Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1910-09-10 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

WALTER E. GROGAIsi'.  murdered or had committed suicide--ii did not appear clear whiah was the oorrect solution. What possible connection could Cyril have with that? A sordid tragedy—and Cyril. No, it was impossible. Yet there had bacon whispers. She had not heeded them at the time, did not understand them, but new they came to her recollections with hideous suggestions. One or two women, women in th. Barnett set, who were willing to know her for the sake of her father's money and the exoellence of his chef—had smiled at her engagement. They had Lifted their artistically pencilled eye-brows and hoped that he would settle down. Wasn't she afraid, just a lit:rale afraid ? Mere was little in the War& themselves, that type of woman is adept to conveying much in an apparently simple sentence, but the smiles, amusedl rather malicious, marked, were unpleasant. She had brushed all aqi,le at the time. She was honest enough to instinctively dislike the speakers. But now the doubts sown in apparently unproductive sail were growing with alarming vigour.  She could not go to Cyril—at least not yet. After all, a newspaper portrait might be unlike the person it represented. They generally were. She went into the hall, a big hall, rugged heavily, more like a lounge than a hall, with armour and antlers upon the walls. Them wa.s a large fire burning in the grate. She leant over the big leather-topped guard and thrust the paper into the flames. As she was stooping, watching the flames d,ie out in the black ashes, Lady Burnett came out of the morning-room. "What are you doing there, Child ?" she asked. Edith turned to her a flushed, rather disconcerted face.  `` Burning something I wanted to ,be rid of," she answered. Even in the midst of her distress tiller° was some gleam in her eye that allowed she was not unappreoiative of the double mewling of her words. "You ought to give it to John,ahild. There might be an acoident, It is alwaTs dangerous to play with fire." "Yes, I suppose, especially in old houses," Edith assented. "Do you ihiak Jahn would have been safer F" _  "Of course. He knows how to manage things." Lady Burnett had an uncomfortable feeling that she .was not possessed of the key of the ocxnversation. "That is his business." "Then John must be a very lucky man to knoiv his own business. It seems to me we moat of us go wrong from not knowing that. oth, you 14aok so worried, Lady Burnett! Don't please. I'm only chattering nonsense, as usual. I was suddenly possessed by a desire to be precis°, methodical footnia.n like Jahn. Please don't worry—it was only transitory, as well as absolutely impracticable." Lady Burnett Laughed. Edith chattered a great deal, and therefore much of it was necessarily nonsense. But to her acute perceptions there was a per functoriness that was unusual. Edith„. for some reason OT other, was upsot. What had she been burning ?" "Did you see Cyril," she asked. Cyril had been preoccupied and rather inattentive recently. Girls were proverbially easily piqued. She must speak to her son seriously. Edith was quite presentable, quite unsuggestive of her father, and the fortune was assured, solidly planted in coal, and unswayed by an erratic. Stock Exchange. "No, he was not in his room."