, with an assumption of flip- 
 pancy. " I am happy, because I never intend to be any- 
 thing else. And you how are you getting on? Are you 
 married too? Have you left the Bush, or the Colorado 
 mines, or wherever it was you were, for good? I really 
 mustn't stop to ask questions now, I am in such a hurry; 
 but still I should like to hear as much as you can tell me 
 about yourself in about twelve words." 
 
 "Thank you," said Hugh rather dryly. "I came back 
 from Basutoland last week, and I am not married, and I 
 think that's all you wanted to know." 
 
 She held out her hand. 
 
 "It isn't half what I wanted to know," she said, "but 
 it's all I have time to hear. I hope we shall meet again." 
 
 "Thank you," said Hugh again, evidently both hurt 
 and offended. " I dare say we shall. You live in London?" 
 
 "Oh, no," said Netelka, quickly, " I live a long way off. 
 But of course everybody is always coming to London; it's 
 the rendezvous of the world, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes, I suppose so." 
 
 He had let her go ; when suddenly, as she rejoined Jem, 
 his longing to know something more of the fortunes of the 
 woman he still loved made him swallow his offended pride
 
 LOVE-SECRETS. 141 
 
 and run after her. The offended pride was, however, still 
 to be noticed in his tone. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. Am I too presumptuous, or may 
 I know the name of your husband yours, you know? I 
 never heard it." 
 
 She was trembling violently, and she answered in such a 
 breathless sort of way that Jem glanced at her with eyes 
 full of a furtive inquiry. 
 
 " Oh, of course, I forgot to tell you. Hilliard, my name 
 is Hilliard now. What shall I do with you, dear?" she 
 went on, to Jem. 
 
 " Oh, you needn't do anything with me. If you can't 
 take me with you, I can just get into the next train and 
 go back home." 
 
 " But you'll get lost, I know you will. You say you al- 
 ways do." 
 
 Hugh Thorndyke, standing a few steps away, came for- 
 ward. 
 
 " Let me relieve you of your responsibility and see this 
 young lady to her train," said he. 
 
 Jem showed so much willingness that Netelka, much 
 against her will, had to introduce them. She did not 
 want Hugh to know where she lived. So she dispatched 
 Hugh to the booking-office to get Miss Collingham a ticket, 
 and seized the opportunity of saying to Jem : 
 
 " Don't tell Mr. Thorndyke where I live, or anything 
 about me. I don't want him to come down, as I'm sure 
 he and my husband wouldn't get on well together." 
 
 Jem took in this injunction with the alert interest of 
 young girl who finds herself upon the trail of a romance. 
 
 So Netelka got into a hansom, leaving Jem and Hugh 
 Thorndyke together. He was very much attracted by the 
 pretty, shy face of the young girl, and he was quite glad 
 to find that she had just missed her train and would have
 
 142 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 nearly an hour to wait for the next. Jem, on the other 
 hand, felt nothing but embarrassment, being sure that this 
 distinguished-looking man with the quiet manners must 
 think her a great bore. 
 
 "Please don't wait," said she in tones of distress as he 
 walked up and down beside her; "I don't at all mind 
 being by myself now I know which platform to go to." 
 
 " If that means that I'm a nuisance, of course I'll take 
 myself off without delay," said Hugh, gravely. "But if it 
 doesn't " 
 
 "Indeed it doesn't," interpolated Jem, with great fervor. 
 
 " Then I'd very much rather stay, if I may." 
 
 " Of course you may stay if you like, and I shall be very 
 glad. But I don't like to take up your time a man's 
 time is so much more valuable than a girl's and besides, 
 I have no conversation. Everybody says so, and I always 
 bore people." 
 
 "Well, wouldn't it be a feather in my cap, then, if I 
 could manage to pass a full three-quarters of an hour with 
 you without being bored! I should really like to try. 
 And in the mean time you might tell me where you got 
 the preposterously extravagant notion that a man's time is 
 more valuable than a girl's." 
 
 " Oh, well, it ought to be ; that's what I meant. There 
 are so many more things a man can do." 
 
 " Many more ways of getting into mischief, perhaps?" 
 
 "Yes, I think that, too," said Jem. 
 
 " And you think time is valuable that is spent in getting 
 into mischief?" 
 
 " To the people who enjoy that occupation, I suppose it 
 is," said Jem. 
 
 And then, unconsciously, she sighed. 
 
 " This question is getting too abstruse for discussion oa 
 the draughty platform of a railway station," said he, dida.Q-
 
 LOVE-SECRETS. 143 
 
 tically. " What do yon say to our walking across the bridge 
 into the Strand and finding an 'Aerated,' where we could 
 fortify ourselves for argument with coffee and cake?" 
 
 Jem's face lighted up. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said she. 
 
 Then her face clouded. 
 
 " Oh, no," said she. 
 
 " Two flatly contradictory answers in one breath ! It is 
 a little confusing." 
 
 "I meant," said Jem, slowly and deliberately, "the first 
 answer to express my feeling on the matter, and my second 
 to express my resolution." 
 
 " I see. I am not the sort of person you would like to be 
 seen eating cake with!" 
 
 Jem laughed derisively. 
 
 "That's it, of course. A creature without any 
 gloves !" 
 
 And she held out the bare hands she had been trying to 
 hide. 
 
 "I should have thought," pursued he, "that Mrs. Hil- 
 liard's introduction would have sufficed for my moral char- 
 acter. But I think I understand." And he sighed with 
 unnecessary heaviness. " It was because I suggested coffee ! 
 There is a wicked, free-and-easy, cigarette and cognac 
 sort of a flavor about the word coffee. If I had said 'cocoa 
 and a bun, ' you would have gone with me to the end of 
 Oxford Street!" 
 
 Jem was laughing hilariously. 
 
 "It isn't that," said she. "But for one thing, I'm not 
 fit to be seen ; for another, at home they'll wonder what's 
 become of me if I miss this train; and for a third, you 
 will I mean you would find me very stupid." 
 
 As she spoke the words referring to her personal appear- 
 ance, Jem put up her hand in a frantic and fruitless en-
 
 144 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 deavor to put her hair tidy and her hat straight with one 
 large, sweeping movement. 
 
 "If you would only allow me," said Hugh, very meekly, 
 " I really could do more good than you. I have had sis- 
 ters, and I have made an exhaustive study of the nature 
 and uses of hairpins. There's nobody inside the waiting- 
 room but an old gentleman with a newspaper. If you 
 will step inside and take your hat off, I assure you I shall 
 perform wonders." 
 
 Jem giggled, hesitated, consented. She took off her 
 hat, exhibiting an untidy head of beautiful fair hair. Of 
 course she said, "There, thank you; that'll do beauti- 
 fully!" before her coiffeur had finished, evoking indignant 
 protests. 
 
 " I had inserted the last two hairpins in quite a mas- 
 terly fashion, when you undid it all by that light skirmish- 
 ing movement," he grumbled. 
 
 " It doesn't matter. I really must go back home," said 
 Jem, with a recurrence of self-consciousness. " Indeed I 
 should bore you. Nobody who admires Mrs. Hilliard could 
 help being bored by me." 
 
 Hugh looked rather surprised, and Jem blushed deeply. 
 
 "That's just like me!" cried Jem, despairingly. "Of 
 course I ought not to have said that." 
 
 " Why not? It is quite true that I do admire Mrs. Hil- 
 liard very much. I was in love with her before her mar- 
 riage." 
 
 " Oh, I could see that," exclaimed the young girl quickly. 
 
 The obtuse male creature was astonished. 
 
 " How could you see that?" he asked quickly in his turn. 
 
 " Oh, it was easy enough. I I "Well, I've been in 
 
 love myself." 
 
 Hugh looked interested. 
 
 "Wouldn't it be rather good fun," suggested he, after
 
 LOVE-SECRETS. 145 
 
 a moment's pause to recover from his astonishment at this 
 artless confession, "to go somewhere to some picture- 
 show, for instance and compare notes?" 
 
 "It would rather," admitted Jem. 
 
 Hugh hailed a hansom. 
 
 "Where to, sir?" asked the driver, looking through the 
 trapdoor above them when they had got in. 
 
 " Oh, to to to a glove-shop first. " 
 
 Jem had a horrible pang of torture. She had not 
 brought her purse ! 
 10
 
 CHAPTEK XIX. 
 HUGH THORNDYKE'S SUSPICIONS. 
 
 "On, no," cried Jem Collingham faintly, as the driver 
 of the hansom said, " Eight, sir," and whipped up his horse. 
 
 Hugh Thorndyke turned to her gravely. 
 
 " I I haven't brought my purse !" faltered Jem. " And 
 and " 
 
 "But I've brought mine; at least, no, I never carry a 
 purse, it saves the pickpockets so much trouble if one does. 
 But I have a whole handful of coins scattered about me, 
 and I can become your creditor to any reasonable amount. 
 Here we are. What is your size? Sixes, I suppose?" 
 
 "Six and three-quarters," murmured Jem bashfully. 
 "It's a dreadfully large size, isn't it?" 
 
 " Shockingly ! However, we can make an effort to pro- 
 cure hand-coverings of those preposterous dimensions." 
 
 They went into the shop, and Jem was astonished to find 
 that she was promptly fitted with a pair of gloves which 
 made her hands look much smaller than usual. Jem was 
 delighted. She saw Hugh put down a sovereign, and her 
 pleasure was changed to consternation when she caught 
 sight of the change as he took it up from the counter. 
 When they got outside the shop, her companion was alarmed 
 to see that every trace of color had left her face. 
 
 "What's the matter? Are are you " 
 
 " Wh what did they cost?" faltered Jem. 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure. The proper price, I suppose." 
 
 " The proper price of my gloves is always one and eleven
 
 HUGH THORNDYKE'S SUSPICIONS. 147 
 
 pence halfpenny," said Jem with dilated eyes. " But these 
 oh, let me look at your change!" 
 
 " I'm afraid it's got mixed up with the rest of my wealth 
 now," said he, diving into the pocket in which he had put 
 the money. " But it's all right; if the proper price is one 
 and eleven pence halfpenny, no doubt it was one and 
 eleven pence halfpenny that they took." 
 
 "Oh, no, it wasn't," groaned Jem. "They only gave 
 you back a half-sovereign and two half-crowns, I'm sure. 
 And when mamma hears that I've paid five shillings for a 
 pair of gloves, I don't know what she will say." 
 
 "But you didn't," said Hugh. "It was all the fault 
 of my stupidity in letting them cheat me out of three 
 shillings and a halfpenny. " 
 
 Jem shook her head. 
 
 "They didn't cheat you," said she with conviction. 
 " These are lovely gloves, the best I've ever had. The one 
 and eleven pence halfpenny ones always bulge out in the 
 wrong places and show white at the seams, when they don't 
 split up directly when you put them on." 
 
 By this time they were back in the cab. Her companion 
 frowned in some bewilderment. 
 
 "But surely," said Hugh gently, "if the cheap ones 
 bulge out and split up, and the dear ones are everything 
 they should be, it is a mistake not to call the cheap ones 
 dear and the dear ones cheap." 
 
 " Mamma doesn't think so," said Jem with a sigh. 
 
 Hugh Thorndyke took it for granted that Miss Colling- 
 ham was one of those numerous unfortunate young ladies 
 who have to be content with a very exiguous allowance of 
 pocket-money. But as a matter of fact Jem should have 
 been particularly well off in this respect. The trustees of 
 her mother's property allowed her a handsome sum for her 
 personal expenses; but this had come to be confiscated with
 
 148 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 the utmost regularity by her stepmother, with poor Jem's 
 easy consent. She was the best-natured girl in the world, 
 and it seemed to her not at all unfair, although it was a 
 little inconvenient, that the money which was intended to 
 pay for her dress, small expenses, and the perfecting of her 
 education, should go in paying for Major Collingham's club 
 expenses, and in filling the gap in her stepmother's ac- 
 counts left by that lady's slipshod methods of housekeeping. 
 
 Hugh stopped the hansom in Kegent Street, in front of 
 a shop where the display of highly colored confectionery in 
 the window attracted Jem's unsophisticated eyes. They 
 entered the shop, and Jem found it quite hard to keep her 
 eyes from gloating greedily over the plate of cakes which 
 stood on the little marble table at which they sat down. 
 Hugh's warnings she took lightly : he mistrusted pink su- 
 gar, and had no faith in saffron-tinted delicacies. It is a 
 shocking thing to have to admit, but she was so much 
 absorbed in an eclair which Hugh had condemned as " pre- 
 historic" that when he recalled her to the subject of her 
 love, she started, and blushed, and said "Oh, yes!" in a 
 tone which showed that she had forgotten all about it. 
 
 " You said, you know," went on Hugh, with secret amuse- 
 ment, " that you knew all the signs and symptoms of love 
 because you were in love yourself." 
 
 " Yes, so I am," said Jem readily. 
 
 And after a moment's hesitation, and a shy glance at her 
 companion to see whether he was shocked, she put out her 
 hand for a baba au rhum. 
 
 " You don't seem to take it very seriously!" 
 
 "Oh, but I do, though," said Jem ingenuously, "espe- 
 cially on wet days. Then I feel awfully, awfully serious 
 and miserable. Do you think," she went on curiously, 
 " that anybody can be quite as much in love, in unrequited 
 love, I mean, when the sun shines as when it rains?"
 
 HUGH THORNDYKE'S SUSPICIONS. 149 
 
 Hugh sat back and looked at his umbrella. 
 
 "The question has never put itself to me like that," he 
 said meditatively. " But I believe there's something in it." 
 
 "I'm sure there is," said Jem, gaining confidence from 
 his manner, in which she perceived appreciation. " "When 
 you are shut up indoors, and can't go out, and you think 
 of some one you care about who doesn't care very much about 
 you, you feel as if you could cut your throat for the sake of 
 that person. But on a day like this, when you're enjoying 
 yourself, and especially when you're eating tarts, well, you 
 feel after all as if it didn't matter so much." 
 
 "You are enjoying yourself, then?" said Hugh, breaking 
 away from the main question. 
 
 Jem answered him by a smile, in which overflowing 
 youthful enjoyment was tempted by anxiety to be strictly 
 correct in deportment. Presently Hugh began to smile, too. 
 
 " What are you laughing at? Is it at my appetite?" asked 
 Jem. 
 
 " No, no, certainly not. Try this one now : it isn't quite 
 so garish in color as the last, but I'll undertake that it 
 will do your digestion less harm. No. If I was smiling, it 
 was at your fancy that your love is unrequited. " 
 
 " It isn't fancy," answered she gravely. " It's hard, solid 
 fact. He's in love with somebody else very, very much 
 in love. He was a little in love with me before, I think ; 
 but that's all over with him." 
 
 " Then you should pluck up your spirit, and let it be all 
 over with you, too." 
 
 " What I feel wouldn't be love at all if I could do that," 
 said Jem sententiously. " You must know that yourself. 
 Besides, I can't be jealous. She's so much better and more 
 attractive than I am, and then she's married." 
 
 "Married?" 
 
 " Why do you speak in that tone?"
 
 150 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " Well, if he is in love with a married woman, I shouldn't 
 have anything more to do with him!" 
 
 The glance which the young girl shot at him could bear 
 but one interpretation. 
 
 " I was in love once with a woman who is now married," 
 he said, answering the look. " But now I shall, of course, 
 take care to get rid of the last trace of sentiment with re- 
 gard to her." 
 
 Jem looked incredulous, but she cast down her pretty blue 
 eyes and said nothing. 
 
 "Depend upon it," he went on in a judicial tone, "the 
 man who, when he has the chance of being loved by a sweet 
 young girl, deliberately neglects his opportunities for the 
 sake of a flirtation with a married woman, is not 
 worth " 
 
 "It is not a flirtation," cried Jem indignantly; "she has 
 saved his life, and made him give up gambling and bad 
 habits, and been his good angel altogether. She has kept 
 him out of the hands of her husband " 
 
 Jem stopped, for Hugh had looked at her in sudden 
 amazement as the story developed, and from interesting be- 
 came startling. 
 
 Jem blushed to the roots of her hair, conscious that she 
 had been indiscreet. 
 
 " Her husband !" exclaimed Hugh slowly. " So her hus- 
 band was one of the bad companions, was he?" 
 
 But Jem had had a fright, and she would say no more. 
 To the simple belief she entertained that the unnamed 
 woman was an angel of light, and the unnamed man a 
 creature worthy an angel's attentions, she, however, stuck 
 bravely. He, on his side, had quite made up his mind 
 that the young man was a fool, and that the attractive wo- 
 man was in league with her husband to " fleece him. " The 
 difference in opinion between them was so hopelessly great
 
 HUGH THORNDYKE'S SUSPICIONS. 151 
 
 that Hugh was glad when the matter dropped; he was 
 afraid of saying more than he was justified in saying. 
 
 But the subject cropped up again, in an unexpected man- 
 ner, before many minutes had passed. To Hugh's proposal 
 that they should walk back to Waterloo, and look at the 
 shops on their way, Jem had assented with delight. They 
 had not gone far before they almost ran against Gerard Wal- 
 ler as he was coming out of the West End office of a life 
 insurance society. The start and blush on Jem's part be- 
 trayed her to Hugh Thorndyke's eyes. 
 
 Gerard was in high spirits. He glanced at Hugh, but 
 seemed to be curious rather than jealous. With much of 
 the clumsiness of the inexperienced, Jem introduced the two 
 men to each other. At the first moment of looking into 
 each other's face they conceived a mutual liking, and they 
 shook hands cordially. 
 
 "I didn't expect to meet you, Jem," said Gerard. "I 
 don't think I've ever met you in town before. I've been 
 insuring my life." 
 
 " Insuring your life !" echoed Jem, with undisguised ap- 
 prehension. " You're not going to kill yourself, are you?" 
 
 Gerard laughed. 
 
 " No. If I were, the insurance money wouldn't be paid, 
 you know." 
 
 " But what do you do it for?" persisted Jem. 
 
 Gerard glanced at the other man and laughed. 
 
 " Well," said he, " it's one way of raising the wind. Isn't 
 it?" he added, addressing Hugh. 
 
 "Not a very advisable way always," said the other man. 
 
 Gerard shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Sometimes it's the only way left," said he. "But the 
 point of it is that I'm so proud of being able to do it at all. 
 A year ago they wouldn't have taken me at any premium. 
 Now I have every prospect of being accepted without any
 
 152 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 difficulties. Which way are you going? May I walk with 
 you a little way?" 
 
 Jem was delighted by the suggestion ; indeed, it was quite 
 evident to Hugh that she would have been willing to dis- 
 pense with his attendance altogether. But he wanted to 
 see more of Gerard. He kept modestly in the background, 
 however, and ungrateful Jem hardly remembered that he 
 was there. 
 
 It was not until they had seen Miss Collingham safely 
 into her train, and the two men were left standing together, 
 that Hugh remembered that he had lost his opportunity 
 of learning the name of Netelka's husband.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 A TRAGIC MISTAKE. 
 
 HUGH THORNDKYE and Gerard Waller walked away from 
 the station together, crossed Waterloo Bridge, strolled along 
 the Strand, and were so much pleased with each other's so- 
 ciety that they ended by lunching together at the " Crite- 
 rion." 
 
 Hugh's interest in Gerard, who was some ten years 
 younger than himself, had its origin in two causes: the one 
 being the vivacious and humorous personality of the man 
 himself, the other Jem's affection for him. Hugh felt, in 
 a lazily benevolent sort of way, that he should like to help 
 to make two young people happy ; and he spoke rapturously 
 about Jem, without, however, eliciting any very enthusi- 
 astic comments in return. 
 
 Before luncheon was over, indeed, Gerard began to look 
 at his watch, and to talk of an " appointment," which Hugh 
 shrewdly guessed to be with the " married woman" of whom 
 Jem had spoken. It was rather curious, perhaps, that it 
 never once occurred to Hugh that the woman in question 
 might be Netelka. The reason of this lack of penetration 
 was probably the conviction he had formed that she was an 
 adventuress of the worst type, in league with male accom- 
 plices for the ruin, body and soul, of this young fellow. 
 
 In this opinion Hugh was confirmed by certain words 
 which fell from Gerard, implying cynical doubts about the 
 men of his acquaintance and an overwhelming belief in 
 women in general, which Hugh interpreted as being the 
 outcome of admiration for one in particular.
 
 154 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Before they separated, Hugh had decided upon attempt- 
 ing the quixotic task of opening the eyes of the foolish lad. 
 Gerard was in the hands of the money-lenders, that was 
 evident; so Hugh affected to be in want of money himself, 
 and asked his companion if he knew of a " financial agent" 
 to whom he could apply. 
 
 "I can tell you the name of my own robber, of course," 
 said the younger man. " But I don't know that there are 
 any more points about him than about any other gentleman 
 of his class, or of his persuasion." 
 
 "Hebrew, I suppose?" 
 
 " Of course. He calls himself Harrington Moseley, but 
 I 'spects he growed plain Moses without any Harrington." 
 
 Hugh asked for his address, and a few moments after- 
 ward the new-made friends separated, not before Gerard 
 had increased the suspicions of the other by mentioning 
 that he lived out of town in the house of some married 
 friends. 
 
 Hugh took an early opportunity of calling upon Harring- 
 ton Moseley, with whom he negotiated a small loan of which 
 he was not in need, to establish an acquaintance with the 
 Jew. He mentioned the name of Gerard Waller, and at 
 once obtained in return some valuable information. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Mr. Moseley, "young "Waller is a great 
 friend of mine. Lives down at Wimbledon just now, at 
 'The Firs,' with some friends of mine. People named 
 Hilliard ; husband awfully nice fellow great friend of mine ; 
 wife most charming woman you ever met in your life. Ask 
 Waller!" 
 
 And the Jew gave an unpleasant leer. 
 
 " Did he ask you down there?" 
 
 " No," said Hugh. " He hardly knows me well enough." 
 
 " Oh, they don't stand upon ceremony down there," said 
 Mr. Moseley promptly. " That is to say, of course," and
 
 A TRAGIC MISTAKE. 155 
 
 he pulled himself up as if he had said rather more than he 
 had intended, " they are very nice people, and Mrs. Hil- 
 liard is very particular. But they are very good to their 
 friends. I, for instance, am allowed to do just as I like 
 down there, and to take down my own friends to have a 
 quiet game of poker of course you play poker? or bacca- 
 rat. I don't abuse the privilege, of course, but I use it; 
 and if you would care to come down there with me some 
 evening, I can guarantee you a pleasant time." 
 
 "Thank you," said Hugh. "There's nothing I should 
 like more." 
 
 " What do you say to next Wednesday night, then ? I have 
 half-a-dozen awfully nice young fellows coming down on 
 that night I didn't want them to come; I've been rather 
 out of sorts, and I wanted a quiet week; but the beggars 
 insisted. If you'll join our party, I'll give you directions 
 how to get to my rooms. There's a side door I always use 
 when I have a few fellows down with me, so as not to dis- 
 turb Mrs. H or the rest of the household more than I 
 
 can help." 
 
 Mr. Moseley had indicated, more by look and tone than 
 by his words, exactly the sort of entertainment he proposed 
 to offer, since he had perceived that his visitor was not a 
 man to be frightened by the revelation. 
 
 Hugh understood, as he went down the dark wooden 
 stairs, into the street, that the money-lender proposed to 
 introduce him to a gambling club where the stakes were 
 high. 
 
 One small item of the entertainment Mr. Moseley had in- 
 deed omitted to mention to his new client, but it was one 
 which that experienced person was prepared to find out for 
 himself. 
 
 On the following Wednesday evening, therefore, Hugh 
 Thorndyke found himself at the side door of " The Firs"
 
 156 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 which had been indicated by the Jew. The approach was 
 from the road at the back of the house, and was by an 
 avenue of trees and evergreens which formed so complete a 
 screen that a person could enter the house by that way with- 
 out being seen at all from the body of the building. 
 
 Experience had taught Mr. Moseley caution, so within 
 the door, which could not be opened from the outside, a 
 man-servant of his own stood, to let in the visitors and 
 show them the way upstairs. 
 
 This was by no means Hugh Thorndyke's first experience 
 of a gambling-house, and he kept his eyes and ears open. 
 Mr. Moseley received him with cordiality and introduced 
 him to Linley. 
 
 Now Linley had heard the name of Hugh Thorndyke 
 mentioned by Netelka as that of one of the sweethearts of 
 her girlhood's days; but Hugh had gone abroad before Lin- 
 ley himself had ever met Netelka and had no means of know- 
 ing that Linley " Hilliard" was Linley Dax, or that he was 
 Netelka's husband. 
 
 The card party, which consisted for the most part of very 
 young men, some of them belonging to very " smart sets" 
 indeed, soon split up into groups: while one set sat down to 
 baccarat, another, at Linley 's suggestion, played poker. 
 Linley played well, very well : it was a recognized fact among 
 the players; and Hugh noticed that the expressionless, 
 bloodless face was peculiarly well adapted for the game, in 
 which self-control is such an important factor. It was 
 not long, however, before Hugh began to suspect that Mr. 
 Hilliard was not contented with the advantage his naturally 
 impassive countenance gave him: he had extraordinarily 
 good hands, which grew better as the play proceeded. 
 Hugh began to watch him narrowly: then he perceived, 
 catching a furtive glance from Linley 's light eyes, that that 
 gentleman knew that he was being watched. Instantly
 
 A TRAGIC MISTAKE. 157 
 
 adapting his play to this knowledge, Linley became care- 
 ful, and for some time the hands he held deteriorated in 
 quality and his play became above suspicion. 
 
 At last Linley evidently found the restraints put upon 
 him irksome, and his manner toward the suspicious stranger 
 grew curt and cold. Mr. Moseley, who scarcely ever played 
 himself, excusing himself on the grounds that he was such 
 a bad player, and that the cards confused him, noticed that 
 something was wrong, and came to the table at a pause in 
 the game. He and Linley exchanged what looked like a 
 series of signals. The end of the rapidly exchanged signs 
 was that Linley looked down on the floor, raising his eyes 
 again immediately. All this telegraphy was so neat and so 
 rapid that only a person prepared, as Hugh was, for some- 
 thing of the sort, would have noticed that it bore any sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 Then Mr. Moseley spoke. 
 
 " I don't believe," said he in a good-humored tone, " that 
 Mr. Thorndyke cares a bit more for cards than I do. He 
 is making a martyr of himself to please the rest of you. Am 
 I not right?" he ended, turning to Hugh. 
 
 "It is quite true," said Hugh coldly, "that I have not 
 enjoyed the game much to-night." 
 
 Mr. Moseley cut in hastily, not liking the visitor's tone. 
 
 " Come downstairs with me, then," he suggested, "and I 
 will introduce you to Mrs. Hilliard. We will ask her to 
 give us non- card-players a little music. Are you fond of 
 music?" 
 
 "Very," said Hugh rather shortly, rising with so much 
 precipitancy that Linley threw a warning glance at the Jew. 
 
 And Hugh Thorndyke followed Mr. Moseley downstairs, 
 with his temper very near boiling point. What further 
 confirmation did he need of his suspicions of the entire 
 household? He had seen the young men upstairs borrowing
 
 158 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 money from the Jew: he was certain, although he could not 
 prove the fact, that Hilliard cheated his fellow-players. 
 And now, was it not evident that, having discovered him to 
 be not only too good a poker-player to be easily beaten, but 
 too suspicious a one to be easily cheated, they were turning 
 him over to their female accomplice, in the hope that she 
 would have better luck in the attempt to fleece him. 
 
 Netelka was not in the drawing-room when Mr. Moseley 
 brought in his inconvenient guest. She had been in the 
 lowest of low spirits since her last visit to her aunt, who 
 had seemed to her unusually cold and unsympathetic, and 
 unwilling to give her any practical advice. Even the dis- 
 covery that Linley was part manager of a gambling-house 
 had not shaken Lady Kenslow's opinion that it was better 
 for his wife to remain with him than to cast herself adrift. 
 Therefore Netelka had returned home uncomforted, except 
 by Gerard, who thought lightly of this particular trouble, 
 and still urged upon her the advisability of taking life as it 
 came, and not frittering one's life away in vain regrets and 
 hankerings after an ideal standard for everybody. 
 
 She had listened in silence, and remained unconvinced. 
 And the realrelief to her unhappiness did not come until 
 Jem, having escaped from " The Maisonette" on a pretext 
 of a guild-meeting at the Vicarage, had stolen a few mo- 
 ments at " The Firs" on the very evening of Hugh Thorn- 
 dyke's visit. 
 
 The pretty girl, with her sweet shy face, had come like 
 a ray of sunlight upon Netelka and Gerard, who had been 
 left as usual to spend the evening in each other's company. 
 "When the female element thus became two to one, the talk 
 naturally drifted on to frocks, and Netelka had taken Jem 
 upstairs to see the "delicious little theatre-jacket" her 
 dressmaker had just sent home, when Hugh entered the 
 drawing-room.
 
 A TRAGIC MISTAKE. 159 
 
 The two men shook hands, sincerely glad to meet again. 
 But no sooner had Harrington Moseley left them together 
 than Hugh's long-pent-up wrath found expression in an 
 outburst which overwhelmed the unprepared Gerard. 
 
 " Do you know what sort of a house this is?" he began 
 abruptly, as soon as they were alone. 
 
 "Why, yes, I do," replied Gerard promptly. 
 
 " Do you know that it is nothing more or less than a 
 gambling-hell, and that it is liable at any moment to be 
 raided by the police?" 
 
 " I suppose so. " 
 
 " And that the man who keeps it is a Jew money-lender, 
 who works at his infernal trade here night after night?" 
 
 Gerard nodded. 
 
 " And that the other fellow, his precious partner, is a 
 swindler of a lower sort still a man who cheats at cards?" 
 
 Gerard changed color and looked up. 
 
 " No," said he in a low voice, " I did not know that. Are 
 you sure?" 
 
 " Perfectly, absolutely. I have no sort of doubt about it. 
 You shall come up there with me some other night if they 
 will let me in again, which I doubt and see for yourself, 
 and we will see if we can't put an end to this by denounc- 
 ing him together." 
 
 Gerard sprang up. 
 
 "No, no, I can't do that," he cried quickly. "I can't 
 do that. The man may be a cheat, for all I know. But 
 but there are others." 
 
 Hugh interrupted him by an impatient exclamation. 
 
 "Others! Yes. Others who work with him, help him, 
 play into his hands and into those of this rascally Jew ; 
 others who do the work better than he can. Mr. Waller, 
 you must forgive me; you are younger and less seasoned 
 than I. But this man's wife is an adventuress, a woman who
 
 160 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 knows and pretends not to know; a worse cheat than her 
 miserable husband, for while he only plays for your money, 
 she plays for your soul. I earnestly beg you to open your 
 eyes, to see what this woman is to see that, in being her 
 dupe, you are only becoming the dupe of the rascally hus- 
 band." 
 
 "Liar!" Gerard made a spring at him, and Hugh, pre- 
 pared, warded off the blow. At the same moment, a shrill 
 scream made them both look round. 
 
 In the doorway stood Jem and Netelka, both white, shaken 
 by the few words they had heard. It was Jem who had 
 screamed : Netelka stood silently looking from the one to 
 the other of the two men, until Hugh spoke again : 
 
 " Netelka!" he exclaimed in astonishment, not at first un- 
 derstanding the significance of her presence. 
 
 She stepped forward. 
 
 "Yes," she said with a hard laugh, in a voice which 
 sounded dead and cold, "Netelka and Linley Hilliard's 
 wife. I see you know me thoroughly."
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 A MODEL HUSBAND. 
 
 THE discovery that the woman he had been denouncing 
 as an adventuress, an accomplice of swindlers, was the 
 woman he still loved, came upon Hugh Thorndyke with so 
 much suddenness that for the first moment it struck him 
 dumb. He did realize it ; but the horror, the remorse he 
 felt were so keen, so deep that he could say no word in 
 extenuation of his blunder. 
 
 When Netelka spoke, he reeled, caught the back of a 
 chair, and fell into it, resting his head upon his hands. 
 
 Netelka was touched. She understood, knowing him 
 better than Jem or Gerard did, what was passing in the 
 mind of the man who had wanted to be her husband. She 
 saw exactly how the unlucky occurrence had come about, 
 saw that he had only been doing what he felt to be his 
 duty in warning Gerard against what he supposed to be a 
 dangerous intrigue. So when Gerard and Jem came 
 nearer to her, not quite knowing what to say, but both of 
 them full of sympathy with her and indignation against 
 the offender, Netelka stepped away from them and laid 
 her hand gently on Hugh's shoulders. 
 
 "You are quite right, Hugh," she said gently, "quite 
 right, absolutely right." 
 
 He shivered, but did not look up. 
 
 "At least," she went on, as Gerard and Jem made in- 
 dignant interruptions, " you are absolutely right in inten- 
 11
 
 162 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 tion and in the recommendation you gave. But perhapa 
 your description of me was a little overdrawn!" 
 
 Hugh raised his head. He had recovered from the shock 
 of the discovery to the extent of realizing more clearly 
 its most distressing features. Her little sarcasm hurt him 
 not at all. It was a bit of petulance to which she was 
 entitled, but there was something more serious to be con- 
 sidered. 
 
 " And you, you are the wife of this man, this swindler!" 
 
 Netelka's eyes flashed. 
 
