AN EMPIRE MAKER'S LOVE STORY.
By Gilbert Dayle.
Illustrated by Fred Pegram.
It was dusk on a summer evening, as a tall broad-shouldered man made his way down a path that led through the Vicarage garden at Winchmere.
Reaching the roadway, he turned and, with one arm resting on the gate, gazed at the rambling house with its clustering ivy and old-fashioned windows.
"To all appearances just the same," he said, musingly, "yet how different it is—strange faces, strange voices! A short eight years, and I return to find my old friend dead, almost forgotten, and She vanished—swallowed up by the world!"
He sighed heavily, then turned and set out down the country road in the direction of the railway station.
"It's the bitterest disappointment I could have met with!" he went on; "but—I shall find her. Yes, I shall find her!" And as he spoke the step of the tall bronzed man quickened into a resolute stride.
Halton Towers, the country residence of Earl Kenwell, was a magnificent place, situated in the heart of Berkshire. On a certain morning in July, a governess and her two charges were sitting at a table in the schoolroom. The governess, a pretty girl of about twenty-four, was attempting to instil some elementary ideas of geography into the head of her eldest pupil, a boy some six years old.
Presently the door opened, and a party of people trooped into the room. Their leader, Lady Dorothy Kenwell, looked smilingly at the governess. She was young, and considered to be one of the most beautiful women in the country.
"You don't mind us coming in just for a minute, Miss Grahame?" she asked. "These absurd people declared that nothing would satisfy them but seeing the children."