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|SSS £ Si—» THE C——i THE I B~ Wall of Silence |I i [Wall of Si l ence  ?  A STORY OF CARDIFFt I.- I i ? $daIl Mritten for tbe ?cning ]Eypress 1 WL By SIDNEY WARWICK, | AUTHOR OF ■ The Angel of Trouble," "Through a Woman's Heart," u No Past is Dead," I Cat's Eyes: A Mystery," Shadows of London," &c^ &c. ■ • v i -»•* SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. f TBe principal chSLrax?ers in the story are ■ 4AM »edith,:heir to his uncle, who hai out out oiL.kie wil! his; adopted daughter, Olive Lindsay, because she was convicted of Stealing pesnrle; Perc-ival Detmold. one of the witnesses agaiust Olive in the Biaok Pearl ca-se, who is found in hie house at, IjiaJHtaff ehot through the heart, and whom, 3t woman in suspected of murdering; Eva Kennedy, whom Jim. finds on the road near Detmoid's hotree on the night of the murder, And- a.t her request, conveys in his motor to-Eadyr Station; Ethel Sestarriok. zi vou n widow, formerly. Jim's sweetheart, and a > jCJiiotts woman, who hears of the last- i nMKted incident Ttfvi suspects; Owen Raghes, i lotbo is acce-pied by Elsie Muir, and, when, lAving the Muirs' hoe at P?narth, mt6  Sarroi, whom he accuses of havD-9 (iL im leagne with DptmoM to rob hini ( œ) of his rights in a. certain inN en- t? words" follow, Sarrol strikes at Hughes, the latter is about to strike back *hen Stephen Muir appears and separates ,H?m. Sarrol tunM to Hughes and whi?peM Bbmethiug which makes him recoil as from Wow. Hughes and Sarrol adjourn to the library, where the whisper, which is an accusation that Hughes murdered PeTCival D^mold, is repeated. Hughes denies this, and declares Detmoid threatened him -A-ith a revolver, which, m the struggle with JlllghElll, wettt- off inadvertently and killed Detmoid. Sarrol flouts this, and shows Htighes a letter he is going to send denouocirftf him. Then telle him to come hack at nine o'clock, when he (Sarrol) will fell him what he intends to do. I'The shadow of something coming" broods over more than one member of the Muir «Emner#airty that nig-ht, and later Beatrice i Sarrol and Philip Muir. who were formerly in love with each other, sa.nntcr through Jifee. gronnde, in earnest conversation. CHAPTER XVI. (continued.) 1'- THE TfAN AND THE WOMAN. Bot. I always cared, Beatrice," he said again. Her words had fanned his passion. Sever before had she seemed so desirable. to beautiful to him as now. "I wonder if you ever cared as much as I comd?" she said slowly. If only you'd eadd one word. theit word I waited a.nd Jc:ø:II8Ied for-tboa word that never came! And in piqDe-yes. pique with you, because 1 'was heairt-sick and my pricte wa^ angry-I John Sarrol." She paused; then tn a cibaiBged voice: "I spoke of to-day ae j being my umluc-ky day. Oan't you gtieee wAusb I ww thinking cf? To-day is the anni- wnrBEkry of the day I said I would be his wife. Amd not a day since hut I've cursed th&t, moment. 08i, how be has made me mxtterr The cry broke from her, involuntary, resist- leflB, with a fierce intensity. "Too mean that he ill-treats you ?-mare I I neao than by his sneers and woc&?" Fhethp whispered hoarsely. I could have valrook him oyer tie dinner-table acrcfie his } taD once toniight I Beatrice, haa "Oh.. I coaldm't tAl even you everything You saw him at his best to-night," *t» said, wearily. "And, perhaps-well, I sawose I have mtich that from my childhood "1 my mother taught me one should look for f tfxme everything in marriage. He is g-e-nerons my husband; he likes to SEe me well- '-4k<iau)d, likes me to be a credit to him- Beatrice Sarrol broke eff short, with a. deep breath of unconquerable loathing. "Kniiip, I sometimes think there is a gresow am in making such a marriage a* ntiate. in marrying such a, man, than in what >BM( people would call sin! He's a drunkard to be tied to such a man night and Aiqr eamt you realise the horror of it?" Her i$TTT4t were clenched passionately "Why am I fceHrrtg you this, I wondiM-? I never wMsper-ed a word of it before, not even to my flfeter. I never meant to say it to yon-not a VmcL not a. hint only, I suppose I'm ner vous, full of faxvedea to-night. And I Wippoee there is a point where endurance snaps—car, rather, weakens for a moment UfJCk*. the atirain, for to-morrow I shall take ap-07, bvrdm again-" "Then he does