 " You have no right to use such a word. You " 
 
 Hugh interrupted : 
 
 " Oh, nonsense. You must know, you do know. You 
 have brains, Netelka. I knew when I met you the other 
 day that you were not happily married " 
 
 "How did you know anything of the sort? I told you 
 that I was." 
 
 Hugh went on without heeding her answer : 
 
 "Where is your aunt? "Where is Lady Kenslow? Why 
 don't you go back to her?" 
 
 Hugh seemed to have forgotten that they were not alone 
 together, he and she. He was striding up and down the 
 room in a state of the strongest excitement. 
 
 At these questions, Netelka, who was very much excited 
 also, broke involuntarily into a bitter laugh. 
 
 " She won't have me. She is quite satisfied with my 
 position, and thinks I ought to be. And I " 
 
 She faltered and stopped, perceiving that an admission 
 had escaped her. She recovered herself immediately, and 
 added bravely: "I am quite satisfied with it also." 
 
 Hugh would have been wise to drop the discussion, but 
 the matter at issue was too important for that. He stopped 
 short in his walk and stood in front of her. 
 
 "You don't mean that," he said. " It is impossible."
 
 A MODEL HUSBAND. 163 
 
 But at this point Gerard, who had had considerable 
 difficulty in keeping silence, broke into the talk. 
 
 "Don't you think," he suggested in a voice which he 
 kept, with an effort, in a very low key, " that Mrs. Hil- 
 liard's statement settles the matter? I suppose you don't 
 intend to try to bully a lady into agreeing with you, 
 whether she likes it or not?" 
 
 Hugh saw his mistake. 
 
 "You must forgive me, Netelka," he said in a hoarse 
 voice. " I hardly know what I am saying. I feel as if I 
 were going off my head. But to remember you as I knew 
 you once, and then to come back and find you married 
 1-1-like this " 
 
 "You're only making things worse, Mr. Thorndyke," 
 broke in Jem's shrill girlish voice unexpectedly. She was 
 standing by Netelka, and kept her arms clasped tightly 
 round her, watching the speakers in turn with bright, 
 wide-open eyes. She was rather shocked and very much 
 surprised by her own boldness in opening her mouth, and 
 the sounds which came forth were rather tremulous, but 
 her heart was bursting, and she felt that she must speak 
 on behalf of her friend. " You have no right to come and 
 make her miserable. Of course married people have their 
 troubles like other people, but it doesn't do any good to 
 come and rake them up!" 
 
 This tirade from the mouth of the youngest person in 
 the room was so unexpected that they all listened at first 
 in astonishment, and then with some little amusement. 
 Netela laughed outright, half hysterically. 
 
 "You dear child," she said, passing a caressing hand 
 down the young girl's arm, "you have no business to be 
 here, listening to such things! Gerard, take her home." 
 
 The tears were in her eyes. Jem hesitated for one mo- 
 ment, and then she flung her arms round Netelka's neck.
 
 164 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " I'll go," she said. " But it's very hard to leave you to 
 be worried like this." 
 
 And she shot an indignant glance at Hugh, upon whom, 
 however, it was thrown away, so deeply was he occupied in 
 thought. It only made him smile to see the haughty man- 
 ner in which Jem bowed and wished him " good night" as 
 she passed him on her way out with Gerard. 
 
 "A nice little girl that!" he said, as soon as he and Ne- 
 telka were alone together. 
 
 "She is the sweetest creature I have ever met," said Ne- 
 telka fervently, glad to turn the conversation away from 
 herself and her affairs, " and in consequence she is sacri- 
 ficed every hour of the day to the caprices of a foolish step- 
 mother and the selfishness of an equally brainless old papa. 
 I want to see her happily married, but both papa and 
 mamma are very anxious to keep her single unless she can 
 find a husband with money ; for they get the benefit of her 
 own fortune as long as she remains with them." 
 
 "Poor little thing!" said Hugh, in admiration. For in 
 the light of this revelation Jem's behavior on the occasion 
 of their walk together seemed extraordinarily sweet and 
 touching. " I am glad, Netelka, that you have at least 
 one friend near you whom you can care for. She lives 
 close by, does she not?" 
 
 "Yes, "said Netelka. " You are mistaken in thinking 
 that I am so short of friends, and good friends too," she 
 said quickly. " Gerard "Waller, whom I hope to see mar- 
 ried to her some day, is another friend in whom I can trust 
 implicitly." 
 
 ''Ah!" 
 
 Hugh's face had clouded again as he uttered this excla- 
 mation. Netelka went steadily on with what she had to 
 say: 
 
 "I pride myself on having done the boy some good," she
 
 A MODEL HUSBAND. 165 
 
 said, as she seated herself at the piano, and began to play 
 a waltz as if nothing very serious had been occupying her 
 mind. " A year ago he was addicted to gambling, and was 
 doing everything he could to find the shortest way down 
 hill. I showed him how silly he was, persuaded him into 
 common sense ; and I am very proud of the result. I assure 
 you he is not the same man that he was when I took him 
 in hand." 
 
 "So I understand," said Hugh shortly. "I met him 
 coming out of an insurance office, where he had been in- 
 suring his life. And he said that a year ago he couldn't 
 have done it." 
 
 Netelka's playing had not ceased, but it had suddenly 
 become hard and mechanical, while her face had grown 
 rigid. Hugh, watching her narrowly, full of suspicion, 
 guessed something like the truth at once. 
 
 " Ah," he exclaimed. " You didn't know this?" 
 
 Netelka recovered herself in a measure, and answered with 
 an assumption of indifference: 
 
 " I don't remember to have heard it. But it doesn't con- 
 cern me. Surely you don't think that it does?" she added, 
 with a sudden change in her voice to pleading, to plaintive 
 entreaty. 
 
 "No, no, no. Good heavens, no!" cried Hugh passion- 
 ately. "How can you suggest such a thing? But your 
 husband and this Jew Moseley do you think, don't you 
 think they have something to do with it?" 
 
 In truth, poor Netelka had been asking herself this ques- 
 tion, with the agonizing certainty that there could only 
 be one answer to it. But she was not going to betray her 
 own husband, and she made a valiant stand. 
 
 " Really your conduct this evening is very extraordinary," 
 she said, affecting a tone of some levity. " You begin by 
 accusing me of terrible crimes "
 
 166 A SENSATIONAL CASB. 
 
 "No, no," protested Hugh. 
 
 " You retract^ and attack my husband instead. And all 
 without much knowledge to support your accusations. 
 You seem to have brought back with you the habit a man 
 acquires in savage countries of carrying a revolver in his 
 breast-pocket and of looking upon every one he meets as a 
 probable rogue. I should have thought that I, as an old 
 friend, might have been reckoned beyond suspicion, and 
 that my husband, as my husband, might have been 
 accorded the same meed of grace." 
 
 "But a cheat! A card-sharper!" cried Hugh. "It is 
 all the worse in him, as he is your husband." 
 
 "Sh sh!" said Netelka below her breath, in great 
 alarm. 
 
 For Hugh had spoken in stentorian tones, and there was 
 more than one person in the house, as Netelka knew, who 
 was not too proud to listen at interesting keyholes. 
 
 And then, before another word could be uttered, the 
 nearest door was opened very quietly by Linley. Hugh, 
 who had been leaning upon the piano, drew himself up 
 with great stiffness. Netelka turned very white, but said 
 nothing. She guessed from the look on her husband's face 
 that by accident or otherwise he had heard Hugh's last 
 speech. 
 
 " I hope I am not in the way, that I'm not breaking up 
 a pleasant tete-a-tete ? " said Linley disagreeably. 
 
 Hugh felt sick. Pitying the woman before him with 
 all his heart, he felt that he was utterly powerless to help 
 her. At the same time he experienced such a longing to 
 kick the little pink and white faced man who had cheated 
 him of his money, that he could only resist the temptation 
 by keeping his eyes carefully fixed in the opposite direc- 
 tion. Linley was more incensed by this contemptuous 
 treatment than by the accusations he had overheard.
 
 A MODEL HUSBAND. 167 
 
 "My dear," said he, in a hypocritical, effusively affec- 
 tionate tone to his wife, as he sidled up to her, " is this per- 
 son a particular friend of yours? " 
 
 "I knew him well long ago, when I was a girl," 
 answered she, in a constrained voice. 
 
 " But I did not know that Mrs. Hilliard was an old ac- 
 quaintance of mine before I entered this room half an hour 
 ago," explained Hugh, forcing himself to speak with a 
 little civility for Netelka's sake. "I was delighted to 
 meet her again, but I'm afraid I have been rather a bore 
 and that Mrs. Hilliard will be glad to get rid of me." 
 
 He offered Netelka his hand as he spoke ; but Linley, 
 doubling his fist, struck Hugh's hand down so sharply 
 that he cut the fingers of the other man with the large 
 diamond he wore on his little finger. 
 
 Netelka drew a deep breath between her teeth, but she 
 said nothing. 
 
 "Mrs. Hilliard will be glad to get rid of you," snarled 
 Linley, " and so shall I." 
 
 Netelka moved, tried to spring up from her seat. But 
 her husband's hand was on her shoulder, and fragile and 
 white as it looked, it was like a bar of iron. 
 
 Cut to the heart, furious, yet keeping command of him- 
 self for the woman's sake, Hugh bowed and left the room.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE MYSTEKY OF A BROUGHAM. 
 
 HUGH THOKNDYKE was perhaps the first person who had 
 ever been able to appreciate accurately the relation in 
 which Linley and his wife stood to each other. Her 
 vivacity, her natural impetuosity, the love of effect which 
 made her dress well, and dance well, and walk with an air 
 of distinction, caused people to think that Netelka was a 
 woman of strong will and masculine understanding, in 
 whose hands her pale, delicate-fingered, insignificant-look- 
 ing husband was a mere puppet. This view of them Linley 
 had long known and taken full advantage of. Hugh, 
 however, had had a chance of seeing the iron hand under 
 the velvet glove; and remembering, as he did, the sensi- 
 tive and impressionable nature of Netelka in her girlhood, 
 he was able to understand the thraldom in which her hus- 
 band held her. 
 
 He looked at his watch as he came out of the house. It 
 was twelve o'clock. The last train back to town would 
 have gone by this time. A hansom was waiting at a little 
 distance from one of the outer gates of " The Firs," and the 
 driver, catching sight of him, drove up at once. Hugh 
 shook his head. He did not want to go back to town until 
 he had had another talk with Netelka. He knew, from 
 Jem's description, which house was "Maisonette," and 
 seeing that the lights in the drawing-room were bright, he 
 concluded that Gerard had been detained there, and thought 
 he would wait outside for the exchange of a few words with 
 him, before seeking a refuge for the night at some local hotel.
 
 THE MYSTERY OF A BROUGHAM. 169 
 
 There was such a very little bit of garden between 
 " Maisonette" and the road that, when Hugh came close 
 to the railings and looked up at the fantastic little green 
 wooden balcony outside the drawing-room window, Jem, 
 who was looking out into the night, recognized him at once, 
 as the light from the drawing-room lamps streamed upon 
 his face. 
 
 "Mamma," said she, stepping back into the room, 
 " there's Mr. Thorndyke outside the gentleman who lent 
 me the money for my gloves the other day," she added 
 hastily. " I suppose he is waiting for you, Mr. Waller. " 
 
 Gerard had been seized by the Major and forced to sit 
 down to cribbage with him. He now jumped up hastily, 
 with an apology, being just as anxious to see Hugh as 
 Hugh was to see him. Of course both he and Jem had 
 maintained a discreet silence as to the scene which had just 
 taken place at " The Firs." 
 
 Major Collingham laid his hand imperiously upon the 
 young man's arm and insisted on his resuming his seat. 
 
 " We will have your friend in," said he urbanely. " Sybil, 
 my dear, run down and ask Mr. Waller's friend to come in." 
 
 Gerard protested that it was too late, and that they 
 would be keeping Mrs. Collingham up; but neither the 
 Major nor his wife would hear any objection. They liked 
 to be kept up, they said ; they wished they had the chance 
 of it every night. The fault of their lives was that there 
 was no one to keep them up, and nothing to keep up for. 
 
 So Hugh Thorndyke, looking rather haggard and har- 
 assed, and unlikely to add to the general liveliness, walked 
 in and was introduced. He thawed a little under the in- 
 fluence of Mrs. Collingham's effusive kindliness. It struck 
 his simple soul with surprise that she should be so very 
 grateful for the service she had rendered to the young lady 
 whom she called her " little girl" ; for he had not taken to
 
 170 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 heart Netelka's remarks about the Collinghams, and he 
 certainly never suspected the vivacious Sybil of a wish to 
 throw her stepdaughter at the head of a man of whom she 
 knew nothing. 
 
 Mrs. Collingham, nevertheless, had really conceived the 
 notion that this good-looking stranger, whom she guessed 
 to be well off from some remarks he had made to Jem, 
 would " do very well" for her stepdaughter. So she con- 
 trived to leave the entertaining of the visitor to Jem, 
 while the Major and Gerard went on with the everlasting 
 cribbage, and she pottered about in her airy and frivolous 
 manner, which suggested anything rather than the delib- 
 erate plan it concealed. 
 
 " Jem, my dear, show Mr. Thorndyke those photographs 
 of Swiss scenery," said Mrs. Collingham, as she flirted with 
 a Liberty anti-macassar, and then proceeded to hover about 
 the fire with the tongs. "Don't you adore Swiss 
 scenery, Mr. Thorndyke?" 
 
 "Yes, yes; oh, I do," answered Hugh mechanically. 
 
 And Jem, who had dragged a huge album of photo- 
 graphs across the room to a little fragile erection of sticky 
 white nicknackery called a "cosy-corner," suddenly put 
 down her head in a fit of laughter. Hugh sat down beside 
 her promptly. 
 
 "Are you laughing at me, Miss Collingham?" 
 
 Ashamed of her own merriment, Jem looked up with a 
 preternaturally solemn red face. 
 
 "Oh, no, no," she answered hastily, throwing open the 
 album with such awkward haste that it cracked and threat- 
 ened to divide into two parts. 
 
 "Mind what you're doing," said Hugh gently. "See, 
 you've almost broken the book! " 
 
 " I wish to goodness I could ! " said Jem viciously, as she 
 invited him, with a sweeping gesture of her right hand,
 
 THE MYSTERY OF A BROUGHAM. 171 
 
 to admire the first picture she offered to his gaze. " You're 
 the one thousand and eighth person I've shown this 
 wretched book to. I always have to do it, because I can't 
 do anything else ! " she said despairingly, under her breath. 
 " I know all the pictures by heart, and could find any one 
 of them blindfold. And I know what you will say, or at 
 least what you ought to say what every one else says, to 
 every one of them !" 
 
 "Then I needn't say anything," said Hugh, with a great 
 sigh of relief. " I've never been to Switzerland, and I 
 don't want to go there because I've an idea that it's chiefly 
 inhabited by curates. Not that I have any objection to 
 curates, but to meet them in flocks, like that, I can wait 
 patiently until I get to a better world." 
 
 A little smile hovered about the corners of Jem's mouth, 
 but she said gravely : 
 
 " It's lucky mamma didn't hear you say that. She would 
 think you flippant. Curates are so useful in the suburbs; 
 you know they're the only gentlemen you can get to come 
 to tea." 
 
 While Hugh laughed, Jem put her hand into her pocket 
 and produced her purse. 
 
 "I'm going to pay you for those gloves," she said in a 
 delightful whisper, with a still more delightful blush. 
 
 "Gloves! No, what nonsense!" cried Hugh, in stupid, 
 stentorian tones, which, of course, made everybody turn 
 round and look at him. 
 
 While this happened, Jem sat rigid, and pale as death, 
 after the manner of self-conscious, shy young girls, to 
 whom the important matters of life are but as trifles and 
 dreams, while the real trifles are elevated to the rank of 
 tragedies. 
 
 "It's not nonsense," she said in a hissing whisper, with 
 dilated eyes. " You must let me pay for them. I I shall
 
 172 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 feel so mean if you don't! As if I had left my purse at 
 home on purpose!" 
 
 "I don't care what you feel," said Hugh, obstinately. 
 "I don't care a straw for anybody's feelings but my own. 
 And those feelings are feelings of delight in having taken 
 down your pride and made you accept a pair of gloves 
 from that superior creature, Man!" 
 
 "I didn't say Man was a superior creature," protested 
 Jem with spirit. 
 
 "You politely implied it, when you said a man's time 
 was so much more valuable than a woman's. Or was it 
 ah, I haven't thought of that ! only a neat phrase to get 
 rid of me with? " 
 
 "Perhaps that was it," said Jem demurely. 
 
 "If so, it was a failure, you must admit that," remarked 
 Hugh, with composure. 
 
 "In the mean time," persisted Jem, as she put a half- 
 crown down on the open album, and a two-shilling piece 
 on that, and a sixpence on the top, and pushed the pile 
 towards him, " in the mean time I will pay for the gloves." 
 
 " In the mean time," said Hugh, putting his hands in his 
 pockets, " I won't let you. I want to make Waller 
 jealous." 
 
 Jem's face clouded. 
 
 "I wish you could," she said ingenuously. 
 
 Hugh looked at her sweet young face with a very tender 
 smile upon his lips. 
 
 " Don't you know, "said he in a voice very little above 
 a whisper, "that there isn't one man in a thousand who is 
 worth being cared for like that?" 
 
 He was rather surprised by the promptitude and aptness 
 of her answer. 
 
 "That may be," said she. "But if we think he is, 
 what does it matter? Now, I think Gerard is; and I sup-
 
 THE MYSTERY OF A BROUGHAM. 173 
 
 pose yon yourself would admit that he is quite as worthy 
 of that wonderful treasure, my liking, as any other man 
 you know?" 
 
 "Why, no, he isn't," protested Hugh, "because he 
 doesn't appreciate it, while most others do." 
 
 Jem looked grave. 
 
 "I should think less of him than I do," said she, "if he 
 could think of me when there is poor Mrs. Hilliard to 
 think about!" 
 
 Hugh looked astonished. 
 
 "What, 'the married woman'?" 
 
 " Yes," said Jem, deliberately. " I should never be jeal- 
 ous of Netelka; I love her too much. If she were unmar- 
 ried, Gerard would marry her and they would be happy, 
 and I should be glad. As it is, his devotion does no harm to 
 anybody, and it helps to make her life bearable, poor thing!" 
 
 Hugh could scarcely believe his ears. He did not feel 
 sure that he was not even rather shocked. 
 
 "I am afraid I can't agree with you," said he, rather 
 shortly. " I think his attachment is a most unfortunate 
 thing for both of them, and I'm going to do my best to put 
 an end to it." 
 
 Jem's innocent girl's eyes saw one thing only in this 
 view of the matter. 
 
 "You are jealous," said she. 
 
 Now, this accusation, bold and unexpected, annoyed 
 Hugh greatly. It hurt his self-love, both because it came 
 from the mouth of a charming girl, and because it imputed 
 to him a motive which he had not suspected. He rose, and 
 said, with the least possible stiffness in his tone, that he 
 must really take Gerard away before the milkman came 
 round. Gerard, who had finished the last game somewhat 
 sleepily, jumped up with eagerness, and the two friends 
 got away and at last found a chance of being alone.
 
 174 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 It was just outside the gates of " The Firs" that they 
 stood for a few minutes, before bidding each other good- 
 night. 
 
 Gerard was rather cold, not being able to forgive Hugh 
 for the pain the latter had inflicted on Netelka, and for 
 the aspersions which he had, in all ignorance as to her 
 identity, cast upon her. Hugh had to be very humble, 
 very apologetic, very persuasive. 
 
 " You know, my dear fellow," he reasoned gently, " she 
 herself said I was right in my conclusions, although I ad- 
 mit I was wrong, terribly wrong, in some of my reasons. 
 Don't you see that the situation is really worse than the 
 one I imagined? I thought there was only one victim, 
 yourself. Now I find there are two, you and she. This 
 rascal who has married her uses you both as pieces in the 
 game he is playing : I am sure of it. Do you suppose he 
 doesn't know the influence his wife has over you? Hasn't 
 he already used it for his own ends? You must forgive me 
 for asking you such questions, but it is absolutely neces- 
 sary, for her sake as much as for yours, for you to see the 
 thing clearly. You must see that it can't be allowed to 
 go on. For what would be the end? Where are you drift- 
 ing to?" 
 
 Now these were the very questions to which Gerard was 
 always trying to turn a deaf ear when they cropped up, 
 unbidden, in his own mind. So that when they were ut- 
 tered in a friend's voice, and dinned into him with a 
 steady persistence from which there was no escape, he 
 naturally grew angry and restive. 
 
 " How dare you talk to me like this? What right have 
 you? What do you mean by it?" he was beginning, 
 incoherent, almost inarticulate, between emotion on the 
 one hand, and the consciousness of a weak case on the 
 other.
 
 THE MYSTERY OF A BROUGHAM. 175 
 
 Hugh, much calmer than he, broke his protests short 
 with great suddenness. 
 
 "I'll tell you what I'm going to do," he said delib- 
 erately. " I'm going up to-morrow to her aunt, Lady Ken- 
 slow. I knew her very well when I was a boy. I'll tell her 
 what sort of man this Linley Hilliard is tell her that I 
 saw him myself cheating at cards and get her to persuade 
 Netelka to leave him." 
 
 Gerard listened doubtfully. He knew, from what Netelka 
 herself had told him, that she had found her aunt unsym- 
 pathetic, and he knew also that the younger lady's notions 
 of wifely duty were not of the up-to-date sort. As the two 
 men stood for a few moments in silence, they heard the 
 front door of " The Firs" open, and a man's footsteps run- 
 ning rapidly to the gate. 
 
 "Hilliard!" whispered Gerard. 
 
 Hugh started, and clinched his fist; but his companion's 
 hand restrained him. 
 
 "Don't!" whispered the younger man, pleadingly. 
 "Kemember, it's he who has to pay for everything!" 
 
 Hugh ground his teeth. 
 
 Meanwhile a brougham, which had been waiting at a little 
 distance, came up and stood outside the gate. A moment 
 later, before the two spectators had quite realized what 
 was being done, Linley came out again, half-carrying, half- 
 dragging the motionless body of a woman. Opening the 
 door of the brougham, he raised his burden with more ease 
 than would have been expected from a man of his fragile 
 appearance, and thrust it into the carriage. Then he told 
 the coachman to drive on, and disappeared into the grounds. 
 
 Gerard seized Hugh's arm. 
 
 " Netelka ! " whispered he hoarsely. " Is she dead? "
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 A VOLUME FROM THE LIBRARY. 
 
 the carriage containing Netelka drove away, Ger- 
 ard was with difficulty prevented by Hugh from running 
 after it. 
 
 " I must I must see if she is all right," said the younger 
 man, in a voice which shook with deep feeling. "You 
 don't know, Thorndyke, what she has done for me, what I 
 owe to her. Let me go! let me go!" 
 
 As the brougham had by this time gone too far for Ger- 
 ard to carry out his intention of starting in pursuit, Hugh 
 released him, saying at the same time, in his most persuasive 
 manner: " Look here, old chap, you can't do anything for 
 her like that. Remember, that rascal is her husband " 
 
 Gerard interrupted him by a string of strong epithets, 
 applied to Linley, which would only have amused that un- 
 emotional gentleman. 
 
 " Come," said Hugh, " I'll tell you what I'm going to do. 
 I'm going to see Lady Kenslow, Netelka's aunt, and I shall 
 persuade her to take the poor child back to live with her. " 
 
 "She won't go," said Gerard decidedly. 
 
 "She must," said Hugh, more decidedly still. 
 
 " In the mean time," said Gerard, breaking away from his 
 companion altogether, " I shall just go in and punch Lin- 
 ley's miserable head." 
 
 Ultimately, however, Hugh's wiser councils prevailed, 
 and Gerard went back to " The Firs" and straight up to his 
 room without putting himself in Linley's way. 
 
 In the mean time Netelka's husband had sauntered into
 
 A VOLUME FROM THE LIBRARY. 177 
 
 the house, after getting rid of his wife, and had gone into 
 the dining-room and poured himself out a wineglassful of 
 brandy, which he was drinking when the door opened, and 
 Harrington Moseley followed him in. 
 
 For a moment there was dead silence, while Linley emp- 
 tied his wineglass and carefully put back the decanter. A 
 storm was brewing between the two, and they watched each 
 other Moseley openly, Linley without appearing to do so. 
 The Jew's excitement betrayed itself in the quivering of 
 the muscles of his face, which was of a ghastly pallor, in 
 his quick breathing, in the rapidly shifting glances of his 
 black eyee. 
 
 Linley was as quiet, as cool, as dainty-deliberate in man- 
 ner as ever ; and it was only by a certain deepening of the 
 lines about his small, straight mouth that even a person 
 who knew him well could have told that he was prepared 
 for a struggle of wills. 
 
 "What's that on your hand?" asked the Jew, suddenly, 
 as he pointed with a shaking finger to some small red spots 
 on Linley's hands and on one of his cuffs. 
 
 Linley looked down and considered a moment. 
 
 "Ah!" he cried at last, in soft, musical tones, "that 
 was my wife's fault!" 
 
 Harrington Moseley gave a little start and looked up in 
 the other's face. 
 
 " What were you doing to her?" he hissed out, in a low 
 voice. "Did you did you strike her?" 
 
 " Well, if I did, that's my affair." 
 
 " Oh, is it, by Jove !" cried the Jew, now violently ex- 
 cited, as he raised his fist and shook it in Linley's face. 
 " We'll see about that. I'm not very particular myself, but 
 there are some things I can't stand, and to see a woman 
 especially a woman like your wife knocked about is one of 
 them." 
 
 13
 
 178 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " Oh, nonsense !" said Linley, gently. " I gave her a push, 
 that was all, and she cut her cheek against my ring. It was 
 an accident." 
 
 "An accident!" roared the Jew. 
 
 And he made a spring at Linley and seized him by the 
 collar. Now the Jew, although short and rather stout, was 
 a man of such sturdy bnild that a bystander would have 
 thought he could have shaken the fragile-looking Linley as 
 a terrier does a rat. But what happened was this : Linley 
 put out two delicate white hands with apparent effort, and 
 Harrington Moseley found himself sitting on the floor. 
 
 "And that's an accident, if you like," said Linley, quite 
 coolly still. 
 
 It took Harrington Moseley a few moments to recover 
 from his astonishment. 
 
 "You little white-skinned devil!" said he at last, as he 
 got up, and passed his hands carefully over himself to see if 
 he had broken any bones in his fall. Linley laughed shortly. 
 
 "You shouldn't do these things," he said mildly. "I 
 don't want to fight, as the song says, but, by jingo, if I do, 
 etc., etc. And it's the same with other things as with 
 fighting: I am unfortunate sometimes, as I had been when 
 you first met me ; but I generally get my own way in the 
 end." 
 
 Mr. Moseley affected to laugh boisterously. It was evi- 
 dent that he was at heart afraid of his companion, whose 
 cold eyes had for his own the attraction of the basilisk. He 
 did not, however, give up his point. 
 
 " What was the row with your wife? And where have 
 you sent her away to?" asked the Jew, doggedly. 
 
 "Oh," said Linley carelessly, "the row, as you call it, 
 was the old one, that she will ask unnecessary questions, 
 and say things which no wife ought to say to her husband. 
 I told her so," he went on in an aggrieved tone. " She had
 
 A VOLUME FROM THE LIBRARY. 179 
 
 found out that young Waller had insured his life; and al- 
 though I told her that it was your business, and not mine, 
 and that it was as a security for the money you were lend- 
 ing him, she became noisy and unpleasant, so that I really 
 thought the servants would hear and come in. And if 
 there's one thing I hate more than another, it is a domestic 
 scene in the presence of the housemaid and the cook. It's 
 very bad form, as I told her." 
 
 Linley was pottering about, looking first for a cigarette, 
 and then for a match, with the air of one who just fills up 
 his time with idle chatter. 
 
 The Jew was staring at him with all his eyes. Moseley 
 was generally accounted a cool hand himself, but he felt 
 beside Linley like a cockle-shell beside an ironclad, and 
 even with his disgust at some of the methods of his partner 
 in rascality there mingled a large amount of admiration. 
 
 You told her that?" 
 
 " Of course I did. And when she went on crying all the 
 same, and saying that her heart was breaking and that she 
 must go away because she couldn't bear it, I told her she 
 could go away. So I asked young Northesk to lend me his 
 brougham, and I packed my wife off at once to the house 
 of a friend of mine up in town, who will see her off to 
 Bournemouth to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Bournemouth ! Why Bournemouth?" 
 
 " Oh, Bournemouth's a capital place for invalids." 
 
 " But Mrs. Hilliard is not an invalid!" 
 
 "I don't know about that," said Linley, as he took out 
 of his pocket an amber mouthpiece decorated with a fern 
 leaf with diamonds, and looked at it affectionately before 
 fitting into a cigarette. " She's not very strong. I don't 
 think she is what an insurance office would call a good life." 
 
 For a moment Harrington Moseley stared at him with a 
 sort of horror. Then he asked in a hoarse voice:
 
 180 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "Have you insured her life too?" 
 
 "Not yet," answered Linley, with composure. 
 
 "Then, by heavens, Hilliard, if you do," broke in the 
 Jew quickly, " I'll I'll blow the gaff, I'll " 
 
 "Cut your own throat in order to cut mine," finished 
 Linley quietly. " Come, dear boy, do be reasonable. When 
 we agreed to set up in business together here, with the idea 
 of being mutually useful, we thought that my wife was go- 
 ing to be a great help, didn't we?" 
 
 " Well, so she has been. She's given the place just the 
 air we wanted / wanted of being a gentleman's private 
 residence, and not what rude people call a gambling-hell. 
 And she got hold of Waller and made him turn over a new 
 leaf, when if he'd kept on at the old pace he'd have died 
 before his father, and I should have lost my money. And 
 and that isn't all she's done for us through him," added 
 he with discreet reticence. 
 
 " Well," said Linley, as he pretended to stifle a yawn, as 
 a hint to his companion that the conversation was begin- 
 ning to bore him, " she's done all for us that she intends to 
 do, and the question now is how to prevent her working 
 against us. I don't mind telling you that the reason I sent 
 her away so abruptly was that she threatened to put Wal- 
 ler on his guard." 
 
 " And what would that matter?" asked the Jew hastily. 
 " We're not going to do him any harm. As for the insur- 
 ance on his life, it is a mere matter of business to secure 
 one's self against accidents!" 
 
 "So I told her," answered Linley imperturbably. "But 
 you know how obstinate women are she persists in sus- 
 pecting us you and me of plots and designs which never 
 entered our heads. Now," and he cast an inquisitive glance 
 at the other, " don't you see that it was better to send fcer 
 away?"
 
 A VOLUME FROM THE LIBRARY. 181 
 
 The Jew mumbled some sort of grumbling assent, but he 
 threw suspicious glances at Linley, who yawned, stretched 
 out one arm lazily, and observed that it must be getting 
 late. 
 
 "Early," said Moseley laconically, as he looked at the 
 clock. " It's nearly four o'clock." 
 
 "Are they all gone?" asked Linley. 
 
 The Jew frowned. 
 
 " Yes. We broke up early to-night. That confounded 
 fellow Thorndyke upset everything. I never came across 
 such a wet-blanket : all the spirit seemed to go out of the 
 game as soon as he came near the table. He has got the 
 evil-eye, I believe, that fellow! Shan't come here again." 
 
 Linley was frowning too. 
 
 " You'll have hard work to keep him out," said he decid- 
 edly. " He's a brute. It turns out that he's an old sweet- 
 heart of my wife's, and I found him making love to her, 
 or the next thing to it, when I came downstairs. It was he 
 who made all the mischief. As a careful husband," went 
 on Linley, with deliberation, " I shall consider it my duty 
 to forbid him the house for the future. " 
 
 " Quite so," said Mr. Moseley with a grin, as he nodded 
 good night, and went upstairs. 
 
 He had scarcely left the room when the languor dropped 
 from Linley's manner, and he became as alert and lively as 
 a bird. 
 
 Crossing quickly to the door, he listened until Moseley 's 
 footsteps had become inaudible on the stairs, and then, 
 with a face in which at last there was a gleam of real ex- 
 citement, he softly opened the door, stepped outside, shut it 
 after him, and glided softly through the hall in the dark- 
 ness until he reached the door of the library. Here he put 
 his hand upon the key, which was in the lock, and then 
 waited one more moment, just to make sure that no one
 
 182 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 was about. Then he unlocked the door, stepped into the 
 room, and shut it softly behind him. 
 
 He knew the way to where the matches were kept Linley 
 always knew the way to everything and he lit the gas, and 
 began to hunt among the books on the shelves. The library 
 was a very complete one, having been bought by Moseley, 
 with the house, from the executors of a retired physician, 
 a man of wide reading, taste, and knowledge. Linley 
 hunted long before he found what he wanted : volumes of 
 history, calf -bound, dignified; rows of poets, sombrely 
 brilliant in morocco and gold; a stately array of standard 
 novels ; tomes of sermons, whose very outward appearance 
 was improving : all these and many more Linley passed and 
 rejected, until at last, with a gentle sigh, he came to a shelf 
 containing medical works. 
 
 Linley's eyes seemed to dilate ; his hand clutched trem- 
 ulously at the air in eager expectancy, until at length a 
 soft exclamation broke from his lips, and his eager hands 
 closed upon a modest little volume which he tore quickly 
 from the shelf. 
 
 The title of the book was : " Symptoms, Treatment, and 
 Detection of Poisons." 
 
