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COPVRtØHT. * THE iv - W all…

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COPVRtØHT. THE iv W all of Silence  A STORY OF CARDIFF, I I $pccÜ1H Written for tbe ?cnin? fiyprcs^ I  By SIDNEY WARWICK, I AUTHOR OF I I The Angel of Trouble," Through a Woman's Heart," No Past is Dead." I  Cat's Eyes: A Mvstery," Shadows of London," &c., &c. ■ I I SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. [ The principal characters in the story are; Jim Meredith. heit7 to his uncle, who h: cut out of his will his adopted daughter. I Olive .Lindsay, because she was convicted of fiJtealing irearls; Perciva.1 Detmold, one of the witnesses against Olive in the Black Pearl- ca^e, who id found in his house at Ua.ndaff.&ho-t --Iiro-ugh the heart, and whom a woman is suspected of murdering; Eva: Kennedy, whom Jim finds on the road near; Detmoid's hoose on the night of the murder.' and, at her request, conveys in his motor to Radyr Station; Ethel Reetarrick, a younj widow.. formerly Jim's sweetheart, and a, jealous woman, who hears of the last-; named incident a.nd eras pec ts Owen Hug'hee,; who is accepted by Elsie Muir. and, when leaving the Muirs' houee at Pen art h, meets; John Sarrol, whom he accuses of having! been in lea true with Detmold to rob him (Hughes) of his righ ta in a certain, jJJ.ven-! tioa. Heated words follow, Sarrol strikes at Hughes, the latter is about to strike back ■ when Stephen Muir appears and separates! them. 4Qrrol turns to Hughes and whimpers something which makes him recoil as from a blow. Hughes and Sarrol adjourn to the library, where the whisper, which is an accusation that Rushes murdered Perei-va.1 Detmold, is repeated. Hughes denies this, and declares Detmold threatened him with i a revolver, which, m the struggle with Hughes, went off inadTertently and killed Detmold. Sarrol flouts this. and shows Hughes a letter he is going to send dennureins: him. Then tells him to come back at nina o'clock, wtien he (SarroJ) will tell him what he intends to do. •'The shadow of something comin-g" broods; over more than one member of the Muir; dinner party that nisrht. and later Beatrice Sarrol and Philip Muir, who were formerly in love with each other, saunter through the grounds, in earnest conversation. CHAPTER XVII. (continued.) THE MAN AND THE WOMAN. And then his voioe cut harshly through the summer night, and the man and the woman, At her feet lay her husband. caught by their passion as in a swirling eddy of a tideway, were brought b&ck with a start to the realities. No outburst of ungovernable fury ait first: outwardly calm, cold as ice; his face grey white, only the eyes like gle-aming steeJ- j points revealing- the pent-up, seething i passions within him, as he stepped a. pace, or His voice calm, too, aU. he 1 spoke, thmwh it shook a little despite his iron control, coldly ironical: I always knew I'd let, myself in for a i damned bad bargain when I gave you my ilame, but until now I thought at least j you bad some rags of decency left." John Sarrol said. Beatrice's face might have been cus iu i marble; every drop of blood seemed to have left it, with fear's imprint frozen there. Philip stood looking at John Sarrol, too startled and disconcerted in that first K'omen; to find words. It seems fn interesting tete-a-tete that I have been so tactless as to interrupt," went on Sarrol, finding the effort of rejareeewn increasingly diffimùt-" pouring ouC-T tha; Story of vour wrongs, of your husband's cruelties, in another man's ears. giving your- self to this philanderer's a.n:ns! There's only one word for women like ycru." And Ytill in the low, restrained voice he flung the nile word at her, like a handful of mud in her face.. The word was like a goad to Philip ifnir. He strcde forward passionately, his eyea gleaming, his hands clenched-up to the other man. Don't dare to say another word to her! Don't dare, I say, or I won't answer for the consequences. You may say what you like about me-but be very careful for your own sake how you speak again to her! You have no longer a weak. helpless woman to bully with your words and blows, but a man!" Philip eaid. "You've been listening, and for once a listener I'as heard the truth about himself: pleasant or not—the truth!" The suppressed, fury broke out at last in John Sarrol. "I wonder you dare speak to me, you philanderer and thief of a man's honour!" And almost before the words had left his lips, Sarrol, his passion flaming out beyond control, aimed a blind blow at the younger maæ-a blow that would have felled Philip had he not moved quickly to avoid it; it merely grazed his cheek. Instantly Philip retaliated. His hand shot out, struck Sar- rol in the face, who reeled back staggering under the force of the blow almost to the .y window-, them, all threshold of the library window; them, all the sleeping devil in him roused to a pitch cf vindictive fury, to the lust for reprisals, lie closed with the younger man. He was of immense natural strength; in spite of his bulk, in spite of his habits of living, his muscles—now, at any rate, in this madnesfe of passion—were steel. The two men swayed for ap. instant by the French window, struggling blindly, sav- agely, like primeval men, whilst the woman stood, as if struck poweriees to move or cry out, one hand pressed to her heart, in the deep shadow cast by the verandah. Philip Muir was a. strong man. too. but the older man's grip was like a vice against which he struggled in vain; Sarrol's face and