Evening star., 1909-05-05

man. Joy did not know. of course, what
was in the letter: but she had seen 1t be-
fore in the garden at Ambleside, ano
| when he had posted it before setting on,
on their motor ride And so. piecing het
Information with the idea conveyed by
her lovers recent words. she was able to
form some sort of idea of it's general i'm
port. A soft. beautiful blush suffused
her face. and her eyes glistened as she
stood thinking: in the effort of thought
she recalled many sweet passages. She
now understood in a vague way what
was the restraining influence which had
moved her lover to reticence during all
those hours when he had tried to tell her
of his love and his hopes without actu-
ally speaking words, the knowledge of
which given without his consent would
have incenSed her father against him,
and so wrought further havoc. So moved
was she that Athlyne, whose eyes were
instinctively drawn to her from the oo-
servation of her father. was amazed and
not a little disconnected. There must be
some strange undercurrent of feeling III
her that he could not understand. JOY
saw the look on his face and seemed to
understand. She raised to her lips the
hand that she so strongly clasped in hers
and kissed 1t. Then she raised finger
of her other hand and touched her lips.
Thus reassured of her love and under
standing. Athlyne followed with his eyes
the trend of hers: and so together they
continued to watch her father. trying to
gather from his bearing standardization
of his thoughts. Indeed this was not a
difficult matter Col. Ogilvie seemed to
have lost himself in his task. and eX-
pressed his comments on what he read
by series of childike movements and
calculations. Athlyne. who knew what
the letter contained. could apply these en-
Tightening comments. and even JOY. In
her ignorance of detail. could inferentlally
follow the text. Col. Ogilvie did not say
a word of definite speech. but the general
tendency of his comment was that OF
surprise-astonishmen When he had fin
ished reading Athlyne's letter-it was the
last of the batch--he sat for quite half a
minute quite still and silent. holding the
paper between finger and thumb of his
dropped left hand. Then with deep
frown on his forehead he began to read
it again. He was evidently looking for
some passage. for when he had found 1t
he stood up at once and turned to them.
BY this time Joy. warned by the move
ment, had dropped her lovers hand and
now stood some distance away from him.
The old man began:
Sir . There is passage in a let
ter here which / understand to be yours.
So far I must acknowledge that l have
been wrong. You evidently did send the
letter. and / evidently received 1t. Listen
to this: Having heard in a roundabout
way that there was a woman in .>ew
York who was passing herself or as my
wife / undertook journey to that city
to make investigation into the matter;
and in order to secure the necessary Sc
crecy as to my movements took for .he
time an assumed name-or rather used
as Christian and surname two of those
names in the middle of my full equip
ment which L do not commonly use
What does all that mean? No. do not
speak Wait and l shall tell you. You
say the lady-woman you call her-took
your name. For saying such thing. and
for the dsrespect in her description as
woman, you will have to answer me.
Either of them will cost you your life"
Athlyne answered with a quiet i'm
pressive dignity. which helped in some
degree to reassure Joy. who stood mo-
tionless in open-eyed wonder-her heart
seeming to her as cold as ice at the nor
ror of this new phase of danger. 1t was
a yerita BILE bolt from the blue incom-
prehensible to her in every way
(To be continued tomorrow