 Linley carried the book to a table under the gas, and read 
 long and attentively, making notes as he went, in a cipher 
 of his own, on an old envelope he took from his pocket. 
 He read so long, and studied so attentively, that the ser- 
 vants were moving about the house at their morning's work 
 before he tired of his engrossing occupation. At the first 
 sound outside, he did not start, but he looked up, with a 
 curious smile on his lips. Then he rose, turned out the gas, 
 and seized his opportunity to escape up to his room unseen. 
 
 On his way he stopped, just for one second, outside the 
 door of Gerard's bedroom, and the pleasant smile on his lips 
 grew just a little broader as he did so.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 JEM CLIMBS A TREE. 
 
 GERARD, who had been awake all night, thought that at 
 breakfast time he should have the opportunity to ask Lin- 
 ley what had become of Netelka. But he was disappointed ; 
 for he had to breakfast bj himself, and was told by the par- 
 lor-maid that Mrs. Hilliard had gone away unexpectedly 
 on the previous night, and that Mr. Hilliard was not well 
 enough to come downstairs. 
 
 Gerard had fretted himself into such a fever of anxiety 
 by luncheon time that he insisted on seeing Linley, who 
 received him in his wife's boudoir, arrayed in a pretty 
 dressing-gown of Chinese embroidered silk. He was en- 
 joying a light luncheon of the wing of a chicken, foie gras, 
 and champagne, and he held out his hand to Gerard with 
 the languid air of a convalescent. 
 
 "How are you, Waller?" said he amiably, turning again 
 to his chicken. "I hope you'll excuse my leaving you to 
 lunch by yourself. I will try to be down by dinner time. 
 But really I had such a scene with my wife last night that 
 I feel quite upset to-day, and if I had come down I should 
 only have been a nuisance. Married men must put up with 
 these storms now and then, I suppose : but they are very 
 trying, very trying." 
 
 And he helped himself to more champange. 
 
 " You've had your luncheon, I suppose?" he added, hold- 
 ing up the bottle with a perfunctory half-invitation. 
 
 " I've had all I wanted, thank you," said Gerard shortly.
 
 184 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " I came to ask about Mrs. Hilliard. Where's she gone to?" 
 
 Linley spoke with his mouth full. 
 
 " She's gone down to Bournemouth for a few days, just 
 for a change, and to annoy me. We had a row last night, 
 as I told you. So, knowing that I can't get on without 
 her," pursued he, "she's taken herself off, without consult- 
 ing me, without a moment's warning." 
 
 "I saw her go," said Gerard, frigidly. 
 
 " Did you ? I packed her off in young Northesk's brough- 
 am. When I found she was determined to go, I did my best 
 to make her go comfortably." 
 
 "She seemed ill," said Gerard in a voice which was not 
 quite steady. 
 
 " Yes. It was all the fault of that cad Thorndyke. If 
 he comes here again, trying to make mischief between hus- 
 band and wife, I shall have to throw him down the steps." 
 
 There was a silence, which Gerard felt to be an awkward 
 one. The young fellow was feeling daily into what a miser- 
 able position he was being forced by this contemptible hus- 
 band of a womanly and loving woman. The danger was 
 increasing daily, and here at last was the opportunity of 
 making his escape from peril. But, on the other hand, 
 Gerard's opinion of Linley was so low that he believed, and 
 not without reason, that his own presence in the house saved 
 Netelka from that desertion by her husband which she 
 dreaded. 
 
 " I suppose she'll be back again in a day or two?" sug- 
 gested Gerard. 
 
 " Oh, yes, no doubt she will. I give her until Sunday to 
 come round," said Linley, composedly. " In the mean time, 
 don't worry yourself. I dare say you'll miss her nearly as 
 much as I do myself; but I don't mean to give way to low 
 spirits : it will make her so conceited. Come up to town 
 with me to-night, and we'll go to the Empire together,
 
 JEM CLIMBS A TREE. 185 
 
 and then on to Moseley's chambers for some supper after- 
 ward." 
 
 " No, thanks," said Gerard, rising. " I've got an ap- 
 pointment this evening." 
 
 And he left the room, more disgusted than ever with 
 Linley. He didn't want to go to the Empire or anywhere 
 else with him, and it was quite true that he had an appoint- 
 ment, for he had arranged to meet Hugh Thorndyke and 
 to dine with him in town. 
 
 Hugh had lost no time in calling upon Lady Kenslow 
 and in making known to her his belief that Linley was no 
 better than a swindler and card- sharper. But he found the 
 placid and charming elderly lady very difficult to move. 
 The fact was that Lady Kenslow, who knew all about Lin- 
 ley's career under the name of Dax, was much better in- 
 formed than Hugh himself, and not in the least likely to 
 be surprised at any fresh development of this sort. She 
 affected incredulity as to the card-sharping, advised Hugh 
 not to say anything about it to anybody, and pointed out 
 to him that if Netelka really wanted her protection no one 
 could prevent her from making use of the penny-post to tell 
 her so. 
 
 " You say she was driven away from the house late last 
 night in a brougham ; that she seemed insensible ; that you 
 could hardly tell whether she was alive or dead ; that her 
 husband put her into the brougham himself. Well, there 
 was some reason for what looked like a strange action, you 
 may be quite sure. In the first place, people don't pack 
 the dead bodies of their wives into broughams and 
 send them away to nowhere in particular in the dead of 
 night. In the second place, Netelka is an intelligent 
 woman, able to take care of herself. You may be quite 
 sure we shall have a satisfactory explanation of the mystery 
 in a day or two. Linley Hilliard may not be all one could
 
 186 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 wish as a husband, but he must be proud of her, and I 
 don't think he would like her to come to any harm." 
 
 And then Lady Kenslow asked him if he had seen the 
 new piece at the Haymarket, in a tone which showed that 
 she considered the former subject sufficiently threshed 
 out. 
 
 Of course Hugh thought her heartless, but he was wrong. 
 A kindly, amiable woman of the world, Lady Kenslow 
 deeply deplored the unhappy marriage her niece had made, 
 and forbore to cast in Netelka's teeth the fact that she had 
 strongly opposed it. But she held that the tie of marriage, 
 once formed, should be respected not only on moral and relig- 
 ious grounds, but on those of common-sense and conveni- 
 ence. She argued that a married woman, fond, as Netelka 
 was, of dress, of amusement, and of society, would be exposed 
 to worse perils living apart from her husband than she could 
 ever encounter while under his roof. So she was resolved 
 to shut her eyes as long as possible to Linley's defects, as 
 she had advised her niece to do. A second scandal, even 
 under another name, would, she knew, be fatal, since the 
 old story would inevitably leak out. 
 
 Hugh left Lady Kenslow's house heartsick and disap- 
 pointed. He and Gerard compared notes that evening, but 
 found little comfort. Hugh tried to persuade Gerard to 
 leave " The Firs," warning him gently that no good could 
 come to anybody from interference between even a bad hus- 
 band and his wife. And Gerard, reluctantly assenting, 
 promised to give up his quarters as soon as Netelka should 
 come back not before. For he feared that, if he were 
 to leave the house without due warning that his remunera- 
 tive stay was coming to an end, Linley might punish him 
 by preventing him from seeing Netelka again. 
 
 Nearly a week passed quietly at " The Firs," during which 
 Linley professed to hear from his wife that she was enjoying
 
 JEM CLIMBS A TREE. 187 
 
 her stay at the seaside, and that she was improving a little 
 in health. But Linley shook his head as he said this. 
 
 "I'm afraid she's worse than she thinks," he said. "I 
 shall run down and see her on Saturday. If the place is 
 really doing her good, I shall advise her to stay down there 
 another week: if not, I shall bring her back at once." 
 
 " Why, what's the matter with her?" asked Gerard in sur- 
 prise, while the deep anxiety he suddenly felt made his face 
 grow very white. " She seemed quite well on the morning 
 of the day she went away!" 
 
 Linley shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " You think she's well because she is always ready to 
 laugh, except when she is in the lowest of low spirits. But 
 I've noticed a great change in her myself lately, and to tell 
 you the truth, I'm afraid of consumption. It's in her 
 family, I know." 
 
 Gerard started, but the great fear which he felt at his 
 heart he did not express in words. He left the room sud- 
 denly, while Linley, always observant, stole at him a glance 
 of acute satisfaction. Then he went upstairs with the air 
 of a man who has business of importance on hand, and en- 
 tering his wife's bedroom, he softly locked the door. 
 
 On the same afternoon Hugh Thorndyke, not daring to 
 call at " The Firs" himself to see Gerard and to find out 
 whether there was any news of Netelka, bethought him- 
 self of " Maisonette" and the pretty girl who lived there, 
 and called in the afternoon. 
 
 The moment the maid announced him in the drawing- 
 room, Jem, who was sitting near the window, busy with her 
 hated and never-ending task of mending the children's 
 clothes, sprang up from her chair with an exclamation, and 
 throwing the little pinafore, with the needle sticking in it, 
 down on the floor, dashed out onto the little green balcony, 
 and made her escape into the adjoining room, which was
 
 188 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 her father's dressing-room. Mrs. Collingham, aghast at 
 this heathenish behavior, called after her, but in vain. By 
 the time Mr. Thorndyke was in the drawing-room the rep- 
 robate Jem had slipped behind his back down the stairs 
 and out into the garden. 
 
 Ever since she had learned from Gerard, in a short collo- 
 quy over the garden wall, of Netelka's disappearance, the 
 girl had been in a state of misery piteous to see, imagining 
 every sort of harm to her friend, and depressing the whole 
 household by her dismal looks. She had jumped to the con- 
 clusion that it was Hugh Thorndyke's interference which 
 had caused the rupture for a rupture there must have been 
 between the husband and wife, and she had conceived, in 
 consequence, against that gentleman the violent anger of 
 a partisan. 
 
 So she would not meet him. 
 
 The question was how, effectually, to avoid being brought 
 back and forced in his presence against her will. The 
 mischievous delight of the overgrown tomboy suddenly 
 gleamed in her eyes. 
 
 " I can climb my tree!" she said to herself. 
 
 This was a joy which had been reluctantly given up some 
 time before this ; but the tree was still there, hidden from 
 the house by an evergreen oak, and its crooked bough looked 
 as inviting as ever. Here, however diligently they might 
 hunt for her, Jem felt that she would be safe : even if dis- 
 covered, she would be severely left alone if caught in such 
 an undignified position. So she got through the evergreens, 
 and easily hoisted herself into a very snug perch between 
 the forked boughs of an old apple tree, the branches of 
 which extended far over the wall which divided the garden 
 of " Maisonette" from that of " The Firs." 
 
 Jem became suddenly conscious, with some surprise and 
 embarrassment, that her view of her neighbor's domain
 
 JEM CLIMBS A TREE. 189 
 
 was more extensive than she had remembered it to be. She 
 found herself looking straight into the room into which Lin- 
 ley Hilliard had locked himself. 
 
 " This will never do," thought Jem. 
 
 And she was about to descend by the way she had come 
 when her attention was arrested by an action on Linley's 
 part so strange, so suspicious, that she hung for a moment, 
 with one foot resting on the bough below, staring at him 
 fascinated, bewildered with all her eyes.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 JEM'S ADVENTURE. 
 
 THE sight which so much astonished Jem, and caused 
 her to be so forgetful of propriety as to pause a moment 
 to take in all its details, was indeed a strange one. 
 
 Linley Hilliard was standing close to the bedroom win- 
 dow, so that he might get the full advantage of the fading 
 daylight. One after the other he snatched up rapidly the 
 following articles, examined them with one keen glance, 
 and then thrust them into his Gladstone bag: a lady's 
 gown, a mantle, a hat which Jem was able to recognize as 
 Netelka's, and a thick black veil. 
 
 When he had thrust all these things into the bag, which 
 he locked, he disappeared quickly into the darkness away 
 from the window. 
 
 Almost before this, however, Jem's feet had reached the 
 ground, and she was flying through the evergreens with a 
 velocity which made the sudden contact of her person with 
 that of Hugh Thorndyke a rather serious affair. 
 
 "I I had been sent into the garden to look for you," 
 explained Hugh meekly, as he retired from the encounter 
 with profuse apologies for her fault. " And I've been 
 round and round several times, but I couldn't find you." 
 
 Jem blushed a bright crimson, fidgeting like a shy 
 schoolgirl. 
 
 " I was I was " then with a sudden burst of daring 
 frankness: " I was up a tree." 
 
 " Up a up a tree? " exclaimed Hugh, in unaffected sur- 
 prise.
 
 JEM'S ADVENTURE. 191 
 
 "Yes. It's no nse being shocked, Mr. Thorndyke; 
 people who have the privilege of knowing me have to get 
 used to these things." 
 
 She wanted to get away, but Hugh would not let 
 her. He was rather piqued by the change which had 
 come into her manner since their preceding and most 
 friendly interview, and he was curious to know the reason 
 of the excitement which burned in the girl's cheeks and 
 eyes. 
 
 " Won't you show me the the the " 
 
 He had begun with the intention of finishing with the 
 word flowers, but the desolate appearance of the neglected 
 borders made him suddenly hesitate. 
 
 " Yes, I can show you the weeds, if you like," said Jem, 
 gravely. " I sowed a packet of poppy-seed, and another of 
 wallflowers, and another of something that I couldn't 
 pronounce; but they haven't come up yet, and I don't 
 suppose they ever will. The principal productions of these 
 grounds," she went on, with a comprehensive wave of the 
 hands, "are cats and stray marbles." 
 
 She was speaking very rapidly, and under the influence 
 of intense excitement she had lost some of her shyness. 
 Hugh looked at her with interest and wished he dared ask 
 the cause. 
 
 "I am afraid," he suggested, in the pause that followed 
 her words, " that you want to get rid of me." 
 
 Now, to hear her thoughts thus openly expressed in words 
 was too much for poor Jem's courtesy. Turning quickly 
 to him, she panted out eagerly: 
 
 "I do; oh, I do! At least I mean of course I don't 
 mean that. I ought to have said that that " 
 
 Hugh laughed gently at her discomfiture. He spoke 
 to her as if she had been a child. 
 
 "Look here," said he, "you and I are very good friends,
 
 192 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 aren't we? At least, we were last time we mat, were we 
 not? " 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Jem rather shortly. 
 
 "So that we needn't make-believe," he went on. "If 
 you want me to go, I'll make an appointment on the spur of 
 the moment to take me away. All I ask in return is that 
 you shall tell me whether I have offended you." 
 
 Jem was strung up, and in the mood to say too much 
 instead of being in her more usual mood of saying too little. 
 
 "Yes, you have offended me," she answered promptly, 
 looking up into his face with a great air of defiance and 
 animosity. " I am very angry with you. It was you who 
 caused the quarrel between Mrs. Hilliard and her husband. 
 There, you said I might go if I told you whether you 
 had offended me. So good-by." 
 
 Before Hugh could get farther than "But, Miss Col- 
 lingham " Jem was in the house. He went back to the 
 drawing-room, therefore, and told an innocent tarradiddle 
 on Jem's behalf by professing to have "missed her"; a 
 statement which was received with surprise, as the modest 
 quarter-acre of ground belonging to " Maisonette" did not 
 seem to favor such a circumstance. 
 
 Mrs. Collingham was annoyed. She had sent Hugh in 
 search of Jem in pursuance of her plan for " getting her 
 stepdaughter off;" and this little failure showed that there 
 was a hitch somewhere in her arrangements. Hugh per- 
 ceived that something had gone wrong, and he hastened to 
 take his leave, more annoyed than he would have cared to 
 admit by the cavalier treatment he had received at the 
 hands of the young girl. 
 
 As he could not call at " The Firs" to see Gerard after 
 the treatment he had received from its nominal master, 
 there was nothing for him to do but to return to the sta- 
 tion, to catch the next train back to Waterloo.
 
 JEM'S ADVENTURE. 193 
 
 He was sauntering along the platform, not in the best of 
 tempers, when he perceived, a little way ahead of him on 
 the same platform, the very person the sight of whom was 
 the least likely to restore his amiability. This was Linley 
 Billiard, and he carried in his hand a Gladstone bag. 
 
 Hugh stopped short, and turned back into the station. 
 He rather thought, so greatly did he dislike this man, that 
 he would take a walk and go up to town by the next train 
 to avoid the possibility of coming in contact with him. 
 
 He had scarcely got within the doors of the building 
 when, for the second time within an hour, he found him- 
 self face to face with the whirlwind Jem. Her face was 
 aglow ; she was breathless, panting, and her hair, as usual, 
 had been blown down into her eyes. 
 
 With her usual girlish awkwardness, instead of passing 
 on with a smile and a slight bend of the head, to indicate 
 that she wished to be left undisturbed, Jem stopped 
 abruptly, and exclaimed, " Oh ! " in a tone of unmistak- 
 able dismay. 
 
 Hugh, though rather nettled by her behavior, could not 
 help smiling. Jem blushed, angry with herself for her 
 stupidity. 
 
 " You are going up to town?" asked Hugh. " Can I get 
 your ticket, or do anything for you?" 
 
 "N no, thank you," said Jem quickly. "I I am 
 not going far." Then, perceiving that her manner was 
 abrupt to the verge of rudeness, and that her companion 
 seemed hurt by it, she said, " Are you going back to town 
 by this train?" 
 
 " I was," he answered. " But I have changed my mind, 
 as there is some one on the platform I don't wish to risk 
 meeting." 
 
 To Hugh's intense surprise, her face lighted up. 
 
 "Mr. Hilliard?"she asked, quite eagerly. 
 13
 
 194 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "Y yes," stammered Hugh. 
 
 "Oh, thank you!" She seemed much relieved; and, 
 with an apology, she left Hugh and hurried to the book- 
 ing-office, while he watched her rapid movements with sud- 
 den anxiety. 
 
 What had this innocent young girl to do with that de- 
 testable little card-sharper? Hugh was resolved, for Jem's 
 sake, to know. So at the risk of a severe snub, he ad- 
 dressed her again as she turned away from the booking- 
 office, ticket in hand. 
 
 " Miss Collingham, please forgive me if you think my 
 curiosity impertinent; but has Mr. Hilliard offered to take 
 you to see his wife?" Hugh thought he had made a 
 rather shrewd guess, but Jem's eyes opened wide in indig- 
 nant astonishment. 
 
 "No," she answered sharply. "I don't like him well 
 enough to ask him to do such a thing, or to ask him any- 
 thing if I could help it." 
 
 Hugh gave a sigh of relief. Still he was curious and 
 rather anxious. Jem, observing this, thought she had 
 better confide in him, to some extent at least. 
 
 " I don't want him to see me," she whispered in a tone 
 of some importance. " I'm following him I want to see 
 where he's going to." Seeing the not unnatural astonish- 
 ment on Hugh's face, and thinking he might perhaps be 
 persuaded into a valuable ally, she went on rapidly : " He's 
 got a bag with him, hasn't he?" 
 
 " I I think he has," stammered Hugh, taken aback. 
 
 "It's full of Netelka's clothes," hissed Jem, earnestly. 
 " And I want to see where he's going to take them to ! " 
 
 This rather sensational statement, made, as it was, in a 
 very sensational manner, startled Hugh, although he was 
 not inclined to take so tragic a view of the circumstance as 
 the girl did. At this moment the train came in, and he
 
 JEM'S ADVENTURE. 195 
 
 hurried with her to a compartment. But as they had a 
 carriageful of passengers all the way up to town, they were 
 not able to hold further conversation upon the matter in 
 hand until they got out at Waterloo. 
 
 "You are not going to follow him to play the spy, 
 surely?" cried Hugh aghast, as Jem, having kept hidden 
 in the crowd until Linley had got into a hansom, hailed one 
 in her turn. 
 
 " Yes, but I am, though !" said she, with spirit. And 
 before he had recovered from the stupefaction into which 
 he was thrown by this answer she had jumped in and was 
 telling the driver to follow the hansom which had just gone 
 out of the station. 
 
 "Well, if you will go," wailed Hugh, plaintively, "of 
 course I must go with you. But I hadn't any idea you 
 were so headstrong." 
 
 And he jumped into the hansom and took his seat beside 
 her. 
 
 " Why," cried she, turning upon him with flashing eyes, 
 " could I do any less when I don't know what has become 
 of her? " 
 
 "You are very brave," said Hugh, smiling at her pretty 
 vehemence, "very brave and very loyal. But you must 
 take care that your zeal doesn't outrun your discretion." 
 
 " My discretion can't be outrun," answered Jem simply, 
 "because I haven't got any. Now, it seems to me," she 
 went on rashly, " that you are all discretion and no zeal. 
 And yet you say you are fond of her !" 
 
 " I said I had been fond of her before she was married ! " 
 corrected Hugh, rather shocked by the form taken by the 
 young lady's statement. 
 
 "Well, you can't have lost all interest in her the mo- 
 ment you knew that she was married so that you don't 
 even care to know what has become of her! I shouldn't
 
 196 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 care for affection which could change into indifference so 
 easily ! " 
 
 Hugh felt very much annoyed ; he began to feel that he 
 had been mistaken in this girl, who was not nearly so nice 
 as she had at first seemed. 
 
 "Don't you think the husband would prefer my view 
 to yours?" asked he rather coldly. 
 
 " A husband like Mr. Hilliard would prefer your view to 
 Gerard's, for instance," she answered, coloring deeply as 
 she mentioned the second name. 
 
 Hugh felt more annoyed still. 
 
 " I think even the immaculate Gerard would say you were 
 doing a very risky thing in engaging in such an expedi- 
 tion as the present one," said he coldly. 
 
 "Then, why did you come? " 
 
 Hugh put up his umbrella to stop the hansom, and Jem, 
 now as humble as a moment before she bad been bold, rec- 
 ognized the fact that she had been both ungrateful and 
 rude. 
 
 " No, no, don't at least, of course, you can go if you 
 like. But I am sorry I've been so rude. I'm always doing 
 something like that," she added, tragically. 
 
 Hugh desisted, and before he had time to accept her 
 apology in words the driver opened his little trap-door and 
 said: 
 
 " Shall I go on, sir? The gentleman's got out." 
 
 Hugh and Jem had been so much occupied by their 
 quarrel that they were in danger of forgetting what their 
 errand was. 
 
 " Drive on," said Hugh. 
 
 Linley's hansom had stopped at a house in a shabby 
 street near Victoria, and Linley himself had got out with 
 his bag, dismissed the hansom, and entered the house be- 
 fore the hansom in pursuit drove past.
 
 JEM'S ADVENTURE. 197 
 
 "And now," said Hugh, decidedly, "you must let me 
 take you back to Waterloo, for you may be quite sure that 
 Netelka is not in that house." 
 
 A glance had told him that the house in question was a 
 lodging-house of low character. Jem had sense enough to 
 make no objection. But she proffered a stipulation. 
 
 "Will you, Mr. Thorndyke," said she solemnly, "have 
 the house watched? I have an idea in my head, but I 
 would rather not tell you what it is until I find out 
 whether I'm right. Then you can't laugh at me, you 
 know, if I'm wrong." 
 
 Very reluctantly, Hugh agreed to this, and agreed also 
 to let her know if any result came of the watching. 
 
 She was very grateful to him, but Hugh was rather 
 piqued by the frank simplicity with which she looked upon 
 him as a mere part of the machinery by which her plan 
 of finding Netelka was to be worked. 
 
 " I will be sure to come down and tell you if anything 
 happens," he promised as he put her into the train at Wa- 
 terloo. " But nothing will happen, you know," he added, 
 reassuringly. " Things worth putting one's self out about 
 BO seldom do!" 
 
 "Thank, you, oh! so much," said Jem fervently, as she 
 gave him a hearty grip of the hand and looked at him with 
 tantalizing gratitude out of her pretty blue eyes. And 
 then she spoiled it all by adding, with the most innocent 
 but cold-blooded cruelty : " You needn't trouble to come, 
 you know. You can write!" 
 
 Hugh, in spite of the decision he had come to that he 
 was disappointed in Jem, felt that his face grew longer as 
 he received this recommendation.
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 LINLEY'S LITTLE GAME. 
 
 JEM did Hugh Thorndyke an injustice. His interest in 
 Netelka had not evaporated, although he showed it in a less 
 demonstrative manner than that impulsive young lady. 
 He recognized, as she did not, the need of great caution 
 in dealing with a man whom he believed to be an accom- 
 plished rascal. 
 
 And yet Hugh's actual knowledge of Linley's misdeeds 
 was not extensive, being confined to the conviction that 
 he had seen the delicate-handed gentleman cheat at cards. 
 But this was enough : you could go no lower than that; 
 and Hugh, whose acquaintance with card-sharpers had been 
 perfected all over the globe, was quite ready to believe Lin- 
 ley capable of other malpractices. 
 
 He walked away from the station in a thoroughly dis- 
 contented and irritable mood, uneasy about Netelka and 
 annoyed with her valiant little friend. Of course he was 
 anxious about Netelka's safety, just as anxious as Miss 
 Collingham could be : but really the girl's notions of one's 
 right of interference between husband and wife were very 
 far-fetched, and her constant references to Gerard, as if he 
 were an angel from heaven, began to be extremely nauseat- 
 ing. Decidedly Miss Collingham, pretty as she undoubtedly 
 was, must be dropped if she persisted in expressing her 
 outspoken preference for a man who was head over ears in 
 love with another woman. 
 
 But then there came the most irritating reflection of 
 all : and this was that Jem was not only entirely willing
 
 LINLEY 'S LITTLE GAME. 199 
 
 to be " dropped" by him, but that she had herself sug- 
 gested that he should write, to save himself the trouble of 
 calling! 
 
 Hugh would have liked to flatter himself that Miss Col- 
 lingham was not averse from opening a correspondence with 
 him : but alas ! her matter-of-fact manner, her entire ab- 
 sence of coquetry, had made it impossible for him to enter- 
 tain such a thought. There was nothing for him to do 
 but to set about obeying her behest : Hugh did so with 
 more thought of pleasing Jem than of satisfying himself 
 about the safety of Netelka. 
 
 He had promised to have the house which Linley had 
 entered watched ; and, after a little further consideration, 
 he engaged an agent from a private inquiry office to under- 
 take the task. Hugh gave the man a description of Linley, 
 and commissioned him to follow that gentleman if he should 
 leave the house with a lady. He was to report progress on 
 the following evening. 
 
 At the end of the next day, the detective duly called upon 
 him, and his statement, made with the help of notes, was 
 as follows : 
 
 " The gentleman whose description you gave me, short, slender, 
 
 very fair hair, complexion, and eyes, left the house, No. 
 
 Street, at eleven o'clock this morning, accompanied by a lady. The 
 lady was rather tall, dark-haired, and was dressed in a black silk 
 dress, a long black mantle lined with gray silk, a close-fitting black 
 hat trimmed with small black and gray feathers. She wore a thick 
 black veil. 
 
 " I followed them. They walked for a short distance, then took a 
 hansom and drove to the city. They got out at the office of the 
 Royal Britannia Life Insurance Company, where they stayed for 
 about an hour. On coming out, they got into the hansom and drove 
 straight back. About an hour after that, at three o'clock, the gen- 
 tleman came out of the house by himself, carrying a Gladstone bag. 
 He got into a hansom, drove away, and did not return. " 
 
 Hugh had heard enough. He felt sure that the woman
 
 200 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 whom the detective had seen with Linley was not Netelka, 
 but a woman whom Linley had induced to personate his 
 wife; and it was evident that his object was to effect an 
 insurance on his wife's life without her knowledge. 
 
 The matter had now assumed such a serious aspect that 
 he again called on Lady Kenslow and told her of the inves- 
 tigation he had just made and the result. 
 
 Lady Kenslow listened attentively and grew very pale. 
 She affected, however, to be annoyed at Hugh's officious- 
 ness; and on learning that he himself had not seen the 
 alleged personator of her niece, she affected to believe that 
 it was Netelka herself whom the detective had seen with 
 her husband, and very curtly desired that he would make 
 no further investigations without consulting her. 
 
 "It is quite unheard of," she said, rising majestically 
 as a signal for him to retire, " that people should have their 
 private affairs-pried into by people whom they don't con- 
 cern. I beg that you will take no further steps in this 
 matter. If you do, I shall feel it my duty to warn Mr. 
 Hilliard that his movements are being watched by a friend 
 of his wife's." 
 
 She said these last words with such disagreeable sig- 
 nificance that Hugh, blushing violently, hastened to add, 
 in a voice full of suppressed anger : 
 
 "The inquiry was not made on my account; I instituted 
 it at the earnest request of a lady who seems to be more 
 anxious for her friend than if she were a relation." 
 
 " Your sneers are quite thrown away upon me, Mr. 
 Thorndyke," said Lady Kenslow, with an air of superb in- 
 difference, as he bowed himself out. 
 
 But as soon as he was gone, Lady Kenslow's face became 
 clouded with anxiety. Faithful to her code, she still 
 dreaded the scandal of an exposure more than anything. 
 But, knowing the trouble into which Linley had already
 
 LINLEY'S LITTLE GAME. 201 
 
 got himself through an insurance office, she could not help 
 seeing that Hugh's suspicions were correct, and she per- 
 ceived the necessity for immediate action. She thought, 
 however, that a word from her would be enough, and she 
 sat down without delay to write to him. She did not make 
 any unkind insinuation, but mentioned that she had heard 
 accidentally that Netelka had been insuring her life, and 
 warned him that, in view of his " unfortunate experience" 
 in insurance business, it was waste of money to have any- 
 thing more to do with such matters. 
 
 Then Lady Kenslow sighed, feeling that she had done 
 all that was necessary, as she rang the bell and told the 
 footman to post the letter at once. 
 
 Hugh Thorndyke, meanwhile, had left the house in a 
 very uneasy state of mind. He could not feel as contented 
 as Lady Kenslow professed to do about Netelka, and yet 
 upon what grounds could he interfere? 
 
 He felt rather inclined to go down to Wimbledon next 
 day to tell Jem what he had seen. This half -fledged crea- 
 ture had just the impulse and daring which his years and 
 his experience made impossible for him, and he had a half - 
 Buperstitious feeling that she might jump to a way out of 
 the difficulty which his slower and more cautious and mas- 
 culine mind could not conceive. 
 
 A sudden turn was, however, given to all his thoughts by 
 a telegram which he found awaiting him when he returned 
 to the hotel where he had been staying. 
 
 It contained a summons to the death-bed of his mother, 
 and necessitated an immediate journey to the north of Eng- 
 land, where, in a remote district among the Yorkshire 
 moors, his father's vicarage was situated. Here his mother's 
 illness, which ended in her death, and meeting with old 
 friends whom he had not seen since his return from Africa, 
 occupied his time and his thoughts almost to the exclusion
 
 202 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 of Netelka and her husband, until they were recalled to his 
 thoughts in an abrupt and unexpected manner. 
 
 Hugh had property of considerable extent, and was looked 
 upon in his old neighborhood as a " great match. " In spite, 
 therefore, of the sad errand on which he had come, he was 
 forced to see a good deal of his old neighbors, who loaded 
 him with their sympathy on every possible occasion. After 
 his mother's death he was obliged to remain at the vicarage 
 for a little while, being one of the executors of his mother's 
 will. Besides, although he had let his house, and was sat- 
 isfied with the management of his agent, yet there were 
 many details upon which that personage was glad of an op- 
 portunity of consulting him. So Hugh, against his will, 
 found himself detained in Yorkshire for five or six weeks. 
 
 He had been forced into accepting an invitation to after- 
 noon tea at the house of some very old friends, when one of 
 the daughters, who had entertained a preference for Hugh 
 which was an open secret, and who had been very jealous of 
 Netelka in the latter's maiden days, found an opportunity 
 of referring to that lady with much malice. They were 
 sitting just inside the open French windows of a long, low- 
 ceilinged, old-fashioned drawing-room, where papier-mache 
 tables and potpourri bowls recalled the faded and insipid 
 elegances of life in a far-off age. Maude, who was on the 
 borders of thirty, but who had retained the youthful ap- 
 pearance of eight years back, as many girls do in the placid 
 existence of the country, handed him his tea with a rather 
 pinched little smile. 
 
 "By the bye, Hugh, what did you think of poor Netelka 
 Askew's matrimonial venture? Dreadfully sad, wasn't it?" 
 
 Hugh started. 
 
 "What, you know all about it up here, then?" 
 
 " Why, of course. The trial came on at Liverpool Assizes 
 last year."
 
 LINLEY'S LITTLE GAME. 203 
 
 "The trial!" exclaimed Hugh, turning almost purple. 
 
 "Yes. Didn't you hear of it? The papers over here 
 were full of nothing else. It was 'Trial of Linley Dax' 
 on the hoardings wherever one looked." 
 
 Hugh was struck dumb. The Dax murder trial had 
 reached even South Africa, and he was familiar with most 
 of its details. For a moment he sat quite still, staring at 
 his teacup without uttering a sound. Then he put it down 
 abruptly on the table and stood up, looking out at old Mrs. 
 Linthorpe, in the rusty black satin he remembered fifteen 
 years ago, trying to induce her fat pug to run. He felt the 
 blood rushing to his head, and suddenly wondered whether 
 Maude thought he was going to have a fit of apoplexy. He 
 looked at her. She was quite pleased with herself for hav- 
 ing made a palpable hit. 
 
 " I wondered whether you'd heard. I thought you would 
 be interested to hear it," said she. 
 
 Interested ! This was the bucolic view of things. 
 