ill-treat you?" said Philip, In- a low, dangerous voice. -Qh, not physically—exempt when he has been drinking and there are things harder to bear than blows." -You mean he has struck you, this brute; —you whom I cared for, whom I once 4h,mmed of making mine?" still. in the quiet fWfie, with a mounting, underlying passion, dw though the spark were creeping along the laid train to the point where it would fiaeh into devastating fury. Dom't say too much, Philip. I've let myself get cat of hand as it iq. I'm not ueed to pity or sympathy. And are plenty of women who envy Mrs. John Sarml, of Newport, who has all her desires gratified, everything she wants. My GO&Ft"r7thir,g she wants:" "You must tell me this, Bmtrioe! You ribafi tell me!" -Her fefht to remain loyal to the husband Jq¡LthedsootIloo weakened to breaking] Pl She stood, not looking at him, not with a white, drawn face. Then with a little sob that spelt surrender, she enddemty slipped the white eveammg dress a little from off one shoulder, revealing to kbr eyes aln ugly, livid bruise on the white, iriaooth akin. last barrier was, down. The sight of r t {feat bruise was like a matoh set to powder. tIDe- waa in his arms, held tight. There was "lament's silence, broken only by the I oobbing of the woman—sobbing that shook I her slender frame—who, her power to resist; feeaten down, had surrendered herself to his I must be the end:" Philip cried with I ab lb tensity of fierceness, his face dark. "After that blow you shan't go back to this You belong to me. It madd-ens me to tfeftfr of your soft arms bruited by this ,lte:or brute who had fçrfeitoo his olaim! I JëëI; toould strike him dead for this blow! "IOU must not, shall not go back to him! ¡ IfOu belong to me by the right of our love!" Befein-d. them, but a yard or two away, in goil'ty, passion-swayed moment, in the | C^ey panel of dusk that framed the darkness tbë Y. merely a deeper blot of shadow among the shadows of the undighted room behind on tha.t dark eide of the house, a figure stood unsuspected, listening with a spasm of vindictive fury and hatred on his faoe, watching tllem-m.an and woman. John Sarrol. CHAPTER XVI!. j A CRY IX THE DARKNESS. John Sarrol had won his game of billiards, as he had won so many other games in life; and then, in rare good humour at his vic- tory-ior it had been a close game, and at' one time it had looked like his losing—he had exousad himself for a few minutes to his hoet, whom he left in the billiard-room beginning a game of fifty-up with his son Alfred. A "fifty" game with Alfred usually ave- raged the time of a hundred-up with another player, for young Muir carried his business habits or method to the game, and ysually deliberated as long before each stroke as though he were deciding some knotty com I mercial point involving hundreds. "I won't be ten minutes, Muir; just going "With vindictive fury and iia-tred oii his face. to the library, if I may-I want to write a letter. I'll be back before you finish your game," Sarrol had said, not mentioning that he was going to meet Owen Hughes there. That might have necessitated some explana- tion. It had not been until he and his host adjourned to the billiard-room after dinner that Sarrol had come to a decision about Hughes, what course he should take. In a grim spirit of irony he had told himself that, the game he was about to play with Muir should deride his course of action for him; the thought had tickled his sense of humour. If he won his hundred-up with Muir, ho would let the man go; if he lost, then he- would carry out his threat and communicate to the police the mature of the message he had received by telephone from Detmoid shortly before has death. And this resolve, to which he fully meant to adhere, lent all the interest of a gainble to the game. Sarrol had started badly; at first it had looked as though the threat would have to be carried out-that he would loee, and Hughes would accordingly lose. too. For the first five minutes of tne game he felt more or less indifferent; then he had begun to get keen. He had no love for Hughes, who had called him a thief, but the mere abstract fact that he was playing, if not for a man's life, at least for his liberty, that a man's future was the issue -at stake—for Sarrol knew how difficult, if not impossible, it would be for Hughes to