The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 2, 1904, Page 2

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY. CALL C IS IS THE LAST INSTALLMENT OF “ANNA THE AD- | VENTURESS WHICH BEGAN IN THE DAY CALL 1 MAGAZINE ON SEPTEMBER 4. THE ) NOVEL TO | APPEAR WILL BE A VIGOROUS, THOROUGHLY UP-TO- DATI POLITICAL STORY, “THE GRAFTERS,” BY FRANCIS LYNDI NOVEL WILL BE TIMELY, IN VIEW OF THE AP- PROACHING CAMPAIGN, FOR THE MANY SIDELIGHTS IT FHROWS UPON THE “INSIDE” DOINGS OF POLITICS, APART FIROM STRONG. INTENSELY HUMAN LOVE INTEREST EATS rHAT FHRCUGH IT. IHE MIDDLE WEST, FULL OF AS WITH “ANNA THE SELLING REGULARLY FOR $1 ERS O 1 SUNDAY CALL s} shie d s have T = A} e gagem ) Fr cwered t some one lish square,” hered with- wers crowde of a back- choco- few r a moment d, ha of the ing passed hir “I am of Da- ke him —Lady word of excuse Courtlaw, who vhich seemed or latest art Annabel moving. grace- wng her guests, always and a whisper for Grudiging he ad- ed as a.mere pleasure-loving para- site—something quite insignificant. He had pictured her, if indeed she had ever had the courage to do this thing, as sit- ting alone, c« ulsed with guilty fear, starting at her own shadow, a slave to constant terror. And instead he found her playing the great lady, it well. She knew or guessed his mission, too, for more than once their eyes met, and she laughed mockingly at him. At last he could bear it no longer. He Jeft his companion in the midst of a glowing eulogy of Bastien Lep:.ge, and T ACTION, LIFE AND COLOR. ADVENTURES BY-E-, IS DISTINCTLY A TALE OF SO THIS BOOK, WILL BE GIVEN TO READ- IN FOUR 5-CENT INSTALLMENTS. ‘\ - kS boldly intercepted his hostess as she noved from one group to join an- e me a moment?” he 1 message from your “I have you in a hurry?” she asked t of these people will ntly.” is urgent,” he said S e abont smal and led So you she re- oward hin rece .do you is it?” what g, she Perhaps I should to ur tand its sig- ¥ explain to me he answered e: - She laughed a “seem to nest. It pray re- the doings Montague Hill ‘do nd there the whole tea, won't'y ooked behind to his hansom as he Had it come CHAPTER XXXIL John Gentleman. Annabel bewildered.” Ferringhall, Confess, tly that 1sband u-are wered Jle across the Kk in her eyes e de- me, at deal for the You have inner-party’ to up a’ political minded him. important one,” he as- 1ld have given up your old self again ning.” 1 n afra she said béen very Never mind. sadly 1 must think of this evening, John, mes—as a sort of atonement ey v lingering over their de The servants had left the room. el half filled her glass with wine, a little folded packet from , shook the contents into it veloping ailments his questioning eye: of -any importance. John, I tomething to say to you.” If you want to ask a favor,” he re- rked smiling, “you have made it Imost impossible for me to refuse you anything.” 1 am going to ask more than a favor;” she said slowly. “I am going to ask your forgivenes He was a little uneasy. “1 'do not know what you mean,” he said, “but if you are referring to any little coolness since our marriage let us never speak of it again. I am some- thing of an old fogy, Amna, I'm afraid; but if you treat me like this vou will teach me to forget it.” Annabel looked intently into : her glass. “John,” she said, “I'm afraid that I am going to make you unhappy. I am very, very sorry, but you must listen to me.” . He relapsed into a stony silence. A few feet away, across the low vases of pink and white roses, sat Annabel, e beautiful to-night perhaps than before in her life. She wore a dress of turquoise blue, a great dressmaker for a function which she knew very well n that she would never attend. Her hair once more was arranged with its old simplicity. There was a new soft- ness in her eyes, a hesitation, a timid- ity about her manner which was al- most pathetic. “You remember our first meeting?” “Yes,” he answered, hoarsely. “I re- member it very well indeed. You have the look in your eyves to-night which you had that day, the look of a fright- ened child.” She looked into her glass. “l was frightened then,” she de- clared. “I am frightened now. But it is all Very different. There was hope for me then. Now there is none. No, none at all.” “You talk strangely, Anna,” he said. “Go on!™ “People talked to you in Paris about " she continued; “about Anna the virtuous and Annabel the rake. You re accused of having been seen with the latter. You denied it, remembering that I had called myself Anna. You went even to our rooms and saw my sister, Anna lied to you, I lied to you. I was Annabel the rake, Alcide of the eting PHILLIPS =+~ - OPPENHEICT music halls. My name is Annabel, not Anna. Do you understand?” “I do. not,” he sanswere¢ ‘“How could I when your sister sings now at the ‘Universal’ every night, and the name Alcide flaunts from- every pla- card in London?” ““The likeness between us,” she sald, “before I began to disfigure myself with rouge and ill-dressed hair was re- markable. Anna failed in her paint- ing, our money was gone and