 "We've never been able to find out," pursued Maude, 
 placidly, " what has become of her. As for him, why people 
 thought, you know, that he was lucky to get off. How horrid 
 for her, poor girl, to be married to a murderer, wasn't it?" 
 
 At last Hugh could speak, but it was in a hard, mechan- 
 ical tone that he answered : 
 
 "Yes, I don't suppose it's pleasant. I I must be 
 must be getting back to the vicarage, Maude, or I shall 
 keep the Vicar waiting for dinner." 
 
 But Hugh did not go back to the vicarage to dinner. 
 He was no sooner outside the gates of the house he had been 
 visiting than he made up his mind to go up to town by the 
 seven o'clock train to Brierfield Junction ; he was full of re- 
 morse for having neglected Netelka, and crazy lest the in- 
 terval which had elapsed since he left London had been 
 fatal to her.
 
 204 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 The express seemed to crawl along the line : by the time 
 Hugh reached the hotel where he had stayed on his previ- 
 ous visit to town he was in a fever. 
 
 A waiter stepped up to him as he was on his way to his 
 room. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir; but here's a letter for you that came 
 two or three days ago. Mrs. Hutchins is very sorry that she 
 forgot to forward it." 
 
 Hugh took it with a presentiment of evil born of his de- 
 spondent frame of mind. The postmark was Wimbledon ; 
 the handwriting, for it was shaky and irregular, he recog- 
 nized as Gerard Waller's. It was only a note: 
 
 " DEAR THORNDYKE : Come down and see me if you can. I am 
 awfully ill may pop off the hooks at any moment, I believe. 
 
 "Yours, GERARD WALLER." 
 
 Sick at heart, weighed down with the gravest forebod- 
 ings, Hugh staggered down the stairs and called for a ban* 
 som.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 A MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS. 
 
 BETWEEN his fears for Netelka and his fears for Gerard, 
 Hugh Thorndyke was scarcely in his right mind by the time 
 he reached Wimbledon. If, on his arrival at "The Firs," 
 he had been met by the gentle-mannered Linley, he would 
 have been unable to keep his hands off that gentleman's 
 graceful person. 
 
 It was nearly two months since his last visit to " The 
 Firs," and the bare branches and plain red walls of March 
 had given place to the leaf and blossom, the delicate hang- 
 ing creepers of May. "The Firs" was transfigured: the 
 stately old house was buried in a nest of exquisite foliage : 
 the wisteria hung in clusters about the darkened window of 
 Gerard's room. 
 
 Hugh hurried up the pathway, dreading what he should 
 hear. 
 
 "How is he? How is Mr. Waller?" he asked of the ser- 
 vant almost before the door was opened. 
 
 " He is much the same, sir," said the man, in a tone of 
 more than conventional regret ; " that is, much the same 
 as he was yesterday : but he's a good deal better than he was 
 the day before that, sir. We all thought he wouldn't live 
 through the night on Sunday, sir. Mr. Hilliard sat up 
 with him all night, sir." 
 
 " Oh!" said Hugh, shortly. " Is Mr. Hilliard with him 
 now?" 
 
 "No, sir. He's gone away to see Mrs. Hilliard." 
 
 Hugh strode at once into the house with a little gesture,
 
 206 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 which the servant noticed. It was the sort of household in 
 which very few things escape the criticism of the servants' 
 hall. 
 
 "Who is with Mr. Waller now?" asked he. "Will you 
 see if I can go up to him?" 
 
 The man showed him into the drawing-room and re- 
 tired. Hugh paced up and down, picturing to himself 
 what the inner life of the woman must have been since she 
 found out what manner of man she had married ; and his 
 heart ached for her. 
 
 Then the door opened suddenly, and there entered 
 skipping, fluttering, all unnecessary draperies, and fly- 
 ing ribbons, and little meaningless smiles and airy 
 gestures Mrs. Collingham. She wore a large cook's apron 
 and deep cuffs, to denote that she had taken upon herself 
 the duties of a sick-nurse. She descended upon Hugh 
 like a rain-cloud light in itself, but depressing in its 
 effects. 
 
 " How do you do, my dear Mr. Thorndyke? I am so glad 
 to see you, and so sorry to have no better news of our dear 
 Gerard!" she exclaimed, all in one breath, with a profusion 
 of touching little sighs. 
 
 "He's such a dear, nice fellow himself , and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Hilliard are so fond of him, that I wouldn't have anything 
 happen to the poor, dear boy for the world! As soon as I 
 heard that dear Mr. Hilliard was going to see his wife I 
 determined to leave my own household to take its chance, 
 and to devote myself to the duties of a nurse. It's a great 
 fatigue and a great responsibility of course; but still, in the 
 interests of friendship, one must make sacrifices, mustn't 
 one? And when dear Mr. Hilliard told me that he could 
 trust me as he could himself, I felt repaid for all, I assure 
 you." 
 
 Hugh felt bewildered by this harangue, but he managed
 
 A MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS. 207 
 
 to stammer out some vague words which satisfied the lady, 
 and gave her time to get breath for a fresh speech. 
 
 "And Gerard is the best and most unselfish of patients, 
 I assure you. He is always begging me to go back home; 
 and when you were announced, he quite insisted that I 
 should come down and see you. Otherwise I am sure you 
 will believe that I would not on any account have left 
 the dear boy." 
 
 Hugh expressed in suitable terms his amazement and de- 
 light at such power of self-sacrifice, and asked whether he 
 might see Gerard. 
 
 Mrs. Collingham professed to look doubtful. 
 
 "You see," she said, "the doctor says he must be kept 
 very quiet, and really I don't know " 
 
 Hugh could not help smiling. 
 
 "I'll be very good," protested he, "and as quiet as as 
 you yourself could be. Will that satisfy you?" 
 
 Mrs. Collingham gave way, sweetly, coquettishly, with a 
 few shrugs, and many admonitions to restrain his wild ex- 
 uberance and to remember that he was bound by his prom- 
 ise to her to move and talk with as little noise or excite- 
 ment as possible. Then, to Hugh's horror, she insisted on 
 accompanying him upstairs. 
 
 Gerard was lying on the sofa in his bedroom : he looked 
 thin, white-faced, and worried. As Hugh bent over him 
 and stretched out his hand to take the cold fingers of the 
 invalid in his, the younger man looked up with a wistful 
 expression in his eyes. This, however, changed to one of 
 dismay when he caught sight of the flying draperies of his 
 self-constituted nurse, who was closely following the visitor. 
 
 "Is there anything I can do for you, old man?" asked 
 Hugh, in response to a look of earnest entreaty on Gerard's 
 face. 
 
 " Kill that, " murmured the invalid.
 
 208 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Hugh turned to Mrs. Collingham. He did not venture 
 to obey his friend's injunction to the letter, but he gently 
 suggested that Gerard had urgent private affairs to dis- 
 cuss with him, and promised not to allow him to excite 
 himself. With the enthusiasm of the amateur, Mrs. Col- 
 lingham shook her head, and set all her draperies flying 
 and fluttering. 
 
 "I really don't know whether I ought," she protested. 
 " If I do consent, mind, it's only for ten minutes." 
 
 Hugh was ready to bind himself to anything to get rid 
 of her. She tripped off airily, waving her hand to Hugh 
 and kissing it to Gerard. When the door closed, Gerard 
 uttered a deep sigh. " That creature was driving me mad," 
 he exclaimed, irritably. " If you hadn't come, I should 
 have thrown something at her." 
 
 "Don't be ungrateful, Gerard. "She's a good soul " 
 
 " Her soul may be all right, for what I know. It's her 
 detestable personality I can't stand. I always have the 
 feeling that if I dare to hold my finger out, she'd try to hop 
 upon it and say 'Tweet- tweet!' And all the time that 
 she's pretending to be so anxious about me, she's only try- 
 ing to find out my ' intentions' accursed word ! toward 
 her stepdaughter!" 
 
 " Jem !" exclaimed Hugh, with a start. 
 
 Gerard nodded and looked curiously at his visitor, who 
 had turned crimson at the mention of the girl's name. 
 
 "What!" cried Gerard, opening his eyes very wide; "are 
 you? Do you ?" 
 
 "No," replied Hugh promptly and emphatically, with a 
 severe frown, " I am not, and I do not. I don't mean to 
 say that she isn't a very nice girl and a very pretty girl, 
 but she's so eaten up with thoughts of of somebody else 
 that " he stopped, and there was a pause, which Gerard 
 did not try to break. Then Hugh said impatiently : " Why
 
 A MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS. 209 
 
 the don't you marry her? It would put an end to all 
 
 your difficulties, and to all hers." 
 
 "Oh, would it?" said Gerard dryly. "My dear fellow, 
 never try to make a marriage. Those marriages that don't 
 make themselves," he went on in a sententious tone, "are 
 made, not in Heaven, but in the other place. If I were to 
 marry Jem," he went on, raising himself to give emphasis 
 to his words, " I should break her heart, and my own too !" 
 
 Hugh was silent and discreetly absorbed in the pattern 
 of the carpet. Presently he said, with diffidence: 
 
 "Wouldn't it be better, then, if you don't think of mar- 
 rying her, for you to go away from here? Of course I've no 
 right to interfere ; but, well, do you think this place agrees 
 with you?" 
 
 Both men were talking on the surface, and both knew 
 that their words were only playing over their thoughts. 
 Suddenly Gerard sprang up. 
 
 "Of course I know what you mean," said he, with sup- 
 pressed excitement in his tones. " I know why you want 
 me away. But you don't understand you don't under- 
 stand, I tell you. I don't pretend, at least I won't pretend 
 with you, that I have a very high opinion of the two gen- 
 tlemen who are joint proprietors of the of the Club, I sup- 
 pose we can call it, upstairs. Or that it is for their sake 
 that I stay here and allow myself to be fleeced." 
 
 "Fleeced yes, that's the word!" interrupted Hugh. 
 " And they don't stop at that," he went on impetuously. 
 " Now that they have got all they can out of you alive, they 
 mean to find profit in your death. If you don't leave this 
 place at once, you will never leave it alive." 
 
 Gerard grew a little paler, and was silent for a few mo- 
 ments. Then he shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "I don't know that I care," said he. 
 
 "But you ought to carej you've got to care. Where is 
 14
 
 210 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 your father? Where are your friends? Where did you live 
 before you came here?" 
 
 " I lived in chambers. My father is abroad, travelling, 
 I believe. He never answers my letters. As for my friends, 
 I don't know that I have any, except Sainsbury and Sam 
 Teale." 
 
 "Don't be ungrateful. You have more friends than 
 those; and even if you had none, that's no reason why you 
 should let yourself be snuffed out like a candle for the ben- 
 efit of a couple of rogues." 
 
 Gerard looked at Hugh with affected amusement and ad- 
 miration. 
 
 " I didn't think you had it in you to get as much excited 
 as that over anything," he said. " It's beautiful to see you. 
 Seriously, though, it's all right. They're not poisoning me, 
 as one would almost think you meant to imply." Hugh 
 was examining the medicine-bottles which stood on a small 
 table in a corner of the room. " I caught cold while I was 
 out driving with Hilliard, and then I had pneumonia, 
 whatever that is ; and complications, whatever those are. 
 Nothing in the world to be suspicious about." 
 
 " I don't know that," said Hugh emphatically. "You 
 are liable to cold, while he's too fish-blooded to be liable to 
 anything. Who is your doctor?" 
 
 " A man named Pemberton lives at the corner of the 
 road; I haven't much faith in his medicines." 
 
 " I should have more if they were not administered by 
 Mr. Hilliard," said Hugh, who was still examining the bot- 
 tles of medicine. Then he strode over to the sofa. " Look 
 here, Waller," he said in a very emphatic tone, "you must 
 get out of this. Take my advice. Let me call a cab and 
 take you straight back to town again. You can stay with 
 me; and even if you run some risk in moving at all, it's a 
 lighter one than that of remaining here."
 
 A MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS. 211 
 
 But Gerard began to tremble while the blood rose in his 
 pale face. 
 
 "I can't I can't go away," he answered in an unsteady 
 voice, "until until Hilliard comes back." 
 
 A light flashed into Hugh's mind : it was Gerard's man- 
 ner of keeping his eyes down which enlightened him. 
 
 "Is he going to bring back his wife with him?" he asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 Gerard's manner betrayed him even before he answered: 
 
 "He said so. But then he always says so." 
 
 / V 
 
 Hugh took two or three turns up and down the room. 
 Then he stopped short beside the sofa. 
 
 "And doesn't that open your eyes? Does't that prove 
 to you the sort of cur you are dealing with? The brute 
 makes his wife's beauty and charm just a counter in the 
 game. Don't you see that he is getting you entirely under 
 his thumb by means of her? That it is degrading to her 
 as well as to you for this state of things to go on? Where 
 will it end? Ask yourself that. How can'ii end? Pull 
 yourself together: put an end to this once and for all. 
 Remember that you can do her no good, but that you might 
 do her untold harm." 
 
 Gerard betrayed the agitation into which he was thrown 
 by this exhortation, by a hundred restless movements, by 
 the suffering in his face, the burning brilliancy of his eyes. 
 When Hugh had finished, he started up from the sofa, 
 staggered and fell back again, only saved from falling by 
 the quickly outstretched arms of his friend. He affected 
 to laugh as he sat, trembling and leaning on Hugh's 
 shoulder. 
 
 "I'm a pretty fellow to move," said he, as he passed his 
 handkerchief with a shaking hand over his forehead. 
 " Can't you see that I'm not in a fit state to go up to town 
 or anywhere else to-day? I would go, I give you my word
 
 212 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 I would, if I could do so with safety. You're quite right, 
 of course I know you're quite right. I ought to go, I must 
 go. But well, you don't want to have an invalid on 
 your hands, and you see what I am now." 
 
 Hugh was much troubled. He could see for himself that 
 to move Gerard at once would be a risk, and be knew that 
 if he were to ask the doctor's opinion it would be adverse 
 to his wishes. He considered a moment, and then asked 
 abruptly : 
 
 " When is Hilliard coming back?" 
 
 " On Tuesday, I believe." 
 
 This was Friday. Hugh's face brightened. 
 
 "Well, that gives us three days," said he, decidedly. 
 " In the mean time, don't take any more medicine unless 
 the doctor brings it to you himself. This is really a 
 necessary precaution while you are in such questionable 
 hands." 
 
 A gasp, a stifled shriek, a sound of various small articles 
 of furniture falling with a crash, and Hugh, looking round 
 quickly, saw that Mrs. Collingham had entered the room, 
 and that a great commotion and upheaval had been the re- 
 sult. She had overheard the last words uttered by Hugh ; 
 and although the unlucky man did his utmost to persuade 
 her that the " questionable hands" he had referred to were 
 not hers, his arguments were all in vain. He appealed for 
 corroboration to Gerard ; but unhappily the invalid was so 
 much struck with the fun of the situation that he was help- 
 less with suppressed laughter, and before he was in a con- 
 dition to render his friend effective assistance, the amateur 
 nurse had bounced out of the room, speechless (at last) with 
 indignation. 
 
 Hugh was distressed beyond measure. He sat in an atti- 
 tude of despair, while Gerard laughed till the tears ran down 
 his face.
 
 A MYSTERIOUS ILLNESS. 213 
 
 " The dear old thing thinks you suspect her of poisoning 
 me!" he cried as soon as he could speak. 
 
 But Hugh was deeply annoyed, because he saw that Mrs. 
 Collingham was not the sort of woman to keep silence upon 
 the incident. However, there was nothing to be done, and 
 meanwhile Gerard was rejoicing that he should at last be 
 left in peace. Hugh thought that he had better leave the 
 house, as his presence in it would only serve to keep alive 
 Mrs. Collingham 's anger. 
 
 With a heavy heart, therefore, he was going down the 
 staircase on his way out, when he noticed that the footman, 
 who was waiting for him in the hall, was looking up at him 
 with the expression of a person who has an important mes- 
 sage to deliver. 
 
 It was the same man who had opened the door for Hugh 
 on his arrival. He was one of those discreet servants who, 
 knowing many of the secrets of the household of which they 
 form a part, " take sides" and follow their own choice loy- 
 ally. He hated Linley, who treated him like a dog, and 
 Moseley, who was little better ; and he would have gone out 
 of his way to serve either Mrs. Hilliard or Mr. Waller. 
 And he coupled their names together as being the represen- 
 tatives of light against darkness. 
 
 " I should like to speak to you, sir," he said in a low 
 voice as he opened the door between the inner and the outer 
 hall. " Excuse me for mentioning it, sir ; but Mrs. Col- 
 lingham went straight from Mr. Waller's room to Mr. 
 Moseley, and he gave me a telegram to send off to Mr. Hil- 
 liard at Hastings, sir." 
 
 "Hastings!" exclaimed Hugh in spite of himself. 
 
 " Yes, sir," answered the man. " Not Bournemouth, but 
 No. 209 Seaview Parade, Hastings. Excuse me for troub- 
 ling you, sir; but we are all anxious to know that Mrs. 
 Hilliard is well."
 
 214 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Hugh said nothing to intimate that this communication 
 bore any significance to him, but, as a matter of fact, it in- 
 terested him deeply. He had fully made up his mind that 
 Linley had taken Netelka away with some sinister intention, 
 and it was evident that the discovery of this address was an 
 important one. But there were difficulties in the way of 
 making use of this piece of knowledge. He dared not go 
 down to see her himself, and he had not sufficient proof of 
 his suspicions of Linley to put the matter into a lawyer's 
 hands. 
 
 It was in a mood of perplexity, therefore, bordering on 
 despair that he passed through the gates of " The Firs" 
 and glanced instinctively at the windows of " Maisonette" 
 on his way to the station.
 
 CHAPTEE XXVIII. 
 
 A STARTLING PROPOSITION. 
 
 "ME. THORNDYKE! Mr. Thorndyke!" 
 
 Hugh heard his name hissed out in a mysteriously tragic 
 whisper which would have done honor to any stage. The 
 words made his heart leap up, although all the outward sign 
 he gave was to turn very slowly and very deliberately, as if 
 uncertain from which direction the sibilant sounds came. 
 He heard his name repeated in a still more emphatic man- 
 ner before his eyes met those of Jem Collingham, who was 
 hanging over the fragile green wooden balcony of " Maison- 
 ette" at apparent risk to that aesthetic structure and her 
 own limbs. She made various gestures to him to come into 
 the house; and as he hesitated, she disappeared, and, rush- 
 ing out of the front door, met him excitedly at the gate. 
 
 "Come in, come in for one moment," cried she, in en- 
 treaty. " Never mind the children. And please excuse my 
 being so untidy. You don't know what it is to have to 
 mind five children when there's no governess and the nurse 
 is out!" 
 
 "It looks as if the task were rather formidable!" said 
 Hugh, as he glanced from the girl's pretty face to the troop 
 of small stepbrothers and stepsisters who had tumultu- 
 ously followed her out. "I can't come in," he went on 
 plaintively, "because Mrs. Collingham might come back, 
 and I've just got myself into such hot water with her that 
 I shall never get out again." 
 
 "Oh, that's nothing," said Jem, as she threw open the 
 gate and caught a couple of infantile stragglers in the act
 
 216 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 of making for the road. " Everybody gets into hot water 
 with mamma, but it's always easy to get out. She'll for- 
 get it by the time she sees you again." 
 
 " But she thinks of course I didn't say anything of 
 the kind but she thinks I said that Gerard was in ques- 
 tionable hands while she nursed him." 
 
 "It's quite true," said Jem, sighing. "Poor Gerard! 
 I've been wondering all day how long he'd stand it! Come 
 in and tell me everything. How how is he?" 
 
 Hugh did not know whether to be touched or annoyed by 
 the feeling she showed in voice and eyes at the mention of 
 Gerard. He did not give her any hint of his own suspi- 
 cions, but said that he had persuaded the invalid to prom- 
 ise to come away with him in a day or two. Jem's lip 
 quivered. 
 
 " You are quite right. He will be better with you," she 
 said, in a broken voice. " But oh, it will seem so hard for 
 him to go away ! You will let me hear how he gets on, 
 won't you?" 
 
 Hugh was quite sure that he was annoyed this time. It 
 was ridiculous of this girl to make such a fuss about a man 
 who never spared a thought for her. He said stiffly, and 
 not without some sign of impatience, that no doubt Mrs. 
 Collingham would be able to give her what information she 
 wanted. Jem noticed the change in his tone, and in a mo- 
 ment she became awkward and shy. They had by this time 
 all got inside the house and swarmed into the dining-room, 
 where the elder children engaged in making a scrap-book, 
 and where, in consequence, the floor and the furniture were 
 slimy with paste, and colored pictures were scattered about 
 the apartment like leaves after a storm. 
 
 "Don't sit down," entreated Jem. "Willie, bring Mr. 
 Thorndyke a chair out of the drawing-room not the one 
 papa mended, mind."
 
 A STARTLING PROPOSITION. 217 
 
 "You needn't take all this trouble for me," said Hugh, 
 as he made himself a clear corner among the scraps and sat 
 on the table. " You mustn't stay a moment ; but I thought 
 you'd like to know that I've found out where Mrs. Hilliard 
 is at least, I think so." 
 
 Jem flew at him. Standing before him with sparkling 
 eyes and parted lips, she told him how anxious she had been 
 for the past month, and how she thought he had forgotten 
 his promise to let her know the sequel to her visit to town. 
 Had nothing happened at the house near Victoria Station 
 which they had seen Linley enter? Why had he not writ- 
 ten? Why had he not come down? These and a dozen 
 other questions Jem poured out rapidly, while the children 
 clung, open-mouthed, to her skirts, and formed a wonder- 
 ing audience. 
 
 Hugh answered with discreet reserve. Nothing in par- 
 ticular had happened, he at first maintained. But under 
 the pressure of her questionings, of her vigorous disbelief, 
 he presently broke down ; and it ended in his confiding to 
 her not only the suspicious circumstance discovered by the 
 detective, but all the other details with which he was ac- 
 quainted concerning Liuley's antecedents and his own 
 discovery that that person was not above cheating at 
 cards. 
 
 Jem listened, with clasped hands, without uttering a 
 word : even the discovery that the Hilliards were using a 
 name which was not their own failed to draw from her a 
 single exclamation. When he had finished, she drew a long 
 breath : 
 
 "Does he mean to murder them both for the sake of 
 the insurance money?" she asked, with the bluntness of the 
 very young, shocking Hugh, who had used all sorts of 
 euphemisms rather than face the fact in all its bare hid- 
 eousness.
 
 218 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " Well," he said, " of course we don't know that we don't 
 know anything ; but one can hardly help having suspi- 
 cions." 
 
 " I should think not, indeed ! The wretch !" retorted Jem, 
 hotly. By this time the children had tired of the novelty 
 of gazing at the stranger, and were performing acrobatic 
 feats on the hearth-rug, so that Jem could speak freely. 
 " You know her address, you say? And she's at Hastings? 
 Of course you will go down and see her?" 
 
 "Well," said Hugh, diffidently, "you see I am in a diffi- 
 cult position. Don't you see that as her husband practi- 
 cally kicked me out for speaking to his wife, I should do 
 her harm rather than good by seeing her again? You see 
 it would give her husband a handle " 
 
 Jem nodded vigorously. She was frowning and biting 
 her lips, the picture of earnest thought. 
 
 "You ought to see her again, though!" she said slowly. 
 " You might persuade her you who have known her so 
 long to go away where her horrid husband couldn't find 
 her; and then," pursued Jem cheerfully," you could give 
 information to the police and have him put in prison, and 
 then he wouldn't trouble her or anybody any more!" 
 
 Hugh could not help smiling at this ingenuous conclu- 
 sion. 
 
 " I'm afraid," said he, " that it can't be managed as eas- 
 ily as you think. In the first place, I haven't any idea how 
 I am to communicate with her. If I write " 
 
 "That won't be any good," interrupted Jem. "You 
 must see her go down and see her. I have an idea." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Take me with you !" 
 
 Hugh was taken aback. He looked at her rather help- 
 lessly. 
 
 "Take take you!"
 
 A STARTLING PROPOSITION. 219 
 
 " Yes. I have two old aunts living at St. Leonards ; you 
 can take me to see them." 
 
 Hugh was bewildered by this proposition. 
 
 "But," he objected mildly, "Mrs. Collingham would 
 never " 
 
 "Let me go with you? Oh, yes, she would. Say you're 
 engaged to me. You can be, you know, until we've seen 
 that Mrs. Milliard is all right, and then we'll break it off. 
 And mamma will never know what it was for." 
 
 Hugh tried in vain to hide the fact that he was over- 
 whelmed with astonishment, and a feeling not altogether 
 pleasurable that Miss Collingham thought he "didn't 
 count." Jem perceived this, and blushed. 
 
 "I I'm afraid you think me a 'forward minx,' but I 
 can't help that," she said, laughing shyly. "I don't care 
 what I do to get at Mrs. Hilliard. I " 
 
 " But I don't think anything of the sort," broke in Hugh 
 quickly. "I only wondered whether Mrs. Collingham 
 would allow you to go, whatever reason you gave." 
 
 " Oh, mamma will make no objection, I know. She is only 
 anxious to get rid of me. Now let us settle our plans," she 
 went on, " for I expect papa home. Willie, get the Brad- 
 shaw out of the hall, will you?" 
 
 The baby, a large and aggressive female, whose attacks on 
 the property and limbs of her brothers and sisters kept the 
 family in a constant uproar, at this point screamed loudly. 
 Jem took her up and consoled her with caresses for the well- 
 merited punishment one of her sisters had inflicted, while 
 Hugh hunted out a convenient train. 
 
 "When their arrangements for the following day were 
 made and Jem gave him her hand in farewell, he lingered 
 one moment and looked down into her pretty face with 
 embarrassment, which caused her to ask what was the 
 matter.
 
 220 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "Nothing," answered he quickly, "except that that it 
 may not be so easy for me to to to catch the train !" 
 
 This was not what he had meant to say that was evi- 
 dent. He felt that he was on dangerous ground, and be- 
 fore Jem could do more than glance at him with a look of 
 haughty indignation he was gone.
 
 CHAPTEK XXIX. 
 
 LINLEY SCORES. 
 
 " THE worst of it is that there's no bringing it home to 
 the rascal!" 
 
 These were the words in which Hugh summed up his re- 
 grets on the subject of Linley Milliard as he and Jem Col- 
 lingham sat in the train which was carrying them down to 
 Hastings, on the morning after Hugh's visit to Wimbledon. 
 
 Jem sighed. But she was more hopeful than her com- 
 panion. It seemed to her young and innocent mind that 
 wickedness like Linley 's could not go unpunished much 
 longer. Hugh had lived longer and seen considerably more 
 of the world, and he tried to put her right. 
 
 "In my experience," said he, "no very great scoundrel 
 ever does get punished. It's the half-and-half fellows, 
 those that have a little bit of a conscience, or a weakness 
 for somebody or other besides themselves, that get caught 
 and convicted. If you don't care a straw for anybody in 
 the world but yourself, you can generally save your own 
 skin and cheat the gallows. That's rather coarsely put, 
 I'm afraid, and it shocks you ; but it's very near the truth." 
 
 Jem listened, but remained unconvinced. She did not 
 say much, having been overtaken by the shyness which al- 
 ternated with her astounding fits of audacity. 
 
 The engagement into which she had entered on the pre- 
 vious evening, with the rash recklessness which had so much 
 astonished Hugh, had already landed her in troubles which 
 she had not anticipated. To begin with, Mrs. Collingham 
 had shown such demonstrative joy when Jem told her that
 
 222 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 she had become engaged to Hugh Thorndyke that Jem 
 dreaded the terrible reaction which would set in when, ac- 
 cording to compact, she "broke it off" on her return from 
 Hastings. In the second place, the girl found that this 
 arrangement, which she had herself proposed without suffi- 
 cient thought, made her feel awkward and constrained with 
 Hugh himself. She had an uncomfortable feeling that the 
 remembrance of their supposed relationship to each other 
 was always in his mind, although he was forbearing enough 
 not to make any allusion to it; and she even fancied that 
 she detected in his manner a tinge of unusual reserve, which 
 she took to imply a feeling of distrust at her unmaidenly 
 forwardness. 
 
 By the time the train reached Tunbridge Wells, where 
 the two other passengers in their compartment got out, con- 
 versation between Jem and her fiance had become first diffi- 
 cult and then impossible, so that there was no mistaking 
 the horror on the girl's face when she found that she and 
 her companion were to be left alone together. Hugh, with- 
 out realizing the keenness of the young girl's feelings, un- 
 derstood their nature. 
 
 "Shall I go away and smoke? There's a smoking com- 
 partment next door," said he, thinking the proposition 
 would find favor in her eyes. But the ways and the 
 thoughts of the young and innocent are perverse and in- 
 scrutable, and Jem colored and grew stiff. 
 
 "Oh, yes; pray go, if I bore you!" said she quickly, as 
 she drew herself back on her seat. Poor Hugh looked abso- 
 lutely thunderstruck. He hastily sat down again. He 
 could not at all understand why Jem's cheerful camaraderie 
 had disappeared, and wondered whether it was through any 
 unconscious fault in his own manner. 
 
 " I only thought that perhaps you would prefer to get rid 
 of me for the next hour," he explained humbly, yet not
 
 LINLET SCORES. 223 
 
 without a suggestion in his manner of the slight annoyance 
 he felt. " I think I am afraid you are rather disposed, 
 Miss Collingham, to be sorry you chose to accept my to 
 embarL on this in fact to carry out our " 
 
 He was floundering deeper and deeper into the mire. Jem 
 stole a glance at him, and then the humor of the situation 
 struck her; her consequent good humor spread to him, and 
 they both laughed heartily, if rather consciously, at the 
 oddity of their situation, and at their inability to rise 
 properly to its requirements. Then, a friendlier footing 
 having been established, Jem rashly entered into explana- 
 tions. 
 
 "I was afraid," she began with a catch in her breath, 
 " that is, I thought that that you thought me horribly 
 forward in in making the proposal no, no, I mean the 
 suggestion, the arrangement I suggested, arranged, last 
 night. I thought that that that was why you were so, 
 so cold no, no, I mean so reserved, so so different that 
 is to say, this morning." 
 
 Then she stopped short, having made things infinitely 
 worse. And she began to unfasten one of her gloves, and 
 to fasten it up again, with a crimson face. 
 
 Hugh felt that things were becoming interesting. 
 
 "Different!" he exclaimed, with enthusiasm. "Why, 
 that is just what I was thinking about you. And I was 
 obliged to take your cue don't you see? for fear you 
 should think I was presuming upon our our compact, 
 our arrangement. It was really just as awkward for me, 
 in fact more so, don't you see? It is so difficult to be 
 exactly right, isn't it? Only I'm afraid that instead I've 
 been exactly wrong. You will forgive me, won't you?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, of course I must, since it is all my fault," an- 
 swered Jem hastily, anxious to get the explanations over, as 
 she perceived in Hugh a tendency to overdo his humility
 
 324 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 and become inconveniently abject. " Of course I see now 
 that I ought to have come by myself. I could not have 
 persuaded her so well as you, but but still I think perhaps 
 it would have been better." 
 
 " I don't, though!" exclaimed Hugh quickly. " I think 
 it's very likely we may have to frighten good Mr. Hilliard, 
 and I can do that better than you." 
 
 They took care to keep the talk going after that on 
 Linley and his misdeeds, so that the remaining hour of the 
 journey passed without further difficulties. 
 
 On arriving at Hastings, they went on foot to the ad- 
 dress given to Hugh by the footman. It was a house up a 
 side street, not far from the sea. Hugh and Jem went to 
 the door together, and Jem asked for Mrs. Hilliard. 
 
 " I'll see if you can see her, ma'am," said the woman who 
 op ned the door. " But she's very ill. Mr. Hilliard is with 
 her, ma'am; perhaps you'd like to see him?" 
 
 As she spoke, the woman threw open the door of the front 
 room on the ground floor, and Jem, who had uttered an 
 exclamation of horror at the evil tidings, stood transfixed 
 on seeing Linley, sitting at luncheon by himself, reading a 
 newspaper and eating at the same time. 
 
 It was evident that the appearance of the young lady took 
 him completely by surprise. He looked up with a slight 
 start, which was succeeded by a gesture still more marked 
 when he caught sight of her companion. There was an ex- 
 pression on the faces of the visitors which caused the very 
 little color he ever had in his cheeks to fade precipitately 
 as Jem walked into the room, and Hugh followed without 
 ceremony. He could not get farther than : " What ! Miss 
 Collingham! This is a delightful surprise indeed!" before 
 Jem, who did not attempt to take his outstretched hand, 
 broke in : 
 
 Mrs. Hilliard ! 111! Where is she?"
 
 LINLET SCORES. 225 
 
 Linley began to tremble, as he always did when he was 
 offended or hurt. 
 
 " I am afraid you cannot see her," he said in a little, minc- 
 ing tone. " She's very seriously ill, much too ill to re- 
 ceive visitors; and, in fact, I have too much to do nursing 
 her and looking after her to care to receive them myself 
 just now. As for you, sir," and he turned, with a very 
 insulting manner toward Hugh, " I should have thought, 
 after my last reception of you, that you would have thought 
 twice before intruding upon me again." 
 
 Hugh answered in a very low voice. He did not want a 
 row, in the presence of Jem, in the house where Netelka 
 was perhaps lying ill. But he had got to let this man see 
 that he was not going to be allowed to murder two people 
 with impunity. 
 