clear himself once the poli-co knew of that telephone message—began imper- ceptibly to weigh with him; he grew kee: the more so. as Muir was playing well. Broak by break Muir's score was mounting up, leaving him behind; but in the fifties a series of good strokes, and Sarrol drew almost level with his opponent; they ran neck and neck into the sixties. Then a run of luck carried Muir in a single break to 90 odd, and Owen Hughes's oh antes looked hopeleiss. I'm going to thrash you, Sa,rrol. said Stephen Muir, with a complacent chuckle, as he marked his score on the board. The laugh and the words put Sarrol on his mettle, and a gleam came into his eyes. He took up his cue, playing carefully, as he had never played in his Life before. It isn't sa.fe to prophesy until you know," was Sarrol's dry responæ-and between iinir's iaugh and Sarrol's answer the latter wa.s in the nineties too, within a couple of points of his opponent's soore, after rather a good break. Mui-r was not a man to play a losing game so well as a winning one; that the other man had nearly caught him up affected his play. He miss-cued, and looked unhappy. Slaorrol tOOlk up his ou e and" ran out. The winner gave a dry chuckle. His skill in fighting a losing game had saved Hughes, He bad no intention of going back just as, in the event of his having lost, he would not have spared the man; Sarrol always kept these bargains with himself. Well, on the whole, this result would save a lot of bother. He would have had to explain why it had taken him a. fortnight to inform the police that Pemoival Detmoid, shortly before the moment of has death* had rung him up on the 'phone, and hzd told him that Hughes was at his place in a dangerous mood. And then, too, the grounds of the quarrel must ham oomo out—Hughes's assertion, obtaining the wide publicity of the press, that he was being cheated between Detmold and Sarrol in the matter of that anti-fouiling paiiut for iihi, that hè, Sarrol, was going to float as a oompany and make a hat of money out of- whatever the shareholders might ultimately do! No. on the whole, John Sarrol, was rather glad, for other reasons than the personal satisfaction that winning always gave him, that the game had turned out as it had done. And. after all. Hughes was a relative, if a distant one, of the Muirs; the exposure he had contemplated might have led to a-n awkwardness with the Muirs But he would make Hughes eat humble pie before he tore "up in the younger man's, presence that letter addressed to the superintendent at the Penarth police-station. He was not to be called a thief with impunity. And with these thoughts in his mind John Sarrol had gone to the library some five or six minutes to the half-hour after nine. He had pas-ed into the dark room, shut- ting the door behind him, with a laugh still [ cn his lips. His hand was on the switch of the electric light, when the sound of voices came to him through the open French window from the verandah outside. And instead of switching on the light, Sa.rrol paused, listening. His wife's voice: whom was she speaking to—and what was she saying? He could not distinguish the words, but there was an agitation in the tones that struck him. And then a man's voice—and the man's voico was excited, too: Philip Muir's. The laugh left his lips. Without turning on the light John Sarrol strode across the thick Turkey carpet noiselessly to the open i wwdow. There by the window he stood watching, like a figure of stone; and the heavy face was not good to look at. Hugfhes was fox. gotten. This was something that touched him more nearly. The two figures in the shadow there, their faoes indistinguishable in the dusk. were silhouetted against the distant vista of moonlight, reyealing their movements clearly to the watching man. For a mome-nt or two he stood motionless, listening. The thing had broken upon him incredulously: at first he seemed half doubtful of his own faculties of sight and hearing this, a familiar, ha-ckreyed commonplace of the daily prese- but to have touched his life personally! He had a curious i-ensation as of a diver going down in deep water and coming to the sur- face again. Ria wife John Sarrol's wife in this man's arms! It seemed ual)elievable-b,ut it was true. [TO BE CONTINUED TO-MORROW.]

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