gleaming eyes, close to his, vindictive an-d sinister, were alight with a sudden murderous glint, as they Swayed in their silent struggle by the dark opening of the long window. Suddenly exerting all his brute Strength, Sarrol flung the other man off, hurled Philip away from him savagely into the unlighted room; and the younger ruan went down with a thud. the sound deadened by the heavy Turkey Qarpet, his cheek staking against the leg of the oak writing table. I'll mark yon. you philanderer, you thief of a man,'s lionour!" broke from Sarrol, following his fallen intagoniet into the room, the darkness of which suddenly swallowed the two men up from Beatrice's terrified eyes. It was darker to her eyes than it was to the two me- within the roam, each evrayed now by that one blind, savage, primitive instinct of passion to kill; less dark to ttwan because of the moonlight in the gar- den beyond the verandah, against which objects in the room stood out dimly, blurred and black. Only it was more by instinct than by sight that the hand of one of the men fell on something lying on the table; something hard and heavy on which his fingers tightened. A blackthorn stick that :"Owen» Hashes had left behind him inadver- tently after his interview here with John Sarrol au hour and a half ago. What was happening in the room? In p.ite of her appalled horror and fea.r. in spite of her desperate eagerness to know, tho woman out on the verandah had no rower over her limbs; she might have been turned to atone; all her senses seemed absorbed in the one faculty of hearing. She stood listening. What was happening in the i-oom hidden from her eye. by that veil of impenetrable darkness? She could hear the heavy breathing, a low, muttered -word or so, the sound of movements, but the antagonists were strangely and grimly silent And then——. Out of the darkness a sharp, strangled cry that was hardly human, that died away almost instantly, simultaneously with a ) dull. heavy fall, most of the sound of which the thick carpet seemed to. absorb. Then silence utter and absolute. q The spell of dreadful inertia that had paralysed her seemed suddenly to snap. Inatinctively Beatrice Sarrcl know that the struggle had become tragedy. Which man had given that cry? She ran forward to the window; her own words spoken earlier that evening: "dark and sinister, like a grave!" and those vague, oppressive fancies of coming ill swept back upon her now. In the room someone was breathing heavily—someone who did not speak as she entered, someone whom she could not see. Which man-which man? To Beatrice Sarrol's overstrung nerves, that played strange tricks with her senses, the Toom with its darkness and stillness and the tragic secret it held seemed sud- denly to fill with innumerable whisperings. hhe felt her way to the table blindly, filled with an almost irresistible, hysterical desire to scream, her skirte touching something on the floor as she passed. On the library table, near the silver can- dlestick and tray for Eealing-wax, was a box of matches; the fact must have impressed itself on her mind quite uncon- sciously. Her fumbling, impatient fingers telt for the little silver bo; found it. Which man had given that horrible cry? Beatrice Sarrol struck a match; he scratching sound of the match head on the box rasped jarringly on her nerves; the match flared up, throwing a little, waverinj tongue of light in the great room, before which the shadows fell back, like shifting waves, into the sea of darkness beyond Which man? Standing by the table, his passion burnt out, shaking in every limb, evidently making a desperate fight to master the mad impulse to give way to blind terror, afraid even to speak lest his voice should run out of his control to panic, was Philip Muir; and at her feet lay her husband, one arm Lent under him, a terrible discoloured bruise, almost a pulp, on the left temple, I where the heavy blackthorn stick had descended in a crushing blow, the dead eyes staring up at her. The match died out between her fingers. How she succeeded in strangling the cry that rose in her throat Beatrice never knew. "F-iilip-Philip, he's dead!" she said at last in a shaking whisper in the darkness- In spite of her horror, the woman forced herself to an unnatural calm; she bent and; felt the pulse, laid her hand on the heart of the figure on the floor. "Philip, you've killed him'" "Oh, that can't be-I tell you it's impos- sible; he'll come round presently—he can't. be dead! He was stronger than I more like a madman and he meant mischief—f believe, he meant to kill me and I had to defend myself. But he can't be dead-I won't believe that he's dead!" The breathlessly rapid, staccato words. hardly articulate, were quite unlike Philip Muir's voice. Hugh! Don't speak. Philip!" came the woman's insistent, agonised whisper ot caution through the darkness. Pity was in bar voice: pity for the living, and penbape a sudden, deep, remorseful pity for the dead whom in that moment of weakness and temptation she had wronged —with a wrong of which this was the evil fruit. Philip, now if ever in all your Me it is imperative you must keep yourself in hand; you must not loee your head. We've got to face facts; it is TiselesB to deceive ouieelvee. John Sarrol's dead—and what remains now is to save you from the consequences i J Listen!" Through the deep shadow of the room Beatrice Sarrol stole across to the door; stood listening feverishly. 'I [TO BE CONTINUED TO-MORROW.]

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