 "For your own sake," he said very quietly, very deliber- 
 ately, " I should never have wanted to see your face again. 
 It is for your wife's sake I am here hers and Gerard 
 Waller's." 
 
 A sound in the adjoining room caused Jem to look round 
 and watch the door between the two rooms. Believing, 
 as she did, that Netelka was in the adjoining apartment, 
 she would have entered it unceremoniously before this, but 
 that Linley took care to keep between her and the door. 
 Hugh went on: 
 
 " I know who you are, Linley Dax ; and if either your wife 
 or young Waller should die within the next few months, I 
 will undertake to say that the money for which you insured 
 their lives will not be paid." 
 
 Again from the next room there was a sound. This time 
 it was like a stifled cry. Jem burst into tears. 
 
 " Oh, let me see her, let me see her !" she cried piteously, 
 advancing toward Linley, who had turned livid, and who 
 was engrossed by a sense of deep personal injury as he re- 
 15
 
 226 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 plied to Hugh's threat. He was so much agitated that he 
 was quite hysterical. He seemed broken down under this 
 outrage. 
 
 "You infamous, insulting man! You detestable spy!" 
 he exclaimed, like an angry woman, as he held the handle 
 of the door, looking the picture of helpless indignation. 
 " How dare you come and say such things to me ! How dare 
 you accuse me of wanting to to to murder anybody! 
 Why, I wouldn't hurt a fly, as everybody knows. Miss Col- 
 lingham, it's shameful for you to come with him and allow 
 him to say such things! It's enough to kill my poor wife 
 outright to hear such things said!" 
 
 And the glance he gave toward the door showed Jem that 
 her suspicions were correct: Netelka was in the next room. 
 But Hugh stood firm, and raising his voice slightly and 
 speaking with great emphasis, said : 
 
 " Then, if your wife can hear me, let her hear this: that 
 every day she passes under the same roof with you in- 
 creases not only her own danger, but the danger for Gerard 
 "Waller, whom I saw yesterday in almost a dying condi- 
 tion." 
 
 There was a moan, and then a sound as of some one fall- 
 ing against the door. A moment later, Netelka's face, white 
 as death, appeared in the doorway. 
 
 "Dying! Gerard Waller dying!" she stammered. Be- 
 fore she could utter another word her husband had pushed 
 her back into the bedroom and shut the door. 
 
 "I insist," said he, querulously, turning to Hugh, "on 
 your leaving the house this minute. Your presence is dis- 
 turbing my wife, who is in no fit state to hear such things 
 as you have been saying. If you insist on remaining, I 
 shall be obliged to send round to her doctor to order you 
 out." 
 
 While he was speaking, Jem seized the opportunity she
 
 LINLET SCORES. 227 
 
 fancied she perceived of communicating with Netelka. 
 Slipping out of the sitting-room into the passage, she 
 knocked at the door of the adjoining apartment. At first 
 there was no answer. She knocked again, with the same 
 result. 
 
 "Mrs. Hilliard, won't you let me in; won't you let me 
 speak to you?" she asked, putting her lips close to the key- 
 hole. She heard a sob for answer, and, rendered desperate, 
 she tried to open the door. 
 
 It was locked. 
 
 Jem rattled the handle, and then, to her joy, she heard 
 some one coming toward it. The key was turned, the door 
 was flung wide, and she found herself face to face with 
 Linley ! 
 
 In her surprise, Jem uttered a cry and stepped back. 
 Linley laughed disagreeably. 
 
 "You wanted to see my wife?" said he, in a mock- 
 ing tone. " Well, she and I have no secrets from each 
 other. Come, Netelka, and tell this persistent young lady 
 so." 
 
 With a strong hand, he half-dragged, half-led Netelka 
 into view. 
 
 " Tell her, tell her, my dear, whether you want any out- 
 side interference, or whether you are satisfied with the care 
 of your husband." 
 
 Netelka, who was pale and trembling, and who, in her 
 white dressing-gown, looked like a fleshless phantom 
 rather than a woman, tried to smile. 
 
 "I am quite, quite safe; thank you, dear," she said 
 gently in the weak, husky voice of an invalid, " quite, quite 
 safe" then, as Linley laid his left hand on her arm, as 
 if prompting her, she added in a whisper " with my hus- 
 band." 
 
 Jem, who could not trust herself to speak, sprang for-
 
 228 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 ward and kissed her friend, putting both arms around her 
 neck. Then, with one long look into Netelka's eyes, and 
 without so much as a glance at Linley, she quickly with- 
 drew. Hugh was waiting for her at the hall-door. 
 
 They both heard Linley 's mocking laugh as they went 
 out of the house.
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 AN AWKWARD POSITION. 
 
 IN her misery at her friend's misfortune, poor Jem grew 
 confiding and unreserved, and allowed herself to be consoled 
 quite tenderly by Hugh. 
 
 "Oh, what will become of her? What will become of 
 her? He won't dare to murder her now, will he? Won't 
 he be afraid of being had up for it, now that he knows 
 you've learned his other name?" cried Jem, not waiting 
 for an answer to one question before she quavered out 
 another. 
 
 Hugh answered with reserve. He thought he had never, 
 in a pretty wide experience of the ne'er-do-wells whom 
 England ships off to her colonies with a few pounds in their 
 pockets in the hope that " roughing it" will purge them of 
 original sin, met quite such a perfect specimen of what a 
 man ought not to be as the white-handed Linley. Having 
 already proved himself to be resourceful, Netelka's hus- 
 band would, it was to be feared, find a way out of this new 
 difficulty, as he had done out of his old ones. 
 
 " It will be his wife's fault if she doesn't get away now," 
 he answered. " She has been warned. Unhappily, he still 
 seems to have a great influence over her. I can't under- 
 stand it." 
 
 " Then do you think our coming has done more harm than 
 good?" asked Jem, despairingly. 
 
 " We'll hope not," said Hugh, affecting more cheerfulness 
 than he felt. " Of course, if they stay on there, he won't 
 dare to to play any tricks. The fear is that he may have
 
 230 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 enough influence over her to get her to go away with him 
 to some other place where she will be out of our reach." 
 
 " Can't you have him arrested now, before he has time 
 to do any harm?" said Jem, impulsively. 
 
 Hugh laughed. 
 
 "What for?" asked he, shaking his head. "No, don't 
 you see that we are absolutely without proof of any sort 
 against him ? That although we know him to be up to his 
 eyes in evil-doing, we haven't a scrap of evidence, real evi- 
 dence, that we could found a case upon?" 
 
 " But the trial?" 
 
 " He was acquitted. Another accusation of the same sort 
 would have to be backed by much stronger evidence than 
 the first, or it would be put down to prejudice : and that 
 would tell in his favor." 
 
 Discussing the matter very gloomily, and deeply absorbed 
 by it, Hugh and Jem approached the residence of the Misses 
 Ponsonby, Jem's aunts, with slow footsteps and with anx- 
 ious faces. They did not notice, as they drew near the gate 
 of the pretty detached house, with its trim drive and little 
 bit of velvet lawn, that the two elderly ladies were watch- 
 ing at one of the windows with faces full of interest nay, 
 more, of excitement. 
 
 Scarcely had Jem and her escort reached the top of the 
 tessellated steps when Hugh, who was raising his hat pre- 
 paratory to leaving Jem, was startled to see the front door 
 open quickly and Miss Lilian and Miss Muriel Ponsonby 
 flutter out with beaming faces. 
 
 "Dear child! Dear Jemima!" cried Lilian, who was the 
 elder, the taller, and perhaps the sweeter-looking of the two. 
 
 And she threw her arms round Jem's neck and kissed her 
 affectionately, while her sister extended both hands, with a 
 welcoming smile, to Hugh. 
 
 "Dear Mr. Thorndyke!" chirped the little lady sweetly,
 
 AN AWKWARD POSITION. 231 
 
 as she smiled up at him and offered her little dried cheek, 
 growing pink as she did so. " We welcome you. We are 
 most proud and delighted to know our dear Jem's future 
 husband." 
 
 The young people were thunderstruck. They had noth- 
 ing to say for themselves. A more abject picture of help- 
 less confusion and dismay was never presented. Of course, 
 however, their inarticulate condition passed with the sim- 
 ple-minded elderly ladies for modest confusion of the most 
 graceful and becoming sort; and in spite of Hugh's plain- 
 tive assurances that he could not stay, that he had friends 
 waiting for him in the town, and other futilities, he found 
 himself gently inducted into the drawing-room, which 
 had been freshly decorated with the choicest flowers of the 
 conservatory in honor of the supposed betrothal. 
 
 " Your dear mother sent us a telegram this morning to 
 tell us of the great pleasure that was in store for us," said 
 Miss Lilian to Jem, as she took off the girl's hat and lov- 
 ingly smoothed back the pretty fair hair. " And we've been 
 in such a state of excitement ever since that we've scarcely 
 been able to settle down to anything. Your dear Aunt 
 Muriel has made herself quite ill over it she has indeed." 
 
 " No, no, my dear Jemima, I can't have you think me 
 so silly as that," cried Miss Muriel, as she gently took 
 poor Hugh's hat and umbrella away from him, and left him 
 helpless. " But it was really a very great pleasure, and a 
 great surprise too ; for I assure you, my dear Mr. Thorn- 
 dyke, that dear Jemima and her dear mother have kept the 
 secret so wonderfully well that we hadn't the least idea that 
 the dear girl cared for any one at all. I do hope you will 
 make her very happy." 
 
 Hugh had turned from crimson to purple during this 
 speech, and the manner in which he incoherently mum- 
 bled something in answer would have seemed mysteriously
 
 232 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 morose and unsatisfactory to the good ladies if they had not 
 been so determined to like him very much as to be without 
 heart for criticism. Fortunately the ladies talked BO much 
 that only the shortest of remarks and answers were neces- 
 sary on the part of the young people. 
 
 From ordeal to ordeal poor Jem stumbled, however. 
 The questions with which her aunts attacked her when they 
 took her upstairs to take her hat off were extremely diffi- 
 cult to meet. "How did the engagement come about? 
 And when? How long had they known each other? Who 
 were his 'people'? Did she not love him very much? 
 When were they to be married?" 
 
 At this last question Jem broke down, and shocked 
 Muriel, the younger and primmer aunt, the one who had 
 never had a love affair, by saying that she did not know yet 
 whether she should marry him at all. This terrible flip- 
 pancy, as it seemed to the ladies, drew down upon her a lec- 
 ture, which frightened her so much that she dared not 
 make any protest when they said that they must insist 
 upon his staying there that night as well as herself. 
 
 It is scarcely to be wondered at, under these circum- 
 stances, that luncheon, as far as the young people were con- 
 cerned, proved a dull affair, or that they became unaccount- 
 ably shy toward each other, and addressed their conversa- 
 tion entirely to the aunts. The Misses Ponsonby dear in- 
 nocent ladies ! came to the conclusion that they had quar- 
 relled on their way down, and they contrived a tete-a-tete 
 for them to "make it up." 
 
 So it came about that, shortly after luncheon, Jem and 
 Hugh found themselves alone together in the garden, look- 
 ing at the roses and geraniums and the white Madonna 
 lilies, with little appreciation of their beauty and fragrance. 
 
 "This is awful, isn't it? And it's all my fault!" said 
 poor Jem, half crying, as she bent over a rose-tree.
 
 AN AWKWARD POSITION. 233 
 
 " For you yes," answered Hugh softly, taking advantage 
 of his supposed relation to her to put his head very near 
 hers, even while he made this apologetic remark. 
 
 He had begun to feel that even a spurious engagement to 
 this very nice girl was better than none at all, and he was 
 troubling himself seriously about the terrible necessity, 
 which would presently arise, of breaking it off again. 
 
 " Of course I never thought mamma would telegraph 
 such a long telegram it must have been too ! Why, it must 
 have cost half a crown to say all that," went on Jem, be- 
 tween hysterical tears and hysterical laughter. " I don't 
 know what to say to you. It makes me look so silly. I'm 
 ashamed to look you in the face." 
 
 She did look him in the face, though askance, with a 
 slight blush. Hugh grew meeker, more apologetic than 
 ever. 
 
 " Oh, I don't mind in fact, I rather like I mean you 
 need not trouble yourself about me. I only wish " 
 
 Jem cut him short in a great hurry. 
 
 " Of course I can't stay here all night, as I meant to do. 
 I couldn't stand it, for they will talk always of the same 
 thing, and at last I shall break down and tell them the 
 truth. I know I shall!" 
 
 "I shouldn't do that," said Hugh quickly. "They are 
 old-fashioned, you know, and they would be would 
 
 " Disgusted with me ! Oh, yes, you can say it right out, 
 for I know it's true and that I deserve it. Poor aunties! 
 If they only knew! They would never want to see me 
 again. " 
 
 Jem wiped her eyes furtively, and Hugh was miserable 
 to see her misery. 
 
 "Don't cry I shouldn't cry," said he very tenderly, 
 very sympathetically indeed. " After all, what harm have
 
 234 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 you done? Only what lots of girls think nothing of 
 getting engaged to a fellow they don't much care about, 
 just for the fun of the thing !" 
 
 "It wasn't for the fun of the thing! How can you say 
 so?" cried she indignantly; and as she looked up, a big tear 
 rolled down her face. " I did it without thinking I never 
 supposed there would be all this fuss made I only thought 
 how I could help Netelka! And to think that I I have 
 done her no good, and and perhaps harm. Oh, it's too 
 dreadful ! I feel as if I should like to throw myself into 
 the se-e-e-e-ea!" 
 
 By this time she was sobbing passionately, and at the same 
 time taking care to keep Hugh at arm's length on the other 
 side of the rose-tree. He tried to comfort her at this re- 
 spectful distance, but in vain. Suddenly his sympathetic 
 words ceased, and a moment later Jem felt the arm of her 
 Aunt Lilian round her waist. 
 
 " My dears, I couldn't help seeing that something was 
 wrong, and so I have come out, not to interfere, but to try 
 to set it right," said her soft voice close to the ears of both 
 the alarmed young people. " If there has been some slight 
 misunderstanding, some little cloud, so soon between you, 
 don't let it stay, dears. Believe me, I have suffered myself, 
 and lost a precious treasure of affection, all through a little 
 quarrel not worthy of the name. Come, Mr. Thorndyke 
 Hugh, if I may call you so come and kiss her, and tell her 
 you're sorry. You see I'm bound to believe it was the other 
 sex that was in the wrong!" 
 
 As she spoke, Miss Lilian, every line on whose kind face 
 was eloquent of gentleness and sweet temper, took Hugh 
 Thorndyke's unresisting hand in hers and drew him to- 
 ward Jem, whose face was still bent down, though she had 
 dried her eyes. 
 
 "Come, kiss her," repeated Aunt Lilian gently; then
 
 AN AWKWARD POSITION. 235 
 
 turning to Jem, she added: " See, dear, he's quite ready to 
 make it up." 
 
 Jem raised her head very suddenly, and much to Hugh's 
 surprise and relief, she put her pretty blushing face into a 
 position of resigned expectancy. Very diffidently indeed, 
 and blushing a deeper color than Jem herself, Hugh stooped 
 and touched her cheek with his lips. 
 
 "There, now, you're friends again, aren't you?" said in- 
 nocent Aunt Lilian, rejoicing in the success of her diplo- 
 macy, and attributing the manifest constraint of both par- 
 ties to the amicable arrangements to the constraint caused 
 by her own presence. " And you won't quarrel any more?" 
 
 "N-n-no," said Jem, as she promptly turned her back 
 upon Hugh. 
 
 " And now I want you to help me find some roses pretty 
 enough for Jemima," said Miss Lilian. "I'll bring you a 
 knife and a basket, Mr. Thorndyke, and you can reach some 
 of the finest ones that grow near the top of the wall." 
 
 The gentle lady tripped across the lawn toward the house, 
 with the amiable intention of allowing the young people to 
 confirm the reconciliation she had brought about. 
 
 Before, however, Jem could do more than begin to laugh 
 hysterically at this climax to the difficulties she had brought 
 upon herself, there appeared before the eyes of Hugh and 
 herself a spectacle which turned their thoughts away from 
 themselves, and caused them to forget their own small 
 troubles in the great dangers of a friend. 
 
 A cab drove rapidly past on its way to the station : there 
 was luggage on the top, and inside they saw the faces of 
 Netelka and her husband. 
 
 Jem seized Hugh's arm convulsively. 
 
 " He is taking her away already," she whispered hoarsely, 
 "and we don't know where!"
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 TWO SIDES TO A BABGALKT. 
 
 JEM stared at the cab which was rapidly taking Netelka 
 away in the suspicious care of her husband. She was stu- 
 pefied by the rapidity of Linley's movements. Suddenly 
 she turned to Hugh. An idea had struck her. 
 
 " Mr. Thorndyke," said she, " will you go to the station 
 and try to find out where they are going?" 
 
 That this was a forlorn hope he knew, for, as he told 
 Jem, to get away from Hastings they would certainly go 
 first to London. Still the girl insisted ; and Hugh, think- 
 ing that she was anxious to get rid of him, fell in with her 
 wishes and started off for the station. 
 
 "And please find a train to take us back to-day," said 
 she as he started. 
 
 Then Jem went into the house and told her aunts 
 frankly that she would have to go back that evening, as she 
 was anxious about a friend whom she had seen that morn- 
 ing, and who, Jem was sure, was being taken away before 
 she was well enough to travel. Although her explanation 
 came as a surprise to the ladies, and was a great disappoint- 
 ment to them, they accepted it, having themselves noticed 
 the passing cab and commented on the fragile appearance 
 of the lady inside it. 
 
 When Hugh came back from the station, therefore, with 
 the news that Linley and his wife had booked to Charing 
 Cross, and that there was a train for themselves at five-f orty- 
 five, he found that the way had been smoothed for their 
 departure. They had tea in the pleasant drawing-room,
 
 TWO SIDES TO A BARGAIN. 237 
 
 the windows of which opened on to the trimly kept garden ; 
 and all would have gone well but for the consciousness which 
 hung over the young people that there was a two -hour 
 journey before them, spoiled by the remembrance of that 
 kiss. 
 
 Not that to Hugh the memory of that incident was 
 fraught with acute distress ; the unpleasant part of the af- 
 fair, for him, lay in the girl's reluctance. The more he 
 was in Jem's society the stronger became Hugh Thorn- 
 dyke's conviction that this impulsive, warm-hearted, un- 
 affected, half -educated girl was the creature he would choose 
 to go through the rest of his life with. She was so open- 
 hearted, so honest, so oddly free from vanity or selfishness, 
 that she came nearer to his ideal of what a woman should be 
 than girls who came very much nearer perfection in the 
 minor matters of reticence and demure deportment. But 
 while his admiration increased, his diffidence increased in 
 the same degree. If she had been heart-whole, Hugh would 
 have felt no qualms: a girl's love when no one else is in 
 possession is a treasure easy to win. But there was her 
 stubborn affection for Gerard Waller, which no indifference 
 seemed able to kill, to be reckoned with. Hugh's face grew 
 longer, his remarks shorter, as these reflections passed 
 through his mind. 
 
 " Strawberry jam? Oh, yes, it has always been one of my 
 weaknesses." While these words were on his lips, this 
 thought was in his heart: " I've got two hours with her to- 
 night. I must make the most of them!" 
 
 Jem, on the other hand, looked upon the incident of the 
 kiss much more seriously. She had never been kissed be- 
 fore, and the salute, perfunctory though it was, seemed to 
 her a dishonoring and terrible experience. It was horrible 
 to have to endure another journey with the inflicter of the 
 outrage. Jem felt suddenly afraid of him. The conse-
 
 238 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 quence of this feeling on her part, which grew stronger as 
 the first effects of the sight of Netelka died away, was that 
 she grew morose and silent, starting when one of her aunts 
 addressed her, and blushing crimson, with an expression of 
 alarm, if Hugh came near her or even glanced in her direc- 
 tion. 
 
 Luckily for the young girl's place in her aunts' esteem, 
 they were ready to put a kindly construction upon every 
 eccentricity; and when they insisted upon accompanying 
 their guests to the station, to see them start on their jour- 
 ney, they both declared that the flying visit had been the 
 happiest event they had known for years. 
 
 "I suppose, my dear Jemima," said Miss Muriel, who 
 walked with her niece, leaving Hugh to her sister, " that 
 the day of your marriage is hardly settled yet?" 
 
 "Oh, no, no," gasped Jem, in horror which passed for 
 maidenly modesty. " I I haven't thought about it. I 
 don't want to be married for years and years yet!" 
 
 Miss Muriel laughed, and said archly that there was 
 some one else to be considered. And she glanced at Hugh, 
 who had heard poor Jem's answer, and who was moved to 
 real pity for her evident distress. An answer of some sort 
 was expected from him, so he said, with a deprecatory look 
 at Jem : 
 
 " She is very young, Miss Muriel, and she doesn't want 
 to think that she may not change her mind." 
 
 " Change her mind!" echoed the lady with some asperity. 
 " Surely you don't allow her to contemplate the possibility 
 of doing that!" 
 
 There was a second's pause, and then Hugh said very 
 gently : 
 
 " I would rather she did that than than take any step 
 she would repent afterward." 
 
 " But aren't you going to make her such a good husband
 
 TWO SIDES TO A BARGAIN. 239 
 
 that she won't be able to think of such a thing as repent- 
 ance?" persisted Miss Muriel. 
 
 "There's the train!" cried Jem shrilly and without jus- 
 tification, and they all began to run. 
 
 Of course the aunts found an empty compartment for 
 their interesting visitors, and Jem got in, grim with de- 
 spair. A tete-a-tete all the way up to Charing Cross with 
 him ! The prospect had quite suddenly become full of terror. 
 
 Even the Misses Ponsonby perceived dimly that things 
 were not quite right between the two ; but they comforted 
 themselves as they walked away, after waving their hands 
 until the train was out of sight, with the reflection that 
 they would " make it up" in earnest before they reached 
 Charing Cross. 
 
 "He is a charming man, is he not, dear Muriel?" said 
 Miss Lilian to her sister; "and he seems very straightfor- 
 ward and good-tempered, and in every way qualified to 
 make our dear Jemima happy." 
 
 Miss Muriel was a shade less enthusiastic. 
 
 " Do you think, dear Lilian," she said, " that he seems to 
 show quite enough eagerness, quite enough empressement 9 
 I think when I was a girl I should have expected rather 
 more demonstrativeness, rather more of a kind of indefin- 
 able something in my fiance's manner, don 't you think so, 
 dear?" 
 
 " Well, dear Muriel, to tell you the truth, I think the 
 indefinable something is missing in dear Jemima's manner 
 rather than dear Hugh's," said Miss Lilian with the tone of 
 authority and experience in these matters which her own 
 love affair of thirty years before enabled her with propriety 
 to speak. 
 
 And they each gave a gentle sigh, but walked home 
 cheerfully, with the conviction that all would come right in 
 the end.
 
 240 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 In the mean time the journey of Jem and her escort had 
 begun unpromisingly enough. By this time physical fa- 
 tigue had, combined with mental anxiety on Netelka's ac- 
 count and distress on her own, to reduce the young girl to 
 a condition so abject that she sat back in her corner, mute 
 and dejected, hoping Hugh would think she was too tired 
 to talk. But of course he knew better than that. 
 
 " Will you have the window open or shut? Or half-open, 
 like this?" he asked, when they had got out of the station. 
 
 "Oh, open; all the way open, please," answered Jem 
 quickly, without looking at him, and with the shy, con- 
 strained manner which she had quite lost in his society 
 until the visit to her aunts. 
 
 "I am afraid," said Hugh gently, "that you have over- 
 tired yourself. I have never known you so silent before. " 
 
 Jem laughed shortly. 
 
 " I'm rather tired," said she. " And I am worried about 
 poor Mrs. Hilliard. That is why you are less bored than 
 usual with my conversation." 
 
 Now this was opening enough for Hugh, who was dying 
 to get beyond commonplace. 
 
 " Your conversation has never bored me yet," he said. 
 " In fact, I don't think you have felt so modest about it be- 
 fore. " 
 
 Jem sat up, and, blushing deeply, spoke with gasping 
 breath. 
 
 " I have never before at least with you had so much 
 reason to speak modestly," she said, with the tears gather- 
 ing in her eyes. " I have made myself ridiculous, I have." 
 
 She drew a long breath and stopped. 
 
 "You have passed a very uncomfortable day, I am 
 afraid," said he, in a tone which was meant to be soothing 
 and consolatory, but which had a precisely opposite effect 
 upon the young girl.
 
 TWO SIDES TO A BARGAIN. 241 
 
 She interrupted him at once. 
 
 " I have indeed," she said. " Of course I know it was all 
 my own fault, but but don't let us talk about it; it's 
 all over now, that's one comfort." 
 
 And she drew a deep breath, this time of relief. Hugh 
 pulled the ends of his mustache. 
 
 "All over now?" he echoed diffidently. "You mean 
 our engagement?" 
 
 Jem started as if she had been stung. 
 
 "It wasn't an engagement!" said she angrily. "It was 
 only only oh! it was only the most pitiful piece of folly 
 I have ever committed, and that's saying a great deal." 
 
 And she bit her lips to keep the tears back, and played 
 nervously with the tassel of her sunshade. Hugh looked 
 reflectively at the flying landscape. 
 
 " It didn't turn out very well, did it? But you did it 
 with a good motive, at any rate." 
 
 " A good motive ! That's nothing !" broke out Jem im- 
 patiently. " Everybody has what he thinks a good motive 
 for everything he does. I shall never forgive myself. But 
 don't talk about it don't, please." 
 
 " But I want to talk about it," persisted Hugh in a meek 
 voice. "At least I want to say just this: that I am very 
 sorry that you should retain such an unhappy memory of 
 what has been to me the the pleasantest day of my life." 
 
 Jem looked up quickly, and then stared at him stupidly. 
 
 "Oh, of course you are bound to say that!" she said at 
 last, in quite a vindictive tone. " But I thought better of 
 you than to suppose you took me for a girl you had to say 
 things like that to!" 
 
 "I'll tell you what sort of girl I do take you for," said 
 Hugh in a different tone, as he suddenly changed his seat 
 for the one beside her. 
 
 " I don't want to know!" said Jem fiercely. 
 16
 
 242 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 For was he not already presuming upon that fictitious 
 temporary relationship which she now decreed to be a thing 
 of the past? 
 
 Whereupon Hugh changed the form of his speech : 
 
 "You are the sort of girl," he went on with dogged per- 
 sistence, "to make a great fuss about a little thing!" 
 
 Jem turned upon him in her wrath. 
 
 "Little thing!" she cried tempestuously. "Do you call 
 my having to let you kiss me a little thing?" 
 
 This, then, was the thorn which had been rankling all 
 this time. Hugh looked at her with a mixture of amuse- 
 ment and admiration, which she felt to be a fresh insult. 
 She turned her head sharply away. 
 
 " It was a very modest and and decorous kiss, though, 
 wasn't it?" suggested Hugh, mildly. 
 
 Jem, now that her pent-up feelings had at last found 
 vent, was in no mood to listen to his protest. 
 
 " When I had always said that that that I would never 
 be kissed by any but the man I was going to marry!" 
 
 At this there fell a silence upon them both, and Jem 
 wiped her eyes, blushing more deeply than ever and feeling 
 that she had said something foolish. Hugh broke the spell, 
 speaking in a judicial tone of voice. 
 
 "It seems to me," he said, "that it would be a pity to 
 break a vow like that. You'd never feel the same woman 
 afterward, if you did!" 
 
 Jem laughed nervously. 
 
 "Oh, nonsense!" cried she. 
 
 " But it's not nonsense," said he, pursuing his advantage. 
 "The breaking of a vow like that brings, as I was saying, 
 a loss of self-respect which a sensitive mind like yours never 
 gets over. Happily there is a way by which this loss may 
 be avoided. If you were to marry me, the author of the 
 injury from which you are suffering "
 
 TWO SIDES TO A BARGAIN. 243 
 
 "Marry yon! Oh, no, no." 
 
 She took the proposal with a mixture of consternation 
 and incredulity. 
 
 "Why not? Don't you like me? I thought you did at 
 first. Don't you think that we should get on splendidly 
 together? And wouldn't it be nice to go about together, 
 and buy gloves, and eat tarts, as we did that day, that jolly 
 day?" said Hugh, growing persuasive, fired by his own elo- 
 quence, and rising to quite a lofty height of passion under 
 the influence of his own words. 
 
 But Jem shook her head. 
 
 "No, I shouldn't like to marry you at all," she said de- 
 cisively, "even if I could forget Gerard, which I can't." 
 She perceived that Hugh moved impatiently, and she 
 looked at him and gravely added : " I dare say you think it 
 very silly of me to be fond of a man who isn't fond of me." 
 
 He interrupted her, with an assumption of plaintive de- 
 spair: 
 
 " How can I think so, when I am fond myself of a girl 
 who isn't fond of me?" 
 
 Jem, who had recovered self-possession as soon as Hugh 
 made his proposal, smiled. 
 
 " Bat you're not really in earnest," she said. " You only 
 ask me to marry me so that I may not feel so uncomforta- 
 ble over my own stupidity." 
 
 " Do you really think I don't want you to say yes, then?" 
 asked Hugh hotly. 
 
 The answer was given very decidedly indeed. 
 
 "I am sure of it!" 
 
 Hugh sat back, thoughtful and rather bewildered. Her 
 lack of vanity was a charm, but it was perplexity. Before 
 he had yet resolved on a fresh plan of approach to this for- 
 midable citadel of girlish simplicity, Jem herself heaved a 
 sigh which was full of restored contentment.
 
 244 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " I am glad you asked me, though very glad and very 
 grateful," she said, meditatively. "It has cleared the 
 ground, as it were, and put us back on the old footing again. 
 It would have been awkward for you, though, if I had said 
 yes; now, wouldn't it?" 
 
 Hugh looked at the girl uncertainly, not feeling quite 
 sure whether there might not be a little spice of coquetry 
 in her apparently astounding simplicity. But there was 
 none. Too illy brought up to be reticent about her affection 
 for a man who held it lightly, it seemed to her that that 
 affection, openly acknowledged, was a barrier sufficient be- 
 tween her and any other man. 
 
 As soon as he had made up his mind that this was sim- 
 plicity and not coquetry, Hugh allowed himself to feel mor- 
 tified at his want of success. 
 
 "I suppose so," said he shortly. 
 
 And he leaned back, not caring to hide the fact that he 
 was offended. 
 
 For some time there was silence between them, each con- 
 sidering the situation, and both a little sorry for their share 
 in bringing it about. At last, at the same moment, an im- 
 pulse caused each to cast a furtive glance at the face of the 
 other. And in a moment they smiled and were friends again. 
 
 " You'll forgive me for everything, for the sake of our 
 being such old pals, if I may use such an expression," said 
 Hugh, in his most persuasive accents. 
 
 Jem put out her hand impulsively, and Hugh seized it. 
 
 " Oh, yes, and I'm so glad. Do you know, Mr. Thorn- 
 dyke, that I've never had any friends what I call friends 
 until I met Mrs. Hilliard and you? And having only 
 two, I don't want to lose either of them." 
 
 "Well, you shan't lose one as long as you want him," 
 said Hugh, immensely thankful to have reached, this sure 
 ground again.
 
 TWO SIDES TO A BARGAIN. 345 
 
 And they both felt that a great cloud had been happily 
 lifted from their sky, and the rest of the journey was passed 
 in the old pleasant manner of their earlier acquaintance. 
 
 But Hugh did not dare to return to the subject of their 
 engagement, and when he left her at the gate of " Maison- 
 ette," declining her perfunctory invitation to come in, the 
 important point of the footing upon which they were to 
 stand to each other in the view of the young lady's rela- 
 tions was left undecided. 
 
 " There will be complications, and she will soon hate the 
 very sound of my name!" thought Hugh uneasily, as he 
 walked back quickly to Wimbledon Station.
 
 CHAPTEE XXXII. 
 
 TWO MEETINGS. 
 
 BEFORE Jem reached her home that evening, Netelka and 
 her loving husband had already returned to " The Firs." 
 The man who opened the door, the same who had given the 
 Hastings address to Hugh Thorndyke, was shocked at the 
 change in Mrs. Hilliard's looks during the short time she 
 had been away. Linley perceived a change in the man's 
 face as he opened the door, and, drawing his wife's arm 
 affectionately through his own, he said in his softest 
 voice : 
 
 "Ah, Milner, Mrs. Hilliard doesn't look much the bet- 
 ter for her holiday, does she? I think we shall find that 
 home is the best place, after all. Now, my dear, "he went 
 on, turning to Netelka, and leading her toward the stair- 
 case, " I insist upon your going straight upstairs to your 
 room at once. I will send you something to eat. You are 
 really too tired to make an appearance at the dinner-table. 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed I'm not," protested Netelka quickly. 
 "I want to see the house again all of it. I don't want to 
 be shut up alone upstairs." 
 
 She spoke, not in the old ringing voice, but in plaintive 
 tones of entreaty, which betrayed the state of subjection to 
 which she had been reduced. As Linley paid no heed to 
 her remonstrances, she allowed herself to be led upstairs to 
 her room. 
 
 "Don't let your mistress leave the room," said Linley to 
 the maid, as he gave his wife into her charge, as if she had 
 been a prisoner handed over from one warden to another.
 