she was forced to earn her own iiving. She cam€ to London and tried several things without any success.” “But why—" Sir John stopped short. With a mo- ment of inward shame he remembered his deportment toward Anna. It was scarcely likely that she would have ac- cepted his aid. Some one had once, in his hearing, called him a prig. He re- membered it suddenly. He thought of his severe attitude toward the girl who was rightly and with contempt refus- ing his measured help. He looked across at Annabel, and he groaned. This was his humiliation as well as hers. “Anna, of course, would not accept any méney from us,” she continued. “She tried everything, and last of all she tried the stage. She went to a dramatic agent and he turned out to be the one who had heard me sing in Paris. He refused to believe that Anna was not Alcide. He thought she wished to conceal her identity because of the connection with you, and he of- fered her an engagement at once. She was never announced as Alcide, but directly she walked on she simply be- came Alcide to every one. She had a better voice than I and the rest I sup- pose is only a trick. The real Alcide,” she wound up with a faint smile across the table at him, “is here.” He sat like a man turned to stone. Some part of the.stiff vigor of the man seemed to have subsided. He seemed to have shrunken in his seat. His eyes were fixed upon her face, but he opened his lips twice before he spoke. ‘marble image. upset and nearly killed.” “Did you say,” Sir John asked, “that the man’s name was Hill?" “Yes,” she answered. ‘“The man who was found dead in your sister's room was nemed Hill? “It is the man,” she answered. “I killed him.” ; Sir John elutched at the table with both h A slow -horror was dawni .his fixeq eyes. This was not th of 'confession which he had bee: cting. Annabel had spoken calmly enough and steadily, but his brain refused at first §o accept the full meaning of her words. It ‘gD’ HE CRIED ‘Yoo 20 : {Vojf A0 WIAT T .~ v TR 9 o “When yvou married me—" Her little hand flashed out across the table. “John,” she said, “I can spare you that question. I had been about as foolish and selfish as a girl could be. I had done the most compromising things and behaved in the most ridic- ulous way. But from the rest—you saved me.” Sir John breathed a long, deep sigh. He sat up in his chair again, the color came back to his cheeks. “John, don’t!” she cried. “You think that this is all. You are going to be generous and forgive. It isn't all. There is worse to come. There is a tragedy tq come.” “Out with jt, then,” he cried, al- most roughly. “Don't you know, child, that*this is torture for me? What in God’s name more can you have to tell me?” Her face had' become almost like a She spoke with a cer- tain odd deliberation carefully chosen words which fell like drops of ice upon the man who sat listening. “Before I met you I was deluded into receiving upon friendly terms a man named Hill, who passed* himself off as Meysey Hill, the railway man, but who was in reality an Englishman in poor circumstances. He was going to settle I forget how many millions upon me, and I think that I was daz- zled. I went with him to what I sup- posed to be the British embassy and went through a ceremony which I un- derstood to be the usual form of the marriage one used there. Afterward we started for a motor ride to a place outside Paris for dejeuner, and I sup- pose the man's nerve failed him. I questioned him too closely about his possessions and remarked upon the fact that he was a most inexpert driv- er, although Meysey Hill had a great reputation as a motorist. Anyhow he confessed that he was a fraud. I struck him across the face, jumped out and went back by train to Paris. He lost control of the machine, was seemed to him that a sort of mist had risen up between them. Everything was blurred. Only her face was clear, frail and delicate, almost flower-like, with the sad, haunting eyes ever watching his. Annabel a murderess! It was not possible. “Child!” he cried. “You do not know what you say. This is part of a dream—some evil fancy. Think! You could not have done it.” She shook her head deliberately, hopelessly. “I think that I know very well what I am saying,” she answered. “I went to Anna’s rooms because I felt I must see her. He was there concealed, waiting for her return. He recognized me at once and he behaved like a madman. He swore that I was his wife, that chance had given me to him at last. John, he was between me and the door. - A strong, coarse man, and there were things in his eyes which made my blood run . cold with terror. He came over to me. I was helpless. Beside me on Anna's table was a pis- tol. I was not even sure whether”it was loaded. I snatched it up, pointed it blindly at him and fired.” “Ah!” 8ir John exclaimed. “He fell aver at my feet,” she con- tinued. ‘I saw him stagger and sink down and the pistol was still smoking in my hand. I bent over him. Anna had told me that he carried always with him this bogus marriage certifi- cate. I undid his coat and I took it