Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1905-10-27
CHAPTER XVIII.

Sunday at Mallingford Park The
house was full of visitors. Small attics
on the top story which had never been
slept in since the great doings of thirty
nine years before, when the late Sir
Paul came of age, were all occupied
now. for Lord Summers having express
ed wish that Miss Malling's majority
should be marked by fitting festivities.
that lady had thrown herself heartily
into the project.
1t was a close, sitting day, and there
was a faint, white mist on the park
lands, and an intense stiffness in the air,
which proved very trying to the majority
of Miss Malling's guests after luncheon.
They sauntered out of the reception
rooms by twos and threes, and sought
the quiet of their own apartments until
the ground floor looked quite deserted.
Pauline's health was generally good;
but she, too, felt a breath languor
to-day and determined to enjoy the after
noon in her own rooms. She removed
the gorgeous toilet which had gladden.
ed the eyes of the villagers in church
that morning, and replaced it by a light
cashmere gown.
THE last Sunday that I shall be
known to the world as Miss Mailing"
she unused Before this time next week
Jack and l will be away from here.
happy in each others society, and in
the certainty that nothing on earth can
ever separate us. Most young women
would have numberless love tokens to
destroy before their marriage; l have abb
solutely nothing that | fear my hus-
bands seeing. Circumstances have been
against my cultivating lovers as an
amusement, and | am spared the farce of
destroying the evidences of my past
folly"
When she had taken two or three
turns up and down the room, she stopped
in front of her desk and looked at it
thoughtfully.
Il suppose I may as we'll destroy it."
she said, absently. 1T can do me no
good to keep it, and it might possibly
do me harm in the future That must
have been in my mind all the time"
She unlocked the small bronze box on
the toilet table with a key that hung
from a gold chain round her neck, and
took from it a bunch of keys. Then
drawing up chair to the desk she I'M
| locked that also, and went slowly
through the contents.
She came upon one or two letters that
| interested her slightly and drew her
thoughts away from her original purpose
| to search the desk. and it was not until
both sides were quite empty that she
| discovered with a sudden heart-quaking
fear the absence Of that for which she
| was searching.
A look of wild despair flashed from
her eyes and her breath came in short
| sharp gasps, as she turned to the heaps
of odds and ends which she had already
! some through, with a hope that in her
absence of mind she might have passed
what she sought without noticing it.
| Her quick, nervous fingers turned over
| the papers until the pile had once more
| been thoroughly searched; and then Pau
| line Mailing sank back in her chair with
| her hand to her head and look of de-
| spair in her eyes Horrible thoughts
chased each other through her aching
brain; and, when o'clock at last struck
she had arrived at only one definite con,
| clusion, that the person who had posses
sion of the missing article and the one
who had advertised for the address OF
Sir Godfrey Mailing were one and the
| same.
| When she rose and relocked the desk
she was haggard and pale, and she look
| ed at herself wistfully in the glass; and
| an instructive prayer went up from hel
heart that her beauty might not leave
| her until she was Jack Dorntons wife