 TWO MEETINGS. 247 
 
 " She is very far from well still, and must not overexert 
 herself. Mind, I depend upon you." 
 
 Ths servant thus addressed was a dry, elderly woman, 
 who was housekeeper in Netelka's absence, but who com- 
 bined her duties in that capacity with those of a lady's-maid 
 when her mistress was at home. She adored Linley, who, 
 having conceived the idea that she might one day be useful 
 to him, had always treated her to his gentle manners, and 
 not to the curt tones he usually kept for servants. 
 
 Linley had a disagreeable meeting in store for him, and 
 he wanted to get his wife out of the way before it took place. 
 Harrington Moseley's telegram of the day before had been 
 couched in terms which Linley felt even telegraphic brevity 
 did not justify. He should have to give his partner "a 
 piece of his mind," and he was rather dreading the piece of 
 Harrington Moseley's mind which he had to expect to got in 
 return. Poor Linley was suffering from an acute sense of 
 personal injury. All his nicely laid little plans for securing a 
 nice little competence for himself, free from the galling 
 chain of partnership with the Jew, had failed, one by one: 
 all, too, through the agency of a heavy-looking brute whom 
 he would have lived to despise Hugh Thorndyke. Linley 
 had no conscience ; but in its place he had an extra degree of 
 sensitiveness on his own account, of tender respect for his 
 own comfort and even for his own dignity. All these 
 things and more had been jeopardized by the big York- 
 shireman, and Linley loathed him to such an extent that 
 he would have cheerfully foregone a part of the fortune he 
 promised himself in order to be revenged on that gentle- 
 man for his interference with his carefully laid plans. 
 
 "Hallo, Hilliard, is that you?" 
 
 These words, uttered in a by no means cordial tone, broke 
 in upon Linley's reverie. Looking up, he perceived the 
 face of the Jew, and he made a mental note of the fact that
 
 248 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 the Israelitish type increases in coarseness with advancing 
 years. Harrington was decidedly more repulsive in ap- 
 pearance than on their first meeting. He shuddered 
 slightly as he answered with a drawl : 
 
 " Yes, it is I. Surely you can see that for yourself!" 
 
 " Did you get my wire? Yesterday, I mean?" 
 
 "Of course I did, or I shouldn't be here." 
 
 "Well, come in here a minute." 
 
 The Jew invited his partner in ill-doing into his own 
 apartment and turned the key in the lock of the outer one. 
 
 "You've gone and made a nice mess of everything, 
 haven't you?' 1 said Harrington, putting his face right into 
 that of the shuddering and sensitive Linley. "I always 
 told you your nasty, sneaking insurance arrangements would 
 come to no good. Why, that Thorndyke found you out at 
 once : he was sniffing about the medicine-bottles the other 
 day, and as good as saying you had poisoned young Waller !" 
 
 "Well," retorted Linley quietly, turning his face away 
 with a gesture of disgust, "what does that matter? I 
 hadn't." 
 
 Moseley looked at him doubtfully, and Linley made 
 another gesture, expressing weariness. 
 
 "His illness was pneumonia, as the doctor said." 
 
 " But it was brought on by your taking him out driving 
 on a wet day and keeping him sitting for hours in his wet 
 clothes," said Moseley. 
 
 " Well, I had to do the same." 
 
 The Jew winked significantly. 
 
 " You're as strong as a horse," he said shortly. " Besides 
 you took care to wear a waterproof. " 
 
 Linley made an impatient movement. 
 
 "I should have been spared all this," he said wearily, "if 
 Waller's constitution hadn't been better than we'd reckoned 
 for. Pray, who would have benefited the most, if things
 
 TWO MEETINGS. 249 
 
 had turned out differently? The policy was yours, and I 
 should only have got the crumbs." 
 
 "Then there's another thing," pursued the Jew, chang- 
 ing the subject hastily, " your wife looks very ill, much 
 worse than when she went away. I hope you haven't been 
 up to any of your tricks in that quarter?" 
 
 At this Linley looked up with a frown. 
 
 " You mind your own business, and leave me to manage 
 mine. My wife's all right, only pining for the society of 
 her dear Gerard." 
 
 " Well," said the Jew, with a sidelong glance, " take care 
 of her whatever her fancies may be. For as long as people 
 think she's the ruling spirit here, they put up with irregu- 
 larities they wouldn't stand from you or me. You know 
 we've felt the difference since she has been away. That 
 young cub, St. Peters, has turned quite nasty. He says 
 that since she's making such a good thing out of him by 
 lending him money at extravagant rates of interest (that's 
 what he calls a mere modest sixty per cent !) he expects to 
 have a little more of her society." 
 
 Linley frowned thoughtfully, but presently replied in a 
 testy tone : 
 
 "Well, she's back again now, so he can be satisfied. 
 When is he coming next?" 
 
 " I expect him to-night. " 
 
 " All right. We'll let him see her, then. I'll tell her to 
 get ready." 
 
 Linley was glad of an excuse for leaving Harrington, who 
 on his side was not sorry to get rid of him. When Linley 
 reached his wife's room, however, the housekeeper met him 
 with a scandalized face. 
 
 "She's gone, sir; I couldn't keep her. She's in the 
 drawing-room with Mr. Waller, sir." 
 
 Linley nodded, with tightly drawn lips and veiled, fur-
 
 250 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 tive eyes. He went down the stairs very softly, entered the 
 drawing-room like a cat, and finding by the passionate 
 voices he heard from the end of the long room that the 
 woman's information was correct, he secreted himself on 
 one side of the arch which stood where there had once been 
 folding-doors, and proceeded to indulge himself in the lux- 
 ury of listening to an interesting conversation not intended 
 for his ears.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 TEMPTATION. 
 
 NETELKA had been of late so meek, so cowed by her hus- 
 band, that he had not taken into account the possibility of 
 rebellion on her part. The fact was that the appearance 
 of Hugh Thorndyke, the friend of her girlhood, and the 
 scene which had followed had emphasized for her the enor- 
 mous difference between Netelka the maiden and Netelka 
 the wife. 
 
 She had brooded over this when her husband, afraid of 
 the open revolt to his authority which Hugh's interference 
 had brought about, had banished her to Hastings so sud- 
 denly, on the pretext of her hysterical state betraying a 
 need of change. 
 
 Left to herself, she had become, just as the artful Lin- 
 ley had expected, lonely, helpless, and easy to manage. 
 When he went down to see her, he was very gentle, very 
 kind, and he succeeded in regaining much of his empire 
 over her mind, and in persuading her that every suspicion 
 concerning him which had been instilled into her mind 
 was baseless or exaggerated. 
 
 The visit of Hugh and Jem, however, had suddenly woke 
 her from her repose of mind. When, therefore, Linley 
 had proposed their instant return to "The Firs," to 
 refute, as he said, the vile slanders which Hugh Thorn- 
 dyke was spreading, she had agreed with feverish haste to 
 his proposal, and had passed a miserable afternoon, hearing 
 all her old suspicions of her husband rung in her ears, first 
 to the sound of the sea and then to the whirr of the train.
 
 252 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Linley, for his part, was so much disturbed by Hugh 
 Thorndyke's discovery of his curious domestic arrange- 
 ments that he did not pay sufficient heed to the significant 
 silence and abstraction of his wife. He flattered himself 
 that he should find her as easy to manage at Wimbledon as 
 she had been at Hastings, and that he had got too sure a 
 hold upon her for Hugh's accusations to have much weight. 
 
 But he underrated his wife's intelligence, and took her 
 wilful blindness for stupidity. 
 
 As soon as she was left alone with the maid, Netelka, in- 
 stead of lying down as her husband had directed, changed 
 her travelling dress for a tea-gown, had her hair done, and 
 walked across the room to the door. The maid protested, 
 urged Mr. Hilliard's wishes; but Netelka, from being the 
 passive creature who could not resist her husband's will, 
 had become the mistress whose will no servant could with- 
 stand. 
 
 " You can tell Mr. Hilliard, if he asks for me, that I 
 have gone down to the drawing-room," she said carelessly. 
 
 She walked downstairs in a strange frame of mind, feel- 
 ing the walls and the banisters, as if asking herself 
 whether they were real, or whether the gleaming lines of 
 sunlight which interlaced each other on the floor and the 
 walls of the hall, and the scent of the flowers as the after- 
 noon breeze bore it in from the conversatory, and the faintly 
 heard notes of the piano as a hand ran lightly over them, 
 were not part of a dream in which she walked as a disem- 
 bodied spirit might walk, floating on the air rather than 
 treading on the ground. 
 
 Unsteadily her hand felt for the handle of the drawing- 
 room door. She remembered that a week ago she had lain, 
 as she thought, dying, and had remembered such an after- 
 noon as this at " The Firs," and had wondered whether her 
 spirit would come back to the place when she was dead.
 
 TEMPTATION. 253 
 
 And so it happened that when she stood in the drawing- 
 room, in her loose gown of cream-colored chiffon, with 
 pearls in the lace at her throat, and a starlike diamond 
 shining in the fading sunlight on one of her fingers, Ger- 
 ard, although he had known that she was in the house, 
 started up and stood before her without speaking, perceiv- 
 ing that there had been in her some great change. 
 
 "Gerard!" said she in a low voice, doubtfully; "Ger- 
 ard!" 
 
 Then she smiled; but it was a weird smile, in which 
 there was something which frightened him. He put his 
 hands out hastily to touch hers, as if he must assure him- 
 self without delay that she was really breathing and alive. 
 
 " Thank God, thank God !" whispered he, in a breaking 
 voice, " that I can see you again. I thought I thought, 
 oh!" a shiver passed over him, and Netelka perceived by 
 the touch of his hands that he was deadly cold " I don't 
 want to remember it. Come, come to the light, my my 
 darling!" 
 
 For a moment Netelka took no more notice of this last 
 word than if it had been a term of endearment which she 
 had heard constantly from his lips. And yet the only 
 term of endearment which he had ever addressed to her be- 
 fore had been the half -playful " my dear Mrs. Hilliard" of 
 every-day life. She let him lead her to one of the open 
 French windows, where a clematis-bush was just bursting 
 from bud into flower, and a clump of damask rose-trees 
 filled the air with delicate fragrance. He was still holding 
 her hand and looking into her face with a wistful eager- 
 ness which betrayed that he too had passed through some 
 strange experiences since their eyes had last met. 
 
 In her turn Netelka shivered, and a heart-broken sigh 
 came from her lips. 
 
 "What are you saying? You mustn't talk like that,"
 
 254 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 she said suddenly, withdrawing her hand, but without a 
 blush. There was no resentment, no prudery in her tone; 
 she uttered the words mechanically, as if repeating a les- 
 son. Gerard leaned against the window-frame. As he 
 looked away from her, startled by the swinging of a bough 
 under the flight of a bird, Netelka caught a new view of his 
 face, and as she did so, she let a cry escape her lips. 
 
 "What is it? You are ill; sit down; hold my arm; 
 let me hold you so." 
 
 As he spoke, Gerard had sprung forward, and, support- 
 ing her gently, made her sit on one of the low-cushioned 
 seats which were fitted into the recesses of the window. 
 
 "I am not ill," she answered in a hoarse voice. "At 
 least, I am not so ill as I have been, and as you have been. 
 Tell me, what has been the matter with you? Is it true, 
 as Hugh Thorndyke says, that that Linley tried to poison 
 you?" 
 
 Gerard stared at her in astonishment, which quickly gave 
 place to doubt. 
 
 " I don't know. I don't think so," answered he quietly. 
 "I went out with him and got caught in the rain." 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed she in a tone full of fear. She knew 
 that Gerard's delicacy was well known to her husband, and 
 with her mind attuned to suspicion, she guessed the truth, 
 although she would scarcely own it even to herself. 
 
 Gerard kept his eyes fixed upon her face, which he read 
 as easily as if it had been an open book. The history of 
 the past few weeks during which she had been away he 
 seemed to read in her mournful eyes, in the deeper lines 
 about her mouth. She turned suddenly toward him, and 
 their eyes met. 
 
 " You must go away from here at once, " she said. " You 
 are not safe here. " 
 
 "And you?"
 
 TEMPTATION. 255 
 
 As he spoke, he dropped into the seat beside her and 
 leaned back against the wall, so that his own face might be 
 out of her range of vision, for he could not trust his quiv- 
 ering muscles not to betray the agitation from which he 
 was suffering. 
 
 Netelka started, changed her position, moving a little 
 away from him as if in carelessness, though she also betrayed 
 more than she wished. 
 
 " Oh, that is different. I I am his wife; he has got to 
 take care of me; he " 
 
 She broke down, and covering her face with her hands, 
 burst into tears and sobs so violent, so unrestrained that 
 Gerard, who had never seen her give way like this before, 
 was alarmed beyond measure. But he did not make any 
 great attempt to soothe her ; he did not touch the quiv- 
 ering hand which lay within his reach: he dared not. 
 After listening for a few moments to her heartbroken sobs, 
 he sprang up and walked rapidly up the room. To Netelka, 
 miserable, despairing, it seemed as if her best friend were 
 deserting her. He heard her pause in the midst of her 
 sobs, and turning, he saw her poor tear-stained face wearing 
 an expression of desolation which touched him to the quick. 
 
 "Oh, are you going now like that? Gerard, Gerard! 
 Don't leave me here. He will kill me if you do. Take 
 me take me with you, Gerard!" 
 
 Then her head sank down, and she threw herself among 
 the cushions in an agony of shame and grief. 
 
 There was a long pause. Netelka, who sobbed on with- 
 out looking up, thought that Gerard had left her alone. It 
 was not until she had wept herself into a state of exhaustion 
 that she raised herself and perceived that Gerard was sit- 
 ting at a table at a little distance, with his head buried in 
 his hands. He did not move, and for a few minutes Ne- 
 telka sat staring at his bent head with eyes so dim and swol-
 
 256 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 len after her tears that she seemed to see two or three curly 
 heads dancing before them. 
 
 " Gerard !" she cried at last in a low voice, very diffi- 
 dently. 
 
 Gerard raised his head and looked at her, but did not 
 rise from his chair. 
 
 " Did you did you hear what I said just now?" 
 
 Then he got up and walked to the window without looking 
 at her, exactly as if nothing out of the common had hap- 
 pened. 
 
 !Netelka watched him, in bewilderment. 
 
 " Did you hear what I said, Gerard?" 
 
 But he pulled the blind down a little way and then 
 pulled it up again, as if very anxious to get it perfectly 
 straight. Meantime he answered very deliberately : 
 
 " No, Mrs. Hilliard, I didn't hear you say anything. And 
 I don't want you to say anything until you're quite your- 
 self again. Talking isn't any better for you than crying; 
 and as I care for you more than for any one else in the world, 
 I mustn't let you talk and I mustn't let you cry. So please, 
 Mrs. Hilliard, ma'am, don't do either, but listen to me." 
 
 But Netelka started up, stung to the quick. She ran 
 the length of the room so quickly that Gerard could not 
 stop her ; and he had not got farther in his rapid pursuit 
 of her than the middle of the room when he suddenly saw 
 her stagger back from the door, with a loud cry.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 GOOD-BY. 
 
 IT was the sight of her husband, well hidden, as he sup- 
 posed, in his corner between the archway and the door, 
 which had caused Netelka to scream and fall back. Linley 
 was extremely disgusted at this misadventure, following so 
 quickly on his discovery of what he would have called Ne- 
 telka's perfidy toward himself. However, it was clearly 
 necessary to make some excuse for his presence. 
 
 "I was just coming in," he said in a suave tone, which 
 hardly concealed his annoyance. " Did I frighten you?" 
 
 Netelka did not deign to answer him. The attitude in 
 which she had caught him, the expression on his face, had 
 shown her quite unmistakably that he had been eavesdrop- 
 ping, and her disgust at his meanness quite swallowed up 
 her shame for the words he had heard her utter. Nothing 
 that she had known, nothing she had suspected, of her hus- 
 band's conduct had ever caused her so much repugnance as 
 this unmanly action. She would have passed him without 
 a word and left the room, if Linley, who was not easily 
 abashed, had not laid his detaining hand on her arm. 
 
 " Don't go away. I want to speak to you," said Linley, 
 who was by no means anxious to be left alone with Gerard. 
 
 "I am tired. I am going to my room," said Netelka 
 coldly. 
 
 " You are not too tired to sit up for your own amuse- 
 ment; well, then, you may sit up for mine," said he in a 
 snarling tone. " Lord St. Peters has just come : I heard 
 his voice in the hall. He says he never sees anything of you, 
 17
 
 258 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 and it's quite true. You make yourself invisible to my 
 friends, and keep your society for a few privileged per- 
 sons." 
 
 And he threw a vicious glance at Gerard, who had dis- 
 creetly retired to the window at the farthest end of the 
 room, but who was not out of hearing. 
 
 Netelka hesitated for a moment only; then, as the voices 
 of Arthur Sainsbury and Lord St. Peters became audible 
 as they approached the door of the room, she submitted 
 from force of habit, and retreated to the nearest looking- 
 glass to see what ravages her recent tears made in her ap- 
 pearance. They were even greater than she had supposed. 
 She was still standing before the glass when the two young 
 men entered. 
 
 Lord St. Peters was a thick-set, common-looking man of 
 six or seven and twenty, who had evidently had more cham- 
 pagne than was good for him. He was the only son of a 
 large upholsterer, who had received first a baronetcy and 
 then a peerage for " services to his party. " Lord St. Peters 
 had the manners of the new rather than the old nobility, 
 and he swaggered into the room in a manner which made 
 Gerard long to kick him. 
 
 "Hallo! Is it you, Mrs. Hilliard? It's ages since we've 
 had a glimpse of you !" cried he, as he sauntered up to Ne- 
 telka with an air of easy assurance which he thought irre- 
 sistible. 
 
 She had never liked him, and had in fact been barely 
 civil to him at any time. She now passed him over for 
 Arthur Sainsbury, whose tempestuous but more boyish man- 
 ners were much less offensive to her than those of his com- 
 panion. She was sorry to see, however, that the rackety 
 life he was leading was telling upon the lad, who had al- 
 ways been credited with more money than brains, and who, 
 under the guidance of the Jew and Linley, was rapidly
 
 GOOD-BY. 259 
 
 reducing the amount of his fortune without acquiring any 
 compensating gain in the matter of intellect. 
 
 "Arthur," she said gravely, "I shall have to give you a 
 lecture, I see. I don't see any signs of the reformation you 
 promised me." 
 
 " Oh, it's coming; in fact, it's begun," cried he with one 
 of his uproarious laughs. " I don't flourish the signs of it 
 about yet, nor wear a blue ribbon in my button-hole ; but 
 for all that, I'm a reformed character, I assure you." 
 
 Lord St. Peters, very angry at the much warmer recep- 
 tion Netelka had given to Arthur Sainsbury than to him, 
 laughed disagreeably. 
 
 " Keformed, eh?" he exclaimed in a sneering tone. " Ee- 
 formed, do you say? Oh, yes, this is the very house where 
 you would be encouraged to do that, Sainsbury ! And Mrs. 
 Hilliard would be the very person to bring it about, 
 wouldn't you, Mrs. Hilliard?" 
 
 At this point Linley hurried forward to the young man's 
 side, and, passing his arm through that of Lord St. Peters, 
 tried to persuade him to go upstairs and try his luck at 
 baccarat. But the young man was obstinate, and he shook 
 off the hand of his persuasive host. 
 
 " No, no ! It'll be your turn by and by yours and that 
 of that infernal little Hebrew you keep stowed away in the 
 attic. I came down to-night determined to pay my re- 
 spects to Mrs. Hilliard, if I were so fortunate as to find her 
 at home. Well, now I have found her at home, and I'm 
 not going to deliver myself into your clutches till she's had 
 her turn. I mean to see if I can't cut out our sulky friend 
 in the corner there." He glanced at Gerard, who, stand- 
 ing some distance away from the rest, certainly looked far 
 from amiable. "I know he's a prime favorite; but, dash 
 it all, surely that's all the more reason why anether fellow 
 should have his turn!"
 
 260 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Linley, who had seized a man-servant and dispatched him 
 with a message to Harrington Moseley telling him to come 
 down at once, was growing more and more uneasy at the 
 bold tone of Lord St. Peters' conversation. The young man 
 was behaving, not with the deference usually shown to Ne- 
 telka, but with the free and easy airs of the gambling-room 
 upstairs. He thought that Moseley, by joining his persua- 
 sions with Linley's own, might be able to remove the young 
 man to regions where he would be less actively offensive. 
 
 It was evident that Gerard already found a difficulty in 
 restraining his longing to lay violent hands upon Lord St. 
 Peters. While Netelka herself seemed to be conscious that 
 there was some reason that she did not know of for the 
 unusually offensive behavior of the visitor, she looked sus- 
 piciously at her husband, and then, turning away from Lord 
 St. Peters, walked toward the door. 
 
 " Oh, no, no, you're not going to escape so easily. Hil- 
 liard, please use your authority, and tell your wife to drop 
 these airs. They don't become her half so well as the old 
 ones." 
 
 As he spoke he made a rush toward the door and put 
 his back against it, to prevent her exit. In a moment Ger- 
 ard was beside him, laughing rather nervously, and push- 
 ing Lord St. Peters with a touch which had in it more of 
 anger than of the playfulness he professed to assume. 
 
 " Look here, old chap, we are not on Hampstead Heath, 
 and this isn't a bank holiday. You can't dictate to a 
 lady whether she shall or shall not leave her own drawing- 
 room, can you?" 
 
 Perhaps Lord St. Peters was sober enough to detect a 
 note he did not like under Gerard's friendliness. He pulled 
 his arm roughly away and planted himself still more firmly 
 before the door. 
 
 " Don't old chap me, Mr. Thingamy; it's a liberty I don't
 
 aOOD-BT. 261 
 
 allow except to my particular friends. Now, you may be 
 Mrs. Hilliard's particular friend, but not mine. So go 
 away and leave 'me alone." 
 
 Gerard's eyes blazed, and, clinching his hands, he glanced 
 first at Netelka, who had retreated from the door during 
 this colloquy, and then at Linley, who was trying to look as 
 if he had not heard what had passed. 
 
 " I will go away, certainly, rather than take part in a row 
 in the presence of a lady," said Gerard in a very low voice, 
 anxious above all things not to irritate the young fool into 
 any further insulting remarks. 
 
 Unluckily, his very forbearance excited Lord St. Peters, 
 who was in no mood or condition to be careful of his 
 words. 
 
 " Do you think I'm going to take lessons in deportment 
 from you?" asked he, insolently. " If Hilliard is satisfied 
 with my being here, it seems to me you ought to be. You 
 don't find anything to complain of in me, do you, Hilliard? 
 Nor you, eh?" added he, to Harrington Moseley, who had 
 been waiting outside the door, and who had seized this his 
 first opportunity of edging himself into the room behind 
 Lord Peters' back. 
 
 " Of course not. There's nobody we're more glad to wel- 
 come, Lord St. Peters," said the Jew, casting a nervous 
 glance around, to take in the bearings of the situation. 
 " Now, aren't you coming upstairs to my den for a smoke? 
 I'm sure Mrs. Hilliard will excuse you." 
 
 Here Arthur Sainsbury struck in, not with the best re- 
 sults. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I'll be bound she will. Mrs. Hilliard will be 
 only too glad to get rid of us after the bother there has 
 been," said he in his strident tones. 
 
 Netelka had availed herself of the diversion caused by 
 Harrington Moseley 's entrance to make her way to the open
 
 262 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 window. Arthur Sainsbury's remark recalled the atten- 
 tion of Lord St. Peters to her movements. With a coarse, 
 ironical laugh, he said : 
 
 " I dare say Mrs. Hilliard wouldn't mind our smoking 
 down here, for that matter. One doesn't expect the pro- 
 prietress of a gaming-house to be so jolly particular as all 
 that." 
 
 The speech came like a thunderclap to everybody. Curi- 
 ously enough, although Netelka stopped, petrified with sur- 
 prise, though Gerard was dumb with indignation, it was 
 upon Linley and his confederate, the Jew, that the words 
 produced the strongest impressoin. The Jew turned pur- 
 ple, while Linley grew livid and trembled. They did not 
 seem surprised : they seemed thunderstruck, appalled; and 
 their eyes stole in the direction of the lady while they si- 
 multaneously rushed at Lord St. Peters and tried to elbow 
 him out of the room. But he stood his ground, conscious 
 that he was being scurvily treated. 
 
 "No, I won't be shoved out of the room," he protested 
 loudly; "at least I'll say my say first. I'm sure I don't 
 want to say anything offensive to Mrs. Hilliard. This is 
 an awfully jolly house, and of course one expects to have to 
 pay for one's enjoyment. But it's really rather funny that 
 we should all have to keep up the farce of pretending she 
 doesn't know what goes on upstairs, when everybody knows 
 it's her money runs the show, and when I've had to pay her 
 at the rate of sixty per cent for the little sums she's obliged 
 me with." 
 
 Netelka was listening without a movement. Her eyes 
 shone in her pale face with a burning light as she looked 
 steadily at her husband. Then her face changed and 
 quivered all over, for as soon as the words were out of Lord 
 St. Peters' mouth, Gerard sprang at him and struck him 
 in the face.
 
 OOOD-BY. 263 
 
 "That's a lie!" 
 
 "It's not a lie!" 
 
 Lord St. Peters, enraged at the blow, which he failed 
 either to parry or to return, shook his fist, and with the 
 other hand fumbled for his pocket-book. 
 
 "I'll I'll show you whether I'm a liar or not," stam- 
 mered he, trembling with anger. " Look look here ; I'll 
 show you her receipt, the only one I've been able to get 
 yet; I've got it, I've got it! Hands off!" he went on in a 
 rougher tone, as Linley and Harrington Moseley tried their 
 best to silence him. " I suppose the lady won't deny her 
 own handwriting?" And he turned to Netelka, who had 
 drawn nearer to the disputants. 
 
 " I shall not, certainly if it is my own writing," she an- 
 swered very calmly. 
 
 Gerard laughed contemptuously. 
 
 "You have been sold," said he shortly, in Lord St. Pe- 
 ters' ear. 
 
 " Have I? Well, we'll see." Drawing from his pocket- 
 book a small paper, he unfolded it, and keeping a tight 
 hold upon it, offered it for the lady's inspection. " Is that 
 your signature, madam, or is it not?" 
 
 Netelka glanced at the written words, and then at her 
 husband's masklike face. 
 
 " It is very like it," she said, briefly. 
 
 Lord St. Peters took this for a triumph. 
 
 "Like yours! Of course it is!" chuckled he. "And 
 now, if I've quite satisfied this gentleman," and he turned 
 with an ironical bow to Gerard, " I think I'll go upstairs 
 and have that cigar." 
 
 He stalked out of the room with another bow, this time 
 to Netelka ; and Harrington Moseley and Linley followed 
 him without delay. Arthur Sainsbury just stayed behind to 
 shake Netelka by the hand and tell her it was a beastly
 
 264 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 shame, that it was; and he shouldn't have thought Linley 
 would have dragged her into such things. And then he 
 went after the others, leaving her standing by the piano 
 with a curious, fixed smile upon her face. 
 
 " Why why didn't you tell him it was a forgery? That 
 you had no money of your own? Why did you let that ass 
 go away thinking that you you " 
 
 Gerard had hissed out these words hoarsely, leaning upon 
 the piano, with his great blue eyes fixed on her face. She 
 shrugged her shoulders almost listlessly: 
 
 "What was the use? He would not have believed me! 
 And why should I exasperate Linley still further, when he 
 can make me suffer for every word, every movement of mine 
 he does not like?" 
 
 Gerard started up, looking like a man suddenly awakened 
 out of a deep sleep. 
 
 "You must not, you shall not bear it any longer," said 
 he, in a low, dreamy voice. " You have borne too much 
 I did not know how much. It is not your duty to stay with 
 a fiend; it could not be required of you by God or man. 
 Come, Netelka, come away to-night now ! To stay under 
 the same roof with him is degradation." 
 
 He was by her side, not touching her, but hovering about 
 her with the tenderness of a lover in his eyes. Netelka 
 smiled and looked at him with a strange expression, half 
 of pain, half of a melancholy happiness: 
 
 " It is degradation ; you are right. If it had not been, 
 I should not have forgotten my duty yes, my duty; we 
 will not juggle with words for one moment to-night. Ger- 
 ard, you must go, you must go now at once. If you stay 
 till the morning, I shall not have strength to to say 
 good-by as I do now, as I do now. Good -night, Gerard, 
 and good-by." 
 
 She held out her hand, and Gerard, not seeing it for the
 
 GOOD-BY. 265 
 
 tears which were filling his eyes, let her take his fingers and 
 hold them for one moment in hers. Then he heard her 
 voice low in his ear: 
 
 "You must go io-night remember." 
 
 His hand fell ; he dashed away the moisture from his 
 eyes. But she was gone.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 COMPLICATIONS. 
 
 IT was about a week after Netelka's return to " The Firs" 
 when Hugh Thorndyke, who was still staying at his hotel 
 in town, was surprised to receive a message brought by one 
 of the servants to the effect that Mr. Waller was waiting 
 below to see him. Hugh jumped up from the sofa on which 
 he was stretched, threw down his book, and went out to 
 meet his friend. But the sight of the young fellow's hag- 
 gard face gave him a shock. 
 
 "Hallo!" he exclaimed, as he beckoned Gerard into his 
 sitting-room, "I'm awfully glad to see you about again, old 
 man; but you look, if anything, worse than when last I 
 saw you at * The Firs.' You got my letter?" 
 
 Gerard nodded. " It was sent on to me. I'm not liv- 
 ing at ' The Firs ' now." 
 
 " I'm heartily glad to hear it." 
 
 " You need not be. Mrs. H. told me to clear out on the 
 very night her husband brought her back, and I've been 
 thinking of nothing but Mrs. H. ever since. I can't get 
 her out of my head: I can't get her out of my mind. If 
 I go up the river, I see her in every boat that passes ; if I 
 go to the theatre, I see Netelka in every scene. My head 
 aches with holding always the same image : I want to cut 
 my throat." 
 
 He was marching up and down the room, ruffling up his 
 fair hair with his right hand, and looking " rather mad," as 
 he expressed it, about the eyes.
 
 COMPLICATIONS. 267 
 
 "Time you did clear out, I think!" commented Hugh 
 dryly. 
 
 Gerard planted himself opposite his friend. 
 
 " Oh, you think so, do you? Well, you're wrong. Mind, 
 I think of all the infernal scoundrels I've ever met Hil- 
 liard is the vilest ; but I don't think he'd have had the 
 pluck to try to poison me when his attempt to get rid of 
 me in another way had failed, and my presence really was 
 some sort of safeguard for Netelka." 
 
 " Her presence, though, was not much of a safeguard for 
 you," said Hugh in the same tone as before. 
 
 " What do you mean by that? Don't I tell you that it 
 was she who sent me away?" 
 
 " Quite right of her; I applaud her for it, though there's 
 no need to go into ecstasies of admiration over a mere act 
 of common-sense." 
 
 "Well, that will do. Or if you want to preach any 
 more, let me remind you that listening is dry work." 
 
 "Whiskey and soda?" asked Hugh, crossing the room 
 to the sideboard. 
 
 " Anything. I've got something to show you." 
 
 Hugh watched Gerard's hand as the latter produced an 
 envelope from his pocket. Then, staying the hand before 
 he could give him the envelope, Hugh said, with a smile : 
 
 "You needn't show it to me: I've got one too." 
 
 And he took from the mantelpiece a similar envelope, 
 addressed to himself, informing him that " Mrs. Hilliard" 
 would be " at home" on the following Thursday, the 26th, 
 "four to seven." 
 
 " Yes," said Gerard, " that's it. Are you going?" 
 
 " Of course I am. And you?" 
 
 "Bather." 
 
 "You'd better not." 
 
 "I know that; but still, do you see, I'm going. I want
 
 268 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 to see little Jem. I think, as a punishment to you for 
 preaching, I shall try to cut you out." 
 
 Hugh turned all sorts of colors, and he answered very 
 shortly : 
 
 " That will be easy enough. I'm quite out of the run- 
 ning; I've called there twice in the last week and can't 
 get her to see me: all through humoring a whim of 
 hers!" 
 
 And, after a little persuasion, for the whole affair was a 
 sore point with him, Hugh told the story of the engage- 
 ment and its consequences. It did not restore his wounded 
 self-conceit to see Gerard roll on his sofa in fits of laughter 
 at his expense. 
 
 "I've no doubt it seems to you exceedingly funny," said 
 he, with coolness. " And I dare say it will add to your en- 
 joyment of the joke to hear that Mrs. Collingham was very 
 cold when I called, thinking I must have done something 
 awful for Jem to refuse to see me." 
 
 At this Gerard laughed so much as seriously to imperil 
 the good accord which existed between him and Hugh. 
 Before, however, Hugh had made up his mind whether he 
 should be deeply offended, Gerard perceived the danger and 
 apologized. Then Hugh affected to be entirely indifferent 
 about it. 
 
 " Oh, I thought you spoke, when I saw you last, as if 
 you were really hard-hit?" said Gerard, trying to speak 
 with great solemnity. 
 
 But this Hugh would not now acknowledge. 
 
 " Oh, come now, you are calling in the aid of imagina- 
 tion!" answered he, with a forced laugh. "Of course it 
 isn't pleasant for one's vanity, a thing of this kind. But 
 I don't trouble myself about the girl except on that account. 
 I have something more important to talk to you about. 
 Have you seen this?"
 