from his pocket. I burned it.” “But the marriage itself?” Sir John asked. “I do not understand. * “There was no marriage,” she an- “I was very foolish to have been deceived even for a moment. There was no marriage and I hated, oh, how I hated the man.” “Did any one see you leave the flat?"” he asked. “I do not know. But David Courtlaw has been here. To-night they say he will be conscious. He will say who it ‘was. So there is no escape. And lis- ten, John.” “Well 2" “I went from Anna's flat to Nigel Ennison’s rooms. I told him the truth. I asked him to take me away and h}.tie me. He refused. He sent me home. Sir John's head bent lower and lower. There was nothing left now of the self-assured, prosperous man of affairs. His shoulders were bent, his face was furrowed with wrinkles. He looked no longer at his wife. His eyes were fixed upon the tablecloth. There was a gentle rustling of skirts. Softly she rose to her feet. He felt her warm breath upon his cheek, the perfume of her hair as she leaned over him. He did not look up, so he did not know that in her other hand she held a glass of wine. “Dear husband,” she murmured. “I am so very, very sorry. I have brought disgrace upon you 1 haven't been the right sort of a wife at all. But it is all over now and presently there (R 1 IR i will be some one else. I should like to have. had you forgive me.” He did not move. He seemed to be thinking hard, She paused for a mo- ment. Then she raised the glass near- er to.her lips. “Good-by, John,” she said simply. Something, in her tone made him look up. In a second the glass lay shattered upon the carpet. There was a stain of wine upon her dress. “God in heaven, Annabel!” he cried. “What were you doing?"” Her voice was a little hysterical. Her unnatural calm was giving way. “It was poison—why net?” she an- swered. “Who is there to care and John.” His arms were around her. He kissed her once on the lips with a pas- of sion of which, during all their day married life, he had given no s ““You poor little girl!™ he cried. give ‘'you, indeed. There isn't a h bard breathing, Annabel, who wouldn have blessed that pistol in ur hands and prayed God that the bu g0 straight. It is no crime, none at all. It is one of God's laws that a woman may defend her honor, even with the shedding o lood. While you talked I was only making our plans. It was necessary to think, and think quickly.” She was altogether terical now. “But I—I went to Nigel Ennison for help. I asked him—to take me away.” She saw him flinch, but he. gave no sign of it in his tone. ““Perhaps,” said, “I have been to blame. It must be my fault that you have not learned that your husband is the man to come to—at such a time as this. Oh, I think understand, Annabel. You were afraid of me, afraid that I should have been shocked, afraid of the scandal. Bah. Litile woman, you have been brave enough before. Pull yourself together now. Drink this!” He poured out a glass of wine with a firm hand and held it to her lips. She drank it obediently. “Good,” he said, as he watched thas color come back to her cheeks. “Now listen. You go to your room: and ring for your maid. I received a telegram as you know, during dinner " tains news of the seriou near relation at Paris. twenty minutes to pack your case for one night and you same time to change into a dress. In twenty minutes w the hall, remember. I will tel plans on the way to the stat “But you,” she exclaimed, “you are not coming. There is the election—" He laughed derisively. “Election be hanged!™ he exclair “Don’t be childish, Annabe v off for a second honeymoon. J thing more. We Don’t look ycurself a of the so Wh s manslaughter. and at the worst t Ity, mothing the least fght pe: about n pasgsionately and ran he hall below she » giving quick ants. XXXIT. CHAPTER The Hissing of “Aleide.” a strange and ominous s, a shuffing of feet e which was like 1ce before a storm. Anna, who e first of her song, house, a little sur- 1ce of the applause yet failed her. She a moment what had hap- n though the individual s of her audience were not to be singled out, she had been conscious from the first moment of her appear- ance that someth g was wrong. She was of voi ry, a silen which had never ated, for a moment thought of omitting the second verse alto- gether. The manager, however, who stood in the wings, nodded to her to proceed, the orchestra commenced the fir: bars of the music. Then the storr =. A long shrill cateall in the gallery seemed to be the signal. Then a roar of hisses. They came from every part, from the pit, the arrcle and the gallery, even from the stalls. And there arose, too, a back- ground for shou “Who lled her husband?’ " nurse him, = * “Murderess!™ Anna look from left to right. She was as pale as death, but she seemed to have the power of movement. They sho to her f 1 to come off. She could x or foot. A paralyzing horror was upon her. Her eardrums were burning with the echoes of those hideous sheuts. A crumpled-up newspaper thrown from the gallery hit her upon the cheek. The stage manager came out ~ \