The Warwickshire Herald. — 1899-09-14 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

MISS M. E. BBADDON, Author of "Lath Audley's Secret," or Fatal Three. " "The Day Will Conte," "Lost for Lore." "The Doctor's Wife," "Whose Was the Hand?" "One Life. One Love," "Thou Art the Man," "Song of Fire," &e.  SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOIAt CHAPTERS :—Arnold Wentwortlu who has taken the assumed name of PAlfred Wildover, a man thirty years of age. is returning to England from South Afrha. Aboard the steamship he meets ffary Freeland. whom he had known as a child in the days before he ran away from his home in England'. He has made money at the diamond fields, and is returning to England on a visit. She, too, has left home against the wish of her aunt, with whom she had lived, and gone upon the stage. Her aunt has since died, and bequeathed to Mary Freeland her fortune. Wildover has received a letter in South Africa from a woman for whom, before leaving England. he had formed a sincere attachment. She had heard of his good fortune in the new country. and beseeches hint to return to her. The story of their relationship is a sad one. When quite a girl Lisa Rayner had been led astray and deserted by a man many years her senior. this man is now supposed to be living in Vienna. He is a man of great wealth and position. Lisa Rayner had lived through the period which followed her desertion without falling into a life of vice, and had managed to support herself in a poor quarter of London. Whilst living thus, she had made the acquaintance of Arnold Wentworth. He filmset,, having run away from home, had been reduced to great poverty, and it was only the intervention of Lisa Rayner which had saved loin from a suicide's grave. From this there had sprung up a sincere affection between them, and they had lived together as man and wife. A life of poverty, however, had soon worn out Arnold's affection' and at length he had given Lisa what money he could obtain, and bade her plod-bye. and gone out to seek his fortune in South Africa. This he had achieved, and he was now returning to England with anything but pleasant anticipations of meeting the woman with WhOill had at one time imagined himself to be in low. Aboard the ship. he falls in love with Mary PrechiM, but, being conscious of the stain upon his past lift, he refrains from telling her of his love. On read ing England. Mary Freeland at once returns to their native village of Mervynhall. A day later Arnold follows her, and has a secret interview with his mother. He cannot meet her openly, became of the enmity of his father, who has never forgiven him the boyish extravagance which had been the cause of their early quarrel. Next morning Arnold vi-its Mary Freeland, and whilst in her company he is greatly shocked by reading in the parer an account of a murder in London. The victim is no other than Lisa Rayner, the woman with whom he had at 101 A time lived on terms of intimacy. She had been found dead in her London garret, having been slitt through the heart by some person who must have followed her up the public stairway to her ri4nn and escaped before an alarm was given. The detective officer (John Farmer) 'sun has charge of the case, is led to believe that Wildover is the man who has committed the murder, and tries to trace him. From this point the story takes the form oe a personal narration by John Face, detective.