 COMPLICATIONS. 269 
 
 Hugh handed him that morning's Daily News, pointing 
 out the following paragraph : 
 
 EXCITING CHASE OF A LUNATIC. 
 
 Our Warchester correspondent telegraphs : " This morning an 
 exciting chase, fortunately ending in the recapture of the fugitive, 
 took place on the outskirts of the town. An elderly gentleman 
 named Richard Linley Dax, who has been for some years an inmate 
 of a private lunatic asylum a few miles from here, effected his es- 
 cape, and, after crossing the fields in his dressing-gown and slippers, 
 caused considerable consternation among the inhabitants of a farm- 
 house, into which he had crept on finding himself pursued. Fortu- 
 nately he was secured without much difficulty, but not before he 
 had attacked one of the farm servants with a hatchet, this being, we 
 understand, his fourth attempt at homicide. " 
 
 "Now, Linley Dax is an uncommon combination," said 
 Hugh when Gerard had read the paragraph. " And I hap- 
 pen to know that Hilliard's real name is Linley Dax. 
 Now, don't you think it's reasonable to suppose that this 
 lunatic is some relation of his, and that there's insanity in 
 his blood?" 
 
 Gerard, much impressed, concurred in this view, and they 
 resolved to make some inquiries starting upon this basis. 
 
 "If we could prove Linley insane and shut him up," 
 suggested Hugh, "at any rate we could save her from the 
 risk of being murdered by a maniac, which it seems to me 
 there is a good prospect of Linley 's becoming, if, as I am 
 inclined to suspect, he is not one already." 
 
 Gerard looked gloomily at his friend. 
 
 "Not a very lively prospect that," said he, "of being 
 tied for life to a lunatic!" 
 
 "At any rate, it's better than being murdered by one," 
 retorted Hugh. 
 
 This was unanswerable, and the subject dropped. 
 
 Qn Thursday, the 26th, when Mrs. Hilliard received her
 
 270 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 friends, she was looking her very best. Hugh and Gerard, 
 who went down together, were astonished at her brilliant 
 appearance. She was always well dressed, being one of 
 those women whose natural advantages of figure and car- 
 riage, increased by good taste, give a grace to their clothes, 
 instead of being indebted to them. On this occasion she 
 wore very pale pink silk with a dull-ribbed surface, covered 
 with string-colored chiffon embroidered in silk of the same 
 color. Her throat was just long enough for her to bear a 
 band of black velvet, which she wore studded with dia- 
 mond daisies. 
 
 The entertainment was an idea of Linley's, by which he 
 proposed to dissipate the air of mystery and of something 
 worse which " The Firs" had acquired, and to inaugurate 
 a new era of unimpeachable respectability. The choice of 
 guests was his own, and the gathering was a miscellaneous 
 one. A selection of the habitues of the place, including 
 Hugh Thorndyke and Gerard "Waller, Lady Kenslow and 
 a friend, the party from "Maisonette," a few acquaint- 
 ances of Harrington Moseley's; and a selection of local 
 people who came for the first and last time out of curiosity 
 these were the component parts of an assemblage which 
 differed from the usual afternoon at home in the prepon- 
 derance of the male sex. 
 
 The weather being fine, Netelka, who had tied herself in 
 her invitations to no particular form of entertainment, had 
 made it, on the spur of the moment, a garden party. The 
 two lawns were dotted with enormous Japanese sunshades, 
 under which groups of chairs were placed invitingly. Ne- 
 telka affected to regard the whole affair as a dreary joke. 
 
 "There are the usual desperately dull entertainments: a 
 fortune-teller who doesn't even interest you in what she 
 says, though she looks very nice ; a quartet who sing hor- 
 ribly out of tune, and who trample down my carnations in
 
 COMPLICATIONS. 271 
 
 their search for a place on the flower-bed where they will 
 look picturesque, and there are warm ices and cold tea in 
 that room which opens on to the garden. It is very good 
 of you to come and be bored." 
 
 This was her greeting to Hugh and Gerard, with whom 
 she shook hands in exactly the same manner as she had done 
 with her other guests. Gerard was stupefied, chilled. He 
 was shy and reserved with her, and left the talking to 
 Hugh. 
 
 " I am sorry to hear," Netelka went on, turning to Hugh, 
 with a mischievous glance at Mrs. Collingham and her 
 stepdaughter, who were standing near, " that you have, in 
 some unknown way, which I cannot discover, deeply of- 
 fended Jem and her mamma. I thought, as Jem came 
 down to Hastings under your escort, that you were the best 
 of friends." Hugh was astonished at the coolness with 
 which she alluded to the Hastings incident. 
 
 "The charm of your sex," he answered, " is its unexpect- 
 edness. Jem and I were good friends when I saw you last : 
 we are not now. That is all I can tell you about it. It is 
 all I know myself." 
 
 It was easy to see that he was not so indifferent as he 
 wished to appear. Netelka smiled archly as she turned to 
 Gerard. 
 
 "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," she said sig- 
 nificantly. " Come and take Miss Collingham to have her 
 fortune told." 
 
 Gerard hung back a little. 
 
 " Let Thorn dyke take her," murmured he, with a plead- 
 ing look. 
 
 But at that moment Mrs. Collingham caught sight of 
 him and rushed at him with outstretched hands. Before 
 he had recovered breath from her attack he found him- 
 self told off, he hardly knew how, with Jem, and they were
 
 272 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 walking across the lawn in the direction of the fortune- 
 teller's tent. 
 
 " You didn't want to come with me, I know," said Jem, 
 in a tone full of mingled despair and resentment. 
 
 " Only because I knew how much Thorndyke would have 
 liked it," answered Gerard. "And I'm afraid he'll punch 
 my head as we go back to town, just to restore the balance 
 which Providence has disturbed." 
 
 " What do you mean by that?" asked Jem rather crossly. 
 
 " It is my elegant and literary way of expressing the fact 
 that fate has been kindlier to me than I deserve in letting 
 me have the pleasure of your society." 
 
 "You needn't talk like that to me. And don't talk 
 about Mr. Thorndyke at all: I hate him!" 
 
 Gerard stopped short, overcome by surprise. 
 
 " You hate him? You ungrateful girl ! When the only 
 fault you have to find with him is that he has been too sub- 
 missive to your whims!" 
 
 The words were out before Gerard had had time to con- 
 sider the enormity of the offence he was committing in 
 bullying a lady. Jem smothered a sob. Finding he was 
 " in for it," Gerard threw scruples to the winds and bullied 
 her still more. 
 
 " I'm going to live in Asia," said he, decidedly. "I'm 
 tired of the airs European women give themselves. Here 
 in this mismanaged hemisphere we poor men are martyrs to 
 the caprices of girls who don't know their own minds, and 
 don't know how much better off than they deserve they are 
 when a decent man takes a fancy to one of them ! Why, if 
 I were a girl and a man like Hugh Thorndyke honored me 
 with his notice, I should go down on my knees and kiss his 
 feet!" 
 
 Jem raised her head with a sudden movement of indig- 
 nation and resentment.
 
 COMPLICATIONS. 273 
 
 " Really, I think the sooner you go to Asia the better," 
 she said haughtily. " And I hope you'll persuade your 
 friend Mr. Thorndyke to go with you." 
 
 " He is going up to his home in Yorkshire either to- 
 morrow or the day after. And as he will no doubt speedily 
 choose a wife from among the throng of girls who will be 
 ready and anxious to have him, you will find him practi- 
 cally as far away as you could desire." 
 
 "I'm very glad to hear it," snapped out Jem. 
 
 And, having by this time reached the fortune-teller's 
 tent, they entered in silence, each feeling a little resent- 
 ment against the other because each would have chosen a 
 different companion. Gerard wanted another conversa- 
 tion, a final adieu, in fact, with Netelka; while Jem was 
 conscious, in a dim, vague way, that a tete-a-tete with 
 Gerard was no longer the highest pleasure the world could 
 afford her. 
 18
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 KNAVES FALL OUT. 
 
 HUGH THOKNDYKE had lost no time in securing a talk 
 with Lady Kenslow, who, in gray satin with touches of old 
 lace, looked as charming a picture of graceful middle-age 
 as her niece did of brilliant youth. Hugh found her a seat 
 under a beech-tree which spread its grateful shade over a 
 corner of the lawn, from which they could see the tennis, 
 with which a few enthusiasts were beguiling the sultry 
 hours. 
 
 " I have been dying, as they say, for this opportunity," 
 said he, as he handed her the cup of tea she had asked for. 
 
 Lady Kenslow knew what was coming, or at least she 
 knew what the subject was that he was going to introduce. 
 She inclined her head gravely, and he went on : 
 
 " I am going to tell you in as few words as I can the 
 fresh reason I have for asking you to induce Netelka to 
 leave her husband. " 
 
 " 1 will hear you, and I will hear your reason," answered 
 Lady Kenslow, imperturbably. " But I warn you that I 
 shall not interfere between any wife and her husband. You 
 know my views on that subject. I think the best woman 
 in the world married to the worst man suffers more by sep- 
 arating from her husband than by remaining with him. 
 Need I say any more? Knowing this, are you not wasting 
 your time with me?" 
 
 " No. I want to argue the matter with you. Your view 
 might be all very well in the days when women were looked 
 upon as mere chattels; but now that they are treated as
 
 KNAVES FALL OUT. 275 
 
 reasoning beings, with control over their own property, and 
 that they're expected to have minds and ideas of their own, 
 don't you think they lose their self-respect if they remain 
 tied to a scoundrel?" 
 
 " There may be some risk of that. But I maintain that 
 the wife of a scoundrel who remains with her husband as 
 long as there is a hope that her presencee may prove a re- 
 straint, or even a comfort to him, is in a better position 
 than the wife of a scoundrel unattached about the world." 
 
 " Then you make your own sex occupy a very subordinate 
 and degraded position." 
 
 " Subordinate, not necessarily degraded. And the sub- 
 ordinacy is nature's doing, not mine." 
 
 " But do you know what this Hilliard, or Dax, has been 
 trying to do?" 
 
 "I know all that is alleged against him, but nothing 
 seems to have been proved. Netelka and I had a long talk 
 this morning; she told me everything, and I heartily ap- 
 plauded her resolution of remaining with him in spite of it 
 all." 
 
 " Have you read this?" asked Hugh, as he handed to her 
 the paragraph from the morning's paper about the escape 
 of a lunatic. 
 
 Lady Kenslow read it through with evident interest. 
 
 " I should think," said she as she handed it back to him, 
 " that this is more than a coincidence. Such such moral 
 perversity shall we say? as Linley's has certainly some- 
 thing in common with what we call lunacy." 
 
 "And it does not cause you to alter your opinion?" 
 
 " Not in the least. There are more dangers and diffi- 
 culties for Netelka if she leaves her husband than if she 
 braves the peril of his becoming a maniac." 
 
 And as she spoke, Lady Kenslow involuntarily glanced 
 toward the spot where Gerard sat beside Jem, with his eyes
 
 276 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 fixed, not on her, but on the graceful figure in veiled rose- 
 color that flitted about among the groups on the lawn. 
 Hugh's eyes followed the direction of hers; and in the an- 
 noyance he felt at seeing Gerard and Jem side by side, 
 talking in an evidently confidential manner, he forgot the 
 subject which had been occupying his mind in one which 
 interested him still more deeply. 
 
 In the pause which followed, Lady Kenslow, who had 
 given the entertainment the light of her presence to sig- 
 nify her approval of Netelka's course of action, was seized 
 upon by Linley, who was very proud of the honor conferred 
 upon " The Firs" by her visit. Hugh, left by himself, 
 found his elbow touched, and, turning his head, saw Har- 
 rington Moseley standing by his side. 
 
 " Very nice of her ladyship to come down, wasn't it?" said 
 the Jew, who was following Linley with glances in which 
 Hugh thought he detected unusual intensity. " Done to 
 please Mrs. H., of course. Her ladyship wouldn't go out 
 of her way to oblige Linley, I'm thinking!" 
 
 Hugh did not love the Jew, but he was curious to know 
 on what terms he and his partner stood to each other, for 
 there was little appreciation of Linley in Harrington Mose- 
 ley's tone. So Hugh said : 
 
 " Well, he's only her relation by marriage. There's no 
 necessity for any great show of affection between them." 
 
 " I should like to know who could show great affection 
 for a fish-blooded creature like Linley!" cried the Jew, with 
 an appearance of indignation which Hugh did not at first 
 trust. 
 
 " Don't you like him, then?" asked Hugh, who felt him- 
 self invited to ask a question. 
 
 The answer came in a tone of convincing sincerity : 
 
 "Like him! No, I should think not! I tell you what 
 it is," and Harrington Moseley, much to Hugh's disgust,
 
 KNAVES FALL OUT. 277 
 
 took him by the buttonhole, lifting up his head in the en- 
 deavor to get nearer the Yorkshireman's level, "I I'm 
 afraid of him ! I think he's going off his head I do in- 
 deed. He talks to his china! I've heard him. Now, do 
 you think that's the sort of thing a man would do while he 
 was altogether sane? Do you, I ask you?" 
 
 "It's eccentric, certainly," assented Hugh. 
 
 But his face changed, for this piece of information about 
 Linley's habits bore to him even a greater significance than 
 it did to Moseley. 
 
 In spite of Netelka's depreciation of the entertainment 
 she was offering her guests, the afternoon was undoubtedly 
 a very successful one. It may be that the dubious reputa- 
 tion " The Firs" had acquired gave a pleasant zest to the 
 commonplaces of a garden-party : certainly the conversation 
 was livelier, the langhter was more frequent than is gener- 
 ally the case at these solemn functions. When the evening 
 shadows had grown long upon the grass and the groups on 
 the lawn had begun to thin, Mrs. Collingham, as she shook 
 hands with Netelka and assured her that she had spent 
 such a delightful afternoon, drew Mrs. Hilliard's attention 
 to the fact that Linley had for some time been lost sight 
 of. 
 
 " I couldn't go without seeing dear Mr. Hilliard and wish- 
 ing him good-by, " went on Mrs. Collingham. " You know I 
 am quite in love with him ; he makes all the other men one 
 knows seem so noisy and so coarse!" 
 
 "I dare say he has gone into the house with my aunt," 
 said Netelka, looking round and failing to catch a glimpse 
 of her husband. 
 
 " No, she is with Mr. Moseley. The last I saw of your 
 husband was when he was introducing Mr. Moseley to Lady 
 Kenslow, and they walked away together Mr. Moseley 
 and Lady Kenslow, I mean. Do, dear Mrs. Hilliard, try
 
 278 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 and find your husband for me. I want particularly to ask 
 him to come round to our little place to-morrow night." 
 
 It was rather awkward for Netelka to have to leave the 
 terrace when her guests had begun to come up to take their 
 leave, but as at that particular moment she was unoccu- 
 pied, she good-naturedly stepped into the house, with the 
 intention of sending a servant to look for Linley. As it 
 happened, she did not meet one ; but as she reached the 
 bottom of the back staircase in her search, she heard a slight 
 noise above her head, and looking up between the winding 
 banisters she called, thinking she recognized her husband's 
 soft footfall: 
 
 " Linley, Linley, is that you?" 
 
 There was no answer, but there was another slight noise, 
 and then some small object rolled down the upper part of 
 the staircase. Netelka ran up the stairs to see what it 
 was, and half-way up the top flight she picked up a massive 
 gold ring set with a single diamond, which she recognized 
 as Harrington Moseley's. Now really alarmed, she looked 
 up, and seeing no one, ran quickly to the top of the stairs, 
 and was just in time to see the shadow of a man who was 
 disappearing into the corridor on the left. 
 
 She gave chase at once ; and being fleet of foot, overtook 
 the man just as he was shutting himself into her husband's 
 dressing-room. And it was Linley himself. 
 
 "L L inley," she stammered, with blanched cheeks, 
 "look, look at what I've found on the back staircase! 
 You know it; it is Moseley's." 
 
 And she showed him the ring which she had picked up. 
 
 Linley took it from her and turned it over ; and Netelka, 
 watching him, saw he was making up his mind what he 
 should say. 
 
 " So it is," he said at last. " Do you know, Netta, I be- 
 lieve that there's been some one in Moseley's rooms taking
 
 KNAVES FALL OUT. 279 
 
 advantage of what has been going on? I heard a noise up 
 there, and fancied I caught sight of somebody I did indeed. 
 I think we ought to call him up and ask him if he misses 
 anything. 
 
 He spoke gravely, as the nature of his communication 
 warranted. But he was quite cool and collected, and it was 
 not from his manner that Netelka received the impression 
 which at once possessed her. They were in the dressing- 
 room, the door of which still stood open. For a moment 
 Netelka did not answer her husband, but stared at him with 
 eloquent eyes full of a new fear. Then her glance fell from 
 his face to his hands, and she saw his right hand move 
 stealthily toward his right side. 
 
 "Linley, you're a thief!" 
 
 The words were a moan of despair. As she uttered them, 
 the miserable wife tore open her husband's coat, and plung- 
 ing her fingers into the pocket toward which she had seen 
 his fingers wander, she drew out and flung upon the floor, 
 one after another, articles of jewelry, handful of bank- 
 notes, and a bag of gold. Then, before she had exhausted 
 the hoards, she suddenly drew back, and bursting into a 
 fit of wild weeping, staggered to the dressing-table, and 
 falling on her knees beside it, buried her face in her hands. 
 
 She was so utterly overcome with grief and despair that 
 she did not remark the strange silence with which Linley 
 received her violent action and her demonstrative out- 
 break of grief. She did hear the door of the room shut, 
 but it was only with physical hearing: she did not ask 
 herself whether he had shut himself in or shut himself out; 
 she did not know whether she was alone or whether her 
 husband was still by her side. The sound reached her 
 ears; that was all. The shame, the agony of her discovery, 
 the first absolute assurance of her husband's villany she 
 had had, the first tangible proof from which she could not
 
 280 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 escape, were so overwhelming that at first her mind could 
 take in no other impression. But she had suspected Linley 
 too long and too deeply not to be able, before many minutes 
 had passed, to take a clear view of the situation. A ray of 
 light seemed to fall upon her dim sight as she told herself 
 that now surely the climax was come, and the odium of 
 having to share the life of this man was at an end. 
 
 She sprang to her feet. 
 
 But at that moment she heard behind her a sound like 
 the growl of an angry dog, and at the same moment she 
 caught sight in the looking-glass of a face which, distorted 
 and livid with rage, was hardly recognizable as the calm 
 mask her husband's features usually wore. 
 
 She saw him raise his arm, she saw that his hand held a 
 weapon of some kind. The next moment she was lying 
 senseless on the floor, felled by a rain of savage blows.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 METHOD OB MADNESS? 
 
 FOB one moment, when Linley had laid his wife sense- 
 less on the floor, he looked down at her with an expression 
 of something like self-reproach on his face. After all, she 
 had had something to put up with at his hands, and she had 
 been, on the whole, pretty submissive to his will on most 
 points. If the blows on the head which he had just ad- 
 ministered to her had chanced to light on her face, disfig- 
 uring and discoloring it, certainly the loving husband would 
 have turned away without another look. But she had es- 
 caped this last outrage at her husband's hands; and having 
 discovered, by a glance at the Indian club which he had torn 
 down from the mantelpiece as a convenient weapon, that 
 there was no blood upon it, Linley felt an impulse of real 
 gratitude to his wife for being knocked down so easily and 
 so neatly. 
 
 The danger of being discovered by Harrington Moseley 
 and seized on as the purloiner of his property before he 
 could make his story fit in nicely at all its points excited 
 Linley out of the fishy insensibility to his wife's charms into 
 which he had largely suffered himself to sink. 
 
 "How handsome she is!" thought he, as he noticed the 
 delicacy of her clear complexion contrasting with the masses 
 of her dark hair, which had become slightly loosened by her 
 fall. 
 
 He dropped on one knee to look into her face, with the 
 abstract admiration of a stranger. But as he did so, he 
 perceived a stream of blood slowly oozing from her head
 
 282 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 and staining the matting underneath. He recoiled at once 
 with disgust, and rising hastily, replaced the Indian club 
 on its nail against the wall and left the room, locking the 
 door behind him. 
 
 He had hardly got a dozen steps down the corridor on his 
 way back to the garden when he heard Moseley's voice call- 
 ing to him by name. So he doubled back on his own foot- 
 steps, ran down the back staircase, and slipped into the 
 study, where he sat down hastily at the writing-table and 
 began to write a letter. 
 
 As he expected, he was soon unearthed by Harrington 
 Moseley, who burst open the door and asked him what had 
 become of Mrs. Hilliard. Lady Kenslow was going away, 
 and wanted to say good-by to her niece. 
 
 "In fact, everybody's waiting about to say good-by," 
 went on the Jew. "And it looks so odd, and it's such a 
 pity, too, when everything's gone off so well! Where is she? 
 Do you know?" 
 
 " The fatigue has been too much for her," answered Lin- 
 ley, who had overlooked this difficulty in his excitement. 
 " She said she should go upstairs and lie down for a few 
 minutes, and that if she didn't come down again I was to 
 make her apologies to everybody." 
 
 "Well, why aren't you making them," asked the Jew 
 sharply, "instead of sitting here quietly, writing? Come 
 and explain to her ladyship and the rest at once." 
 
 Linley got up from his seat and followed Moseley into 
 the drawing-room, where, in the coolest manner possible, 
 he gave his explanation and Netelka's apology. Lady 
 Kenslow, although she did not for a moment believe the 
 excuse given, was inclined to accept it and to go quietly 
 away in order to let the incident pass over as quickly as 
 possible and without attracting more attention to it than 
 was necessary. She thought that there had been a quarrel
 
 METHOD OR MADNESS f 283 
 
 of some sort between Linley and his wife, though she did 
 not imagine what a serious form the dispute had taken. 
 
 "Give her my love," said she, "and tell her how much 
 disappointed I am at not being able to see her again in 
 fact, tell her that we are all disappointed, and that we do 
 hope that after a night's rest she will be quite herself 
 again." 
 
 Lady Kenslow glanced to right and left as she spoke, at 
 the ladies standing near her, in order to join them all in 
 her message, as they were waiting about, like herself, to 
 exchange a few words with their hostess before going away. 
 They all, including Mrs. Collingham, gave assenting mur- 
 murs to this speech and prepared to go, when Gerard, who 
 had at once noted Netleka's disappearance and who had 
 been waiting about for her return, went up to Lady Kens- 
 low and spoke low in her ear. 
 
 "I beg you, Lady Kenslow," said he, in a voice which 
 betrayed his agitation, " not to go away until you have seen 
 her seen Mrs. Hilliard. Don't you see how strange it 
 looks? I saw her go into the house looking perfectly well 
 and bright, and do you believe she would send down such 
 a message? And that she wouldn't want to see you at any 
 rate?" pursued the young fellow, growing more earnest as 
 he fancied he noted a glance of anxiety cast by Linley in 
 his direction. 
 
 Lady Kenslow hesitated, only for a moment. Then she 
 became infected with Gerard's own anxiety. 
 
 "I think, Liuley," she said in her calm, measured voice, 
 " that I will go up and see Netelka before I go. She won't 
 mind me, I'm sure. If her head aches too much to let her 
 talk, I will just give her a kiss and come away." 
 
 Linley's white hands began to twitch a little. But he 
 did not betray himself further than by this scarcely percep- 
 tible sign of agitation.
 
 284 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "As yon please, Lady Kenslow," said he, as he stepped 
 forward to open the door for her. " But don't let her talk 
 much. You know the way upstairs, don't you? I want 
 to stay and say good-by to the people for her." 
 
 " Well, I don't know the way, but I dare say I can find it. 
 You forget that I've not been here before," answered Lady 
 Kenslow. 
 
 Gerard sprang forward. 
 
 "Let me show you," said he. And he was half-way up 
 the stairs before Linley could make any objection. 
 
 "This is the door of Mrs. Hilliard's room," said Gerard 
 when he had conducted Lady Kenslow upstairs. " Let me 
 know how she is, please," said he pleadingly, as she knocked 
 at the door. 
 
 The lady was touched by the anxiety in his pale face. 
 She shook her head gently, but her words were kind. 
 
 " Poor boy !" said she. " You are silly to trouble your 
 head ; but, poor boy " 
 
 "Why silly?" asked Gerard sharply, his blue eyes sud- 
 denly flashing. "Why silly, Lady Kenslow?" 
 
 " Because lads like you should find their friends among 
 young girls and happily married wives. " 
 
 " Then, is the unhappily married woman to have no 
 friends?" asked Gerard, with warmth. 
 
 "None of your sex," answered Lady Kenslow briefly as, 
 after knocking a second and third time in vain, she opened 
 the door of the room and went in. 
 
 A minute later she came out again, with a perturbed ex- 
 pression of face. 
 
 " She is not there," she said in an agitated voice. 
 
 Gerard's eyes blazed. 
 
 " What did I tell you ?" said he shortly. " We must find 
 her." 
 
 Lady Kenslow agreed, and he became the leader in the
 
 METHOD OR MADNESS t 285 
 
 search. He pointed out the door of Netelka's boudoir, and 
 then the room Linley had been using as a bedroom, and 
 next the dressing-room adjoining. Lady Kenslow tried 
 the handle of this last and found it locked. She had 
 scarcely stepped back, crying out that the door would not 
 open, when a loud cry fromHarrington Moseley, at the op- 
 posite end of the house, startled them both. The next mo- 
 ment he came running heavily along the corridor toward 
 them. 
 
 "There's a thief in the house, a thief!" he panted out 
 with startling eyes. " My desk, my drawers, have been 
 burst open. I've lost hundreds of pounds' worth, hundreds 
 of pounds!" 
 
 A suspicion flashed into Gerard's mind, and perhaps 
 Lady Kenslow read it in his eyes. 
 
 " You had better call Milliard," said Gerard rather dryly. 
 " Perhaps he can help you to look for the thief. " 
 
 Gerard's face had grown whiter: this one sensational oc- 
 currence had perhaps prepared him for something more 
 tragic. He turned quickly to Lady Kenslow. 
 
 "Stand back!" he said. "I'm going to burst the door 
 open. Here, Moseley, lend a hand! "We can't find Mrs. 
 Hilliard, and this door is locked." 
 
 There was something in his voice and manner which 
 caused the Jew, even in the midst of his own excitement 
 over his loss, to do his bidding. They put their shoulders 
 against the door they pushed they forced it open. 
 
 Gerard was the first to see the body of Netelka lying on 
 the floor. 
 
 "He has killed her!" cried he, and he reeled forward 
 and fell on his knees beside the unconscious woman. 
 
 Harrington Moseley turned pale. 
 
 "What, what!" stammered he. "Killed her! Killed 
 Mrs. Hilliard ! Who has done it? Who, I say?"
 
 286 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 But Gerard had no more words to waste on him. He 
 turned to Lady Kenslow, with a look only, but a look so 
 full of entreaty that she understood it at once, and, rousing 
 herself from the momentary stupefaction into which the 
 discovery of her niece's apparently lifeless body had plunged 
 her, she ran to the bell. 
 
 In a very few minutes help was at hand in abundance. 
 The servants came up ; the doctor was fetched ; Netelka was 
 pronounced to be alive, but so seriously injured about the 
 head as to be in danger. She was carried into her own 
 room, and every one was shut out except Lady Kenslow and 
 one of the oldest and quietest of the worn an- servants. 
 
 Meanwhile Harrington Moseley was working himself into 
 a state of mind which bordered on madness. His suspi- 
 cions of his partner having been aroused by Gerard's words, 
 he had rushed downstairs in search of Linley, and not suc- 
 ceeding in finding him, had questioned the servants. Had 
 they seen Mr. Hilliard? But he got from each the same 
 answer. No one had seen him. 
 
 At last, when he had come to his wit's end between 
 doubts of his partner and the fear of making himself ridic- 
 ulous, he heard himself called by name in a soft voice as he 
 was passing the drawing-room window after a final frantic 
 rush round the grounds. 
 
 "Mr. Moseley, Mr. Moseley!" 
 
 The Jew turned and found himself face to face with Jem, 
 who looked pale and tired, but exceedingly pretty in a plain 
 holland frock trimmed with torchon lace, and a heliotrope- 
 colored sash. 
 
 She had been behaving beautifully. All the ladies who 
 had any degree of intimacy with Mrs. Hilliard having left 
 the house before the alarm was given, she, who had been 
 left behind by Mrs. Collingham at her own request, had 
 taken upon herself promptly, and with a modesty which
 
 METHOD OR MADNESS t 287 
 
 was a grace, the task of reassuring the remaining guests, 
 and of taking Netelka's place to wish them good-by. 
 "Mrs. Hilliard had had an accident had slipped down and 
 hurt herself, she believed." This was what Jem repeated, 
 telling the best version she could of the rumor which had 
 reached her ears. Hugh Thorndyke had been among those 
 whose farewell she had received on Netelka's part: and she 
 had been very cold, casting down her eyes as she held out 
 her hand, and letting him feel acutely that he was in dis- 
 grace. 
 
 Now they were all gone, and Jem was lingering by her- 
 self in the deserted drawing-room, not liking to go upstairs 
 for fear she should be in the way, and yet unwilling to 
 leave the house until she had learned more explicitly what 
 had happened to her friend and what that friend's condi- 
 tion really was. 
 
 On hearing himself addressed by Miss Collingham, Har- 
 rington Moseley frowned : he did not want just now to have 
 to make conversation for a girl. 
 
 "What was it that happened?" asked Jem softly. 
 
 " Mrs. Hilliard was found on the ground unconscious, 
 with her head injured, " he answered shortly. " And and a 
 quantity of property more than I thought at first, even," 
 and his tone grew tragic " has been stolen from my rooms. " 
 
 The young girl drew herself up quickly to her full height, 
 as if stiffening with indignation. 
 
 "Then why don't you go after him? Why did you let 
 him get away?" she asked. 
 
 "Do you mean who do you mean?" said the Jew 
 hoarsely. 
 
 " Why, her husband, of course. What other man would 
 have the heart to hurt her?" 
 
 "But but I don't know where he's gone!" stammered 
 Moseley.
 
 288 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 " Go to the police, and let them find him for you," re- 
 torted Jem hotly. "He's been out of their hands long 
 enough. I saw him sneak out of the house with a small 
 portmanteau in his hand just after Lady Kenslow went up- 
 stairs." 
 
 Not even the presence of the lady sufficed to restrain the 
 Jew from an outburst of rage against his faithless partner. 
 
 " The scoundrel ! the infernal scoundrel !" said he, show- 
 ing his teeth savagely as he shook his fist in the air. " When 
 he owes his fresh start in life to me ! When I took pity on 
 him and gave him another chance, when everybody else 
 looked upon him as a rogue and a murderer! Do you call 
 that gratitude? Do you call that decency? To rob me 
 me, the very man who took him up!" 
 
 " I shouldn't have expected gratitude from such a man, 
 Mr. Moseley," answered Jem dryly, as she turned back into 
 the room.
 
 CHAPTEK XXXVIH. 
 
 LINLEY'S ESCAPE. 
 
 LINLEY had played his last stake in the old country, and 
 with the rapidity of a thoroughly free and open mind, he 
 had decided, on finding that his plan of a supposed bur- 
 glary would not work, to start proceedings in the new. 
 Whether or not there was a taint of insanity in his blood, 
 inherited from his father, the lunatic who had escaped from 
 Warchester, it is certain that there was something abnor- 
 mal in his absolute callousness, not only where the common 
 principles of honor and honesty were concerned, but in re- 
 gard to the sufferings of every being except himself. It was 
 not that he wilfully disregarded other people's feelings by 
 stifling his own twinges of compunction : it was that he had 
 no such feelings. His selfishness reached that sublime 
 point at which it compelled admiration as something un- 
 common if not unique ; and he was, in a dim way, aware of 
 this, regarding the fact as a special blessing rather than as 
 a sign of mental or moral deficiency. 
 
 He had been in very low water lately, the Jew having be- 
 come exacting, and having made him feel his dependence. 
 Therefore it was the most natural thing in the world that 
 he should seek to recover his independence by any means 
 that came to hand ; and since his first plan of insuring the 
 lives of his wife and of Gerard Waller and of compassing 
 their death had fallen through, there was nothing for him 
 but to try robbery from Moseley himself. Suspicion hav- 
 ing unfortunately fallen upon him for that also, there was 
 nothing before him but flight tc America. 
 19
 
 290 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 He would go by way of Paris, starting from Charing Cross 
 at eight-twenty that evening. He made up his plans when, 
 after hastily cramming the stolen property into a small port- 
 manteau which he kept already packed in case of emergen- 
 cy, he had slipped out of " The Firs" by the back way, 
 hailed one of the hansoms which were waiting about on 
 account of the garden-party, and was driving to the 
 station. 
 
 Fortune favored him at first, for he caught a train at 
 once, and, getting out at Waterloo, drove in another han- 
 som to a little dingy office near the Strand, where he could 
 get some of the securities he had stolen exchanged for cash 
 for a consideration. 
 
 Linley came out of the office considerably elated, for he 
 was superstitious, and he looked upon this propitious start 
 on his journey as a good omen. He had not much time to 
 lose, so he walked along the Strand at a brisk pace, and go- 
 ing into a bar where he was well-known and calling for a 
 brandy and soda, got the landlord to oblige him with 
 change for a fifty-pound note. Then, going on to a hotel 
 where he was also well known, as he often stayed the night 
 there, he got a second fifty-pound note cashed, and was leav- 
 ing in an entirely lighthearted manner, when he suddenly 
 perceived a man's face, which was only too well known to 
 him, and a pair of eyes watching his movements with ab- 
 sorbed interest. 
 
 Linley felt quite sick. His fingers faltered, and he 
 dropped a sovereign. When he had picked it up, the man 
 had gone back a little, but was still watching him. He was 
 only one of the waiters, and over his arm hung a serviette, 
 the badge of his office. But he had once done his best to 
 hang Linley, and Linley had not forgotten it. 
 
 The man was Joseph Turner, his former servant, whose 
 evidence, if it had been believed, as it had deserved to be,
 
 LINLET'S ESCAPE. 291 
 
 would have turned the scale against Linley at the Liverpool 
 Assizes. 
 
 Within half a dozen seconds of the recognition Linley 
 was out of the hotel, and had plunged into the crowd of 
 the Strand. Joseph Turner, meanwhile, had spoken to the 
 landlord. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir ; but do you know who that was 
 you changed the note for?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," answered the landlord, "he's all right. We 
 know him very well here. His name's Hilliard. He's got 
 a place at Wimbledon, and he often stays the night here." 
 
 "Well, sir," said the man, "his name may be Hilliard 
 now; but last year, when he was tried up at Liverpool for 
 murder, it was Dax Linley Dax." 
 
 The man's tone was sufficiently emphatic to command 
 attention, so his employer went so far as to run to the door 
 with him and to look out after his customer. It happened 
 that at that very moment Linley was looking nervously 
 round, his nerves having been unhinged by the sight of 
 Turner. As he turned, Turner caught sight of his face 
 among the crowd and cried out in much excitement, and 
 pointing his finger at him : 
 
 " There he is, sir; there he is, sir!" 
 
 Of course the landlord repressed him promptly, and there 
 the incident, as far as they were concerned, ended. But 
 not for Linley. 
 
 Insensible as he was to the feelings of other people, he 
 was particularly sensitive to his own. The sight of Joseph 
 Turner had depressed his spirits, as being what he consid- 
 ered a bad omen ; but when he saw the pointing finger and 
 the two faces looking out eagerly after him side by side, he 
 trembled and for a moment gave himself up for lost. 
 
 In the course of a few moments, however, finding that he 
 was not followed, he recovered his self-possession a little,
 
 292 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 and hurried on to Charing Cross Station, where he had just 
 time to take his ticket for Paris and to jump into the mail 
 train. 
 
 He had scarcely taken his seat when the train started ; 
 but looking out, as he drew up the window, he perceived a 
 group on the platform, in the centre of which were two or 
 three policemen. And they looked, to Linley's perturbed 
 vision, as if they were on important business. 
 
 Linley drew in his face quickly, feeling depressed and 
 uneasy. He tried to persuade himself that the presence of 
 the police on the platform had nothing to do with him, and 
 that the sight of Turner had been only a coincidence. He 
 took stock of his travelling companions, with an eye to a 
 possible emergency, and found that they were four in num- 
 ber: a deaf old gentleman, who was already putting on his 
 travelling-cap and preparing for a nap ; two middle-aged 
 ladies, of the common and unattractive type of the pros- 
 perous middle-class, and a young girl, the daughter, ap- 
 parently, of one of the ladies. 
 
 He had put his portmanteau, which was a small one, in 
 the rack above his head on entering : he had no other lug- 
 gage, and he was not dressed for a journey, being in the 
 frock coat, light trousers and tall hat he had worn that af- 
 ternoon. Over his arm he carried an overcoat, and in one 
 of the pockets of this was a travelling-cap ; he was there- 
 fore prepared with a quick change of costume, which would, 
 he thought, in case of need, serve as an effectual disguise. 
 
 By the time the train reached Cannon Street he was 
 feeling a little more tranquil, but his limbs were still trem- 
 bling and he felt cold. So he jumped out of the carriage 
 and went to the refreshment-bar for a glass of brandy. As 
 he approached the compartment in which he had been 
 seated, he saw two of the railway officials making an inspec- 
 tion of the train from end to end. He modestly retreated,
 
 LINLEY'S ESCAPE. 293 
 
 therefore, until he found an opportunity of slipping into 
 one of the carriages which they had already searched. This 
 manoeuvre he effected very neatly, and he was in the act of 
 congratulating himself on having escaped a possible danger 
 when his joy was damped by the sight of the two officials 
 who had searched the train standing side by side on the 
 platform with his precious portmanteau between them. 
 
 Linley felt his white teeth chattering with rage as the 
 train steamed out of the station, for the portmanteau con- 
 tained, besides a change of clothes, the diamonds and other 
 jewelry he had stolen from Moseley's rooms and some four 
 hundred pounds in money. He was left with his ticket to 
 Paris, which he now felt it would be dangerous to use, and 
 the change out of his two fifty-pound notes. 
 
 He could no longer doubt that the police were after him. 
 
 He changed his hat for his travelling-cap, put on his 
 overcoat, and pretended to go to sleep. But he was in real- 
 ity busily occupied in making a fresh plan of action. At 
 Ashford the Continental portion of the train was detached 
 from the rest, and here, as soon as the speed was slack 
 enough, Linley, regardless of the information tendered by 
 another passenger that the train did not stop, jumped out 
 upon the line. 
 
 In doing so, he hurt his ankle rather severely, so that he 
 had to limp along very painfully until he found a way of 
 getting out into the town without entering the station. He 
 waited until the Continental portion of the train by which 
 he had come had started, and then he entered the station 
 from the town side and took a ticket for Canterbury. He 
 thought he would spend a few days in the quiet old city, 
 where visitors were too plentiful to excite remark, and where 
 there would be some old china to be picked up in the curi- 
 osity shops. 
 
 It was dark when he reached Canterbury. His injured
 
 294 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 ankle was giving him a good deal of pain, and he began 
 to fear that he had sprained it severely and that he should 
 have to lie up before he could hope to walk without limp- 
 ing. Linley was a very bad patient when there was any- 
 thing the matter with him, requiring constant attendance 
 and the most exemplary patience and sweetness on the part 
 of his nurse. As his discomfort increased, therefore, there 
 rose in his breast a great longing for the presence of his 
 gentle-handed wife; and as he got, with difficulty, into a fly, 
 and was driven to one of the old-fashioned hostleries of the 
 High Street, he made up his mind that he would write at 
 once and tell her to join him there. 
 
 He had not forgotten the circumstances in which they 
 had parted that afternoon : indeed he was for a moment 
 troubled with the question whether the blows he had dealt 
 her would not have proved fatal. But if she were able to 
 come, as he heartily hoped, he had no doubt that she would 
 be willing to overlook the occurrences of the day just as she 
 had overlooked many a delinquency of his in the past. So, 
 on arriving at the " Golden Fleece" he limped upstairs to 
 the big, old-fashioned, low-ceilinged coffee-room, and asking 
 for pen and paper, sat down and wrote to Netelka a most 
 touching note, every word of which, strange to say, was 
 dictated by genuine, though perhaps transient, emotion. 
 
 He even went so far, as he felt his ankle growing worse 
 and remembered how tender her touch could be, as to press 
 his lips upon the paper before he put it in the envelope. 
 Then he directed it, and gave it to the chambermaid to post. 
 
 He was just asking himself whether he had not better at 
 once send for a doctor, when, standing near the door in 
 momentary uncertainty, he heard a man's voice in the pas- 
 sage below asking whether a stranger had not arrived by 
 the last train. 
 
 This was enough for Linley. Without waiting to hear
 
 HNLEY'S ESCAPE. 295 
 
 the reply, he opened a door on the other side of the corri- 
 dor leading to the back part of the house, passed through, 
 shut it softly behind him, and finding himself at the head 
 of a back -staircase, hobbled down as quickly as he could 
 and went by a side door out into the street.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 HUGH THOBKDYKE'S GOOD-BY. 
 
 IT was not until an hour after her husband had taken 
 flight that Netelka recovered consciousness. Then she lay 
 for some time perfectly still, watching the trees outside as 
 their branches moved slightly in the evening breeze, and 
 wondering vaguely why her aunt was sitting there. 
 
 Presently Lady Kenslow rose from her chair, and then 
 Netelka perceived that there was another person in the 
 room. This was the doctor, who came forward on a sign 
 from Lady Kenslow at this moment. 
 
 Netelka began at once to recollect something of what had 
 happened, and they saw her face contract as the terrible 
 memory returned. She struggled up on her elbow, and 
 looked around her as if seeking some one. 
 
 "You must be quiet, very quiet, you know," said the 
 doctor. 
 
 But this was evidently impossible to his patient, in whose 
 face anxiety grew deeper every moment. Struggling to ob- 
 tain command over herself, to impress the doctor with the 
 idea that she was not so ill as he imagined, she addressed 
 him in a very low voice, which she tried in vain to keep 
 steady : 
 
 " Will you think me very rude, doctor, if I ask you to let 
 me speak to my aunt for one moment only one moment 
 alone?" Her voice had sunk to a hoarse whisper by the 
 time she uttered the last words. The doctor, who had an 
 inkling that something had gone very wrong in the domes- 
 tic affairs of the establishment, was forced to consent.
 
 HUGH THORNDYKE'S QOO&-BY. 297 
 
 " Mind, you are upon honor," said he. " It is to be only 
 one moment. Then absolute quiet again. Remember!" 
 
 He withdrew, as he spoke, into the adjoining dressing- 
 room, and Lady Kenslow took his place by the bedside. 
 
 "Aunt Mary, tell me the truth. What has happened? 
 Tell me everything." 
 
 " We found you lying in your husband's dressing-room, 
 and we picked you up and brought you in here. That is 
 all," said Lady Kenslow. 
 
 " And where where" her voice faltered, and she looked 
 again, fearfully, round the room " is Li-nley?" 
 
 "Nobody knows," answered Lady Kenslow, dryly. 
 
 Netelka looked at her aunt questioningly. 
 
 " Tell me I can trust you, aunt did any one think " 
 
 " That he had behaved like a scoundrel? Yes, my dear, 
 we do think so. Isn't that enough for you now?" 
 
 " Only one thing more: is anybody trying to find him?" 
 
 Lady Kenslow's eyes fell. She was a truthful woman 
 and she did not want to answer this. Her silence, however, 
 was answer enough to an intelligence as much on the alert 
 as Netelka's. She started up. 
 
 "Ah!" she cried. "I see. The police are after him." 
 
 Lady Kenslow said nothing, and the doctor coming back 
 at that moment, Netelka asked no more, but lay back with 
 her eyes closed, as if asleep. 
 
 Much to Lady Kenslow's relief, the doctor pronounced 
 the opinion that Netelka was not so seriously injured as had 
 been at first supposed, and that professional nursing would 
 not be necessary if Lady Kenslow preferred to attend on 
 her niece herself. The one great essential to her recovery 
 was unfortunately the luxury hardest to attain perfect 
 tranquillity, rest, and freedom from anxiety. 
 
 It surprised Lady Kenslow to find how anxious Netelka 
 was for the escape of her husband. It even caused the elder
 
 298 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 lady to be a little indignant; for to regret that punishment 
 should fall upon such a scoundrel as Linley had proved him- 
 self seemed to argue a meanness of spirit of which Netelka 
 had not previously shown any sign. However, of course, 
 she did not attempt to remonstrate with her niece at that 
 time, but concurred in the opinion of the latter that Lin- 
 ley was too clever to be caught. 
 
 On the following morning Netelka was much better. She 
 was lying with closed eyes, pretending to be asleep because 
 she felt too weak and too dispirited to talk, when she heard 
 a soft tap at the door. Lady Kenslow, who had passed the 
 night on the sofa, went on tiptoe to the door, and the fol- 
 lowing dialogue between her and the maid was overheard 
 by the patient in the bed. 
 
 " There's a letter for Mrs. Hilliard, my lady, and it's in 
 Mr. Hilliard 's handwriting, I know. And look, the post- 
 mark's Canterbury." 
 
 When Lady Kenslow turned back into the room, with 
 the letter in her hand, of course she found her niece sitting 
 up in bed, holding out her hand. 
 
 " Give it to me, aunt; I must have it!" 
 
 There was no help for it. Reluctantly enough, Lady 
 Kenslow gave her Linley's letter, and drew back the cur- 
 tains to give her light enough to read it. It was as follows : 
 
 "GOLDEN FLEECE INN, CANTERBURY. 
 
 "MY DARLING WIFE : What shall I say to you? How can I ask 
 you to forgive the mad outburst of passion which possessed me to- 
 day? I think I was mad, Netta mad with misery and despair ; for 
 I have known myself for some time now to be a ruined man, depen- 
 dent on the charity Heaven save the mark of that miserable Jew, 
 whose slaves we have been for the past few months. It is his hate- 
 ful presence which has been a blight upon us, quenching for a time 
 your love for me and forcing me to hide mine for you. But it has 
 not killed our affection, Netta, dear ; and now, in my helplessness 
 and my misery, in my loneliness, I cry out to you to come to me. I
 
 HUGH THORNDYKE'S GOOD-BY. 299 
 
 am in terrible pain, Netta. I have hurt my ankle badly, and can 
 scarcely put my foot to the ground. Won't you come to me, my 
 own darling wife, and let me have your gentle, tender hands about 
 me instead of the cold touch of a stranger? I implore you, Netta, 
 to come and to forgive my cruelty to you to-day. As for what you 
 thought, it was not true ; it was the falsehood of it which made me 
 so angry with you that I forgot myself. I did not rob the Jew ; I 
 only took the miserable pittance he had often promised and would 
 never give me. I defy him to prove it was a theft. But another 
 trial would kill me ; and so I ask you to come to me secretly, choos- 
 ing a time when you will not be watched, and giving out that you 
 are only going back to town to your aunt's. 
 " In the sweet hope of seeing you soon, my darling Netta, 
 
 " Your unworthy but adoring 
 
 " LDTLEY. " 
 
 Netelka read this letter with dry, feverish eyes. Then she 
 put it away under her pillow, and refused to say anything 
 about it except that Linley was very sorry for what he had 
 done. She conceived, as Linley had known she would do, 
 that it was her duty to go to her husband now that he was 
 both ill and apparently repentant. It was not that she had 
 no suspicion of his good faith ; on the contrary, she came 
 pretty near the truth in her estimate of his motives. Still, 
 as she had put up with him so long, she thought that she 
 ought at least to see him, and to try to work upon him to 
 restore the property he had stolen from Harrington Mose- 
 ley. She might, perhaps, by this means bribe Moseley not 
 to prosecute. She had another motive for wishing to re- 
 join her husband, which she did not quite own to herself. 
 
 So she lay back in bed, quietly turning over in her mind 
 the question as to how she should best carry out her inten- 
 tion of going to Canterbury. Of course to ask permission 
 was not to be thought of: she must manage by herself. 
 She thought she might, perhaps, trust Jem as an accomplice, 
 and accordingly she asked Lady Kenslow if she might see 
 the young girl.
 
 300 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 Lady Kenslow suggested that she should wait until the 
 doctor came, and Netelka very unwillingly resigned herself 
 to this delay. 
 
 In the mean time Jem was in the throes of an unusual ex- 
 citement. Mrs. Collingham had gone out, and she was sit- 
 ting in the dining-room with the children, superintending 
 their lessons, when the housemaid entered, with an expres- 
 sion of consternation on her face. 
 
 " Please, miss, here's that gentleman come, Mr. Thorn- 
 dyke. And what shall I do, miss? We're turning out the 
 drawing-room, and I've left him standing in the hall. 
 Shall I show him in here, miss?" 
 
 As the dining-room opened upon the hall, which was, in 
 truth, the narrowest of narrow passages, Jem could not give 
 her directions aloud. 
 
 "No, no!" she whispered energetically. " Say Mrs. Col- 
 lingham 's out, and then he'll go away!" 
 
 "Oh, no, he won't!" chimed in a deep man's voice. 
 And poor Jem jumped up with a cry of consternation as 
 Hugh Thorndyke's red face appeared at the door. 
 
 The housemaid retreated at once, having no doubt in her 
 own mind that everything would come right if the young 
 lady and the gentleman were left alone together. 
 
 " At least, of course, he must go if you insist on turning 
 him out. Only he hopes you won't," went on Hugh, as he 
 insinuated himself in a modest manner into the apartment 
 and cast pleading glances at its haughty mistress. 
 
 Jem wished to be very chilling : but the children, remem- 
 bering Hugh's last visit, upon which occasion they had de- 
 cided that he was a decidedly desirable acquaintance, be- 
 gan to climb down from their chairs and to stand round and 
 smile at him with looks of invitation. Hugh stooped and 
 distributed kisses among the little girls and shook hands 
 with Willie.
 
 HUQH THORNDYKE'S GOOD-BT. 301 
 
 "You ought to be at school, sir," said he to that young 
 gentleman, who was decidedly old for the domestic school- 
 room. 
 
 "Of course he ought," said Jem, dismally. "And so 
 ought Anette. I don't teach them because I know how, 
 but because if I didn't they wouldn't get taught at all. 
 Don't you think," she went on, not looking at Hugh, and 
 speaking with constraint, " that even bad teaching is bet- 
 ter than none?" 
 
 " "Why, of course I don't," said Hugh, gently. " Bad 
 teaching is worse, far worse than none. But yours is not 
 bad teaching: it is the very best. You give them lessons 
 all day long in kindness, and unselfishness, and thought- 
 fulness for others." 
 
 Who could help being mollified by such a speech as this, 
 uttered, too, in accents of deepest sincerity? Jem blushed, 
 and tried in vain to show that she did not mean to be talked 
 over. 
 
 "You want to see mamma?" said she, still keeping her 
 eyes for the most part away from his face. 
 
 "Well, I want to hear how Mrs. Hilliard is, and they 
 seem so disorganized at 'The Firs' that we can't get a 
 proper answer to our inquiries." 
 
 "We?" asked Jem, ingenuously. 
 
 " Gerard Waller and I ! The poor fellow is distracted. 
 He didn't dare to present himself here; he said he was 
 afraid you were offended with him. I told him you were 
 offended with me too, but that I, being a creature of pachy- 
 dermatous hide, should call, all the same." 
 
 At this ending, Jem, who had been perceptibly softening, 
 grew stiff again. 
 
 " I'm sorry you both think me so foolish. I am not of- 
 fended with anybody. As for Gerard, he might have 
 called; I should have liked to see him."
 
 302 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 Hugh did allow his tone to be rather colder as he said 
 these two words. Jem reddened angrily, and drew herself 
 up. But the anger had died away into shyness when she 
 spoke. 
 
 " I should have liked," she said gently, "to reassure him 
 about Netelka. That is the one subject in the world for 
 him." 
 
 Something in her tone made Hugh think that his own 
 prospects were brighter than he had supposed. He put his 
 hand on the back of a chair which was near the end of the 
 table where she had been sitting. 
 
 "May I sit here," said he, "while you go on with the 
 lessons?" 
 
 " You can sit there, certainly," answered Jem. " But," 
 and she shook her head very decidedly, "I couldn't at- 
 tempt to go on with the lessons. I shall give the children 
 a holiday." 
 
 And she closed the geography which was on the table 
 before her and sat down. As there was a pause which 
 she found awkward, she said with great suddenness : 
 
 " This is a farewell visit, isn't it? Gerard said you were 
 going back to Yorkshire either to-day or to-morrow." 
 
 Hugh took up a slate which lay in front of him, and 
 began to draw grotesque figures upon it with an end of 
 slate-pencil. The children crowded round him, making 
 comments on his ability and shrieking with delight. He 
 found that the din they made helped him. 
 
 " It depends," said he, with a glance over the children's 
 heads at Jem. 
 
 But she would not ask him upon what his plans de- 
 pended. She changed the subject rather abruptly. 
 
 " Do you think," she asked in a low voice, " that they 
 will catch her husband ? I suppose you know about his
 
 HUGH THORNDYKE'S GOOD-BY. 303 
 
 going off with some things belonging to Mr. Moseley?" 
 Hugh assented. " Papa says Mr. Moseley was rushed into 
 sending for the police, and that he will be afraid to prose- 
 cute." 
 
 " I shouldn't wonder," said Hugh. 
 
 "In any case, what will become of poor Mrs. Hilliard? 
 She can't stay at 'The Firs.' Mr. Moseley has gone away, 
 and they begin to say that he's gone for good and won't 
 dare to turn up again, and of course Mr. Hilliard can't 
 come back. What will poor Netelka do?" 
 
 " Go back with her aunt to town, if she's wise, and thank 
 her good fortune that she's got away from that scoundrel." 
 
 "Yes, "said Jem, meditatively. "But I'm afraid he'll 
 play upon her feelings and get her back again. See what 
 she's put up with from him already! Why, a woman is 
 silly to put up with so much." 
 
 Then Hugh, still scraping away with his slate-pencil, 
 spoke. 
 
 "They are not all like that," he murmured in a soft 
 voice. " Some won't put up with anything. I know one 
 who wouldn't even be decently civil to a man just because 
 he had fallen in with an idea of hers and it hadn't worked 
 well. " 
 
 " Ah, but you're not my husband !" retorted Jem quickly. 
 
 Hugh's retort came more quickly still: 
 
 "No, but I want to be." 
 
 He still went on scraping with his pencil, while Jem, 
 red, excited, trembling, hunted in the work-basket by her 
 side for something to occupy herself with. But it was in 
 vain that she tried to pretend that she had not heard. She 
 knew that she had ; and when, after a long pause, her glance 
 stole shyly in his direction, she met his eyes looking at her 
 with an expression which there was no mistaking. 
 
 "Well," he spoke in a very measured tone; but he was
 
 304 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 not nearly so calm as the children thought. They were 
 still in ecstasies over his artistic achievements, with the 
 exception of Willie, who stood staring from Jem to Hugh 
 and back again, from the other side of the table. It was 
 the boy who broke the silence. Leaning his elbows on the 
 table and supporting his face with his hands, he asked in 
 a solemn voice : 
 
 "Won't she have you?" 
 
 "I don't know yet, Willie," answered Hugh in a tone 
 just as solemn as the boy's own. " But I'm not going to 
 give up hope." 
 
 The boy sidled round the table to his half-sister's side, 
 and putting one arm round her, said earnestly: 
 
 "Jem, if you don't take him, you're a fool." 
 
 Jem burst out crying. Willie was hardly nine, but he 
 was her great chum and confidant. 
 
 " Do you want to get rid of me, then, Willie?" she asked, 
 sobbing. 
 
 " No ; but I want you to get out of this muddle and be 
 happy. And and," added the boy, with a sudden gleam 
 of a less interested feeling, " when your money's all your 
 own and you don't have to spend it to pay the bills, you 
 can buy me a bicycle. You know you promised." 
 
 By this time Hugh had left his seat, and in a casual 
 way, still busy with the slate and pencil and still surrounded 
 by the younger children, he had gone down on his knees 
 beside Jem's chair. 
 
 " It will be a shame, you know, Jem, not to get the boy 
 his bicycle, since you've promised. And it will be no new 
 engagement, you see, only an extension of lease." 
 
 "But b-b-b-but," stammered Jem, half laughing, half 
 crying, " I I shan't dare to break it off again, even if I 
 want to!" 
 
 " I won't let you want to!"
 
 HUGH THORNDYKE'S QOOD-BY. 305 
 
 " And yon are not jealous of " 
 
 " Gerard? Not a bit. You've been too honest with me, 
 and have let me see that I can cut him out. " 
 
 " But I shall feel as if you were only taking me out of 
 kindness as a salve to my wounded vanity, after after 
 that horrid, horrid day at Hastings!" 
 
 " Oh, you may think that if you like," murmured Hugh, 
 coming a little nearer, looking over the head of the young- 
 est baby but one into Jem's face. " I hadn't thought of 
 that as a reason myself. But I am glad to think I am 
 capable of such a heroic sacrifice." 
 
 At this moment the little mite on his knee, probably 
 with the intention of recovering his attention to herself, 
 put her arms round Hugh's neck and asked him to kiss 
 her. He complied at once. But the mite was not satisfied. 
 With a fine perception of the direction in which his wishes 
 were tending, she then said: 
 
 Tiss Jem too!" 
 
 Jem blushed, and said: "Sh sh, Lina!" 
 
 But Hugh said gently: 
 
 " Mayn't I? Just to please Lina?" 
 
 And, with just a moment's pause, which only served to 
 increase the value of the permission, she let him. 
 20
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 A JOURNEY AND ITS END. 
 
 HUGH THORNDYKE and Jem were still holding a conver- 
 sation of an interesting but desultory sort with the children 
 to play chorus, when a messenger arrived from " The Firs" 
 asking Miss Collingham if she would come and see Mrs. 
 Billiard. 
 
 Jem was shocked when she found why Mrs. Hilliard 
 wanted her, but, as Netelka had foreseen, she was easily 
 induced to yield to her friend's entreaties, and to help her 
 to escape, so that the two ladies left " The Firs" together, 
 quietly and unobserved, while Lady Kenslow was resting 
 in one of the spare rooms. The station was not far off, 
 but Netelka, who found herself less robust than she had 
 expected, was trembling with fatigue and feeling faint 
 and dizzy by the time they reached it. 
 
 To Jem's great joy, they ran against Gerard Waller, who 
 was waiting for Hugh. 
 
 "Mrs. Hilliard!" cried he, petrified with astonishment. 
 
 Indeed her pale face frightened him, and knowing what 
 a shock she had sustained on the previous day, his horror 
 at seeing her was unspeakable. 
 
 Netelka, afraid that her strength might give way or that 
 her emotions might get the better of her if she paused in 
 her task, bowed and passed quickly on to the platform. 
 But Jem stayed behind and whispered to Gerard : 
 
 " Follow her. She's going to Canterbury. Her detest- 
 able husband is there, and wants her to go with him. 
 And she's going. Poor darling! I don't think she can be
 
 A JOURNEY AND ITS END. 307 
 
 quite in her right mind ! I've promised not to stop her, 
 but I may do this." 
 
 Then, without waiting for any other answer than that 
 she saw in Gerard's anxious eyes, she ran after her patient. 
 
 "You won't let me go with you, then," she asked 
 Netelka, " to take care of you, in case you might not feel 
 so strong as you fancy you do?" 
 
 Netelka shook her head. 
 
 " I want you to go back now. I want you to go back 
 with Gerard Waller, whom we passed just now. I want 
 you to marry him. He's a good fellow, and would take 
 care of you as you deserve, my dear." 
 
 Jem laughed and blushed. 
 
 " There's somebody else who answers to that description," 
 said she in a whisper. " Can't you guess who it is?" 
 
 Of course it did not take Netelka very long to come to 
 the conclusion that this person was Hugh Thorndyke. She 
 kissed the girl on both cheeks, and heartily wished her 
 happiness. Then her train came up, and Jem had no time 
 even to ask her when she was coming back. 
 
 Netelka soon began to feel painfully aware of the rash- 
 ness of the step she had taken. She got out at Waterloo, 
 drove to Charing Cross, took her ticket to Canterbury, 
 and just managed to stagger into the train when her strength 
 gave way altogether, and she fell back fainting on to the 
 seat. 
 
 When she came to herself, the train was in motion, and 
 she was leaning on the shoulder of a man. 
 
 " Gerard !" she cried even before she saw his face. And 
 then she struggled up and stared at him in stupefaction. 
 " Why have you done this? Why did you come with me?" 
 
 " Never mind why," answered Gerard in a tone which he 
 made as matter of fact as he could, " but thank your stars 
 I'm here. You're not in a fit state to travel, and if it
 
 308 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 hadn't been for me you'd have stood a very good chance of 
 falling flat on the floor and being trodden upon by an 
 entering passenger at the next station." 
 
 Netelka was silent. She had a great deal to say to 
 Gerard at this her last interview with him, as she supposed : 
 for that Linley would want to take her away from England 
 with him she did not doubt. But, though the ideas were 
 in her mind, weakness made it difficult for her to express 
 them. After a pause, which he was discreet enough not 
 to try to break, she said, in a broken, husky voice: 
 
 " Now, Gerard, I want to speak to you very seriously. 
 You are not to answer me ; you are just to listen and to 
 remember. Now, you have been a good boy, and have given 
 up baccarat and and all that baccarat stands for, like a 
 sensible person. Now, it is just possible that I may not be 
 able to see you again. I want you to promise to go on 
 being good and sensible, just the same as if people were 
 always at your elbow telling you to keep it up. Of course 
 you are much too sensible not to do it of your own ac- 
 cord. But still I want you to promise." 
 
 Gerard did not look up. 
 
 He was holding one of her hands ; and he said in a very 
 hoarse whisper, with something in his voice which sounded 
 like a sob: "I promise oh, God! I promise." 
 
 She let her hand remain in his a few moments, and then, 
 drawing it gently away, she sat back in her corner. 
 
 When they reached Canterbury, Gerard perceived in- 
 stantly that something unusual had happened in the town, 
 and catching a few words which roused his suspicions, he 
 hurried Netelka into a fly which was waiting outside the 
 station and mingled again among the crowd to find out 
 further details concerning the cause of their excitement. 
 
 It was easy enough to obtain the information he wanted : 
 the story was poured into his ears by half a dozen, mouths.
 
 A JOURNEY AND ITS END. 309 
 
 A stranger had arrived in the city on the previous night, 
 and a couple of London detectives had come down by the 
 next train to arrest him for some crime which the good peo- 
 ple of Canterbury described variously as murder, forgery, 
 and swindling. At any rate, the police had got on the track 
 of the man, and an exciting chase had resulted. He had 
 turned to the right at the top of the High Street and run 
 along the rising path that leads, above the cattle market, to- 
 ward the iron foot-bridge over Watling Street. When he 
 was close to the bridge, however, he was suddenly con- 
 fronted by a member of the local police force, who had been 
 on the watch for him at this point. Turning his head and 
 seeing that the Londoners were close behind, the criminal, 
 who was lame and consequently at a disadvantage, took a 
 desperate resolve. He climbed over the railing on the left, 
 intending to let himself down gently into the stone-paved 
 cattle market below. The detectives, however, rushing 
 up at that moment, caused him to hurry his movements. 
 He lost his balance and fell backward onto the flagstones 
 below. 
 
 He was picked up dead. 
 
 Gerard went out to Netelka and asked her to wait while 
 he made some inquiries, so that he might not have to waste 
 time driving about. Then he drove in another cab post- 
 haste to the mortuary, obtained permission to see the dead 
 man, and in a few moments found himself, as he had ex- 
 pected, looking at the corpse of Linley Dax. 
 
 He hurried back to Netelka, who was by this time feeling 
 too ill herself to notice his ghastly pallor. But she was 
 struck by a change in his tone when he spoke to her. It 
 was colder than before. 
 
 " Mrs. Hilliard," said he in a low voice as he opened the 
 cab door for her to get out, " Linley has has got away 
 from here. It is of no use for you to wait about. There
 
 310 A SENSATIONAL CASE. 
 
 is a train back to town in a few minutes. I must take yon 
 to Trewithen Street, and wire to Lady Kenslow at ' The 
 Firs' and her own house to tell her what has become of 
 you." 
 
 She was too ill to protest much, and Gerard got her into 
 the train without trouble. During the journey his atten- 
 tions, though constant, were silent ones; and when Lady 
 Kenslow received her niece at the door of her house, hav- 
 ing had his telegram, it was without another word to Ne- 
 telka that he handed her over to her aunt. 
 
 But he begged an interview with Lady Kenslow, and told 
 her the tragic news. Her first feeling was one of undis- 
 guised relief; but then the ruling passion found vent once 
 more. 
 
 " There will be another scandal, and a worse one than 
 ever!" she exclaimed plaintively. 
 
 "What does that matter," burst out Gerard fiercely. 
 " compared to the knowledge that Netelka is free from that 
 scoundrel at last forever? Lady Kenslow, I may speak 
 now; your niece has saved me, helped me from a brute's 
 life to a man's. Not a very lofty elevation, perhaps you 
 will say; but it's something, isn't it? And in doing it she 
 has made me love her oh, I may say it now to you in a 
 way worthy of herl I may say that, for she has never 
 heard a word of it from my lips never. But now, now I 
 may speak. I'll go away now, and I won't come near her, 
 except to sneak up to the door to ask how she is, for for 
 three months, six months, a year, anything you like. But 
 some day you must ask her if I've a chance, and and if I 
 have, you may expect me by the next flash of lightning!" 
 
 There was a scandal, of course; and Harrington Moseley 
 found it prudent to retire to the Continent for a time. 
 And " The Firs" was shut up again, and the land adver- 
 tised as to let " for building purposea " In the mean time
 
 A JOURNEY AND ITS END. 311 
 
 Gerard, by a happy inspiration, made a clean breast of it, 
 and told his father of the debts he had incurred. Much to 
 his surprise, old Mr. Waller took the confession in good 
 part, and helped his son out of the difficulties he had made 
 for himself, while grumbling at having to pay such large 
 sums to a " vile Jew." 
 
 Jem married Hugh six months later; and when she re- 
 turned to England after a honeymoon abroad, took Willie 
 and the youngest baby but one with her to her Yorkshire 
 home. 
 
 And six months later still, Gerard got a little note from 
 Lady Kenslow containing these words: 
 
 " DEAB MR. WALLER You have a chance. Come by the next 
 flash of lightning. Yours very sincerely, 
 
 "MARY KENSLOW. " 
 
 Gerard came. 
 
 THE END.
 
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