If Sinners Entice Thee

“Why do you not leave me, George?” she cried, with a sudden movement as if to rise. “Why do you taunt me like this? It is cruel of you.”

“I do not taunt you, dearest,” he protested in a tone of sympathy. “I merely point out the bitter truth. You are betrothed to a man who is in every respect unworthy of you.”

“Ah, no!” she exclaimed hysterically. “It is myself who is unworthy. I – I cannot break the bond between us because – because I fear him.”

“If he holds you secretly in his power why not confide in me?” her lover suggested earnestly. “I may devise some means by which you may escape.”

“If I did you would only hate me,” she answered, her lips trembling in blank despair. “No, do not persuade me. There is but one course I can pursue.”

“You intend marrying him?” he observed huskily.

“Unfortunately it is imperative.”

“Have you ever reflected how utterly wretched your life must necessarily be under such circumstances?” he asked, gazing seriously into her eyes.

“Yes,” she answered, endeavouring vainly to restrain the sob which escaped her. “I know full well the life which must now be mine. Without you I shall not care to live.”

“Then why not allow me to assist you?” he urged. “Whatever may be the nature of your secret, tell me, and let me advise you. Together we will frustrate Zertho’s plans, whatever they may be.”

“Any such attempt would only place me in greater peril,” she pointed out.

“But surely you can rely on my secrecy?” he said. “Do I not love you?”

“Yes, but you would hate me if you knew the truth,” she whispered hoarsely. “Therefore I cannot tell you.”

“Your secret cannot be of such a nature as to cause that, Liane,” he said quietly.

“It is. Even if I told you everything your help would not avail me. Indeed, it would only bring to me greater pain and unhappiness,” she answered quickly.

“Our days of bliss have passed and gone, and with them all hope has vanished. They were full of a perfect, peaceful happiness, because you loved me with the whole strength of your soul, and I idolised you in return. Hour by hour the remembrance of those never-to-be-forgotten hours spent by your side comes back to me. I remember how quiet and peaceful the English village seemed after the noise, rattle and incessant chatter of a gay Continental town, how from the first moment we met, I, already world-weary, commenced a new life. But it is all past – all gone, and I have now only before me a world of bitterness and despair.” And she turned her pale face from his to hide the tears which welled in her eyes.

“You say you were world-weary,” he observed in a low tone. “I do not wonder at it now that I know of your past.”

“My past!” she gasped quickly. “What do you know of my past?”

“I know that your father was a gambler,” he answered. “Ah! what a life of worry and privation yours must have been, dearest. Yet you told me nothing of it!”

She looked at him, but her gaze wavered beneath his.

“I told you nothing because I feared that you would not choose the daughter of an adventurer for a wife,” she faltered.

“It would have made no difference,” he assured her. “I loved you.”

“Yes,” she sighed; “but there is a natural prejudice against women who have lived in the undesirable set that I have.”

“Quite so,” he admitted. “Nevertheless, knowing how pure and noble you are, dearest, this fact does not trouble me in the least. I am still ready, nay, anxious, to make you my wife.”

She shook her head gravely. Her hand holding her sunshade trembled as she retraced the semicircle in the dust.

“No,” she exclaimed at last. “If you would be generous, George, leave me and return to London. In future I must bear my burden myself; therefore, it is best that I should begin now. To remain here is useless, for each time I see you only increases my sadness; each time we meet brings back to me all the memories I am striving so hard to forget.”

“But I cannot leave you, Liane,” he declared decisively. “You shall not throw yourself helplessly into the hands of this unscrupulous man without my making some effort to save you.”

“It is beyond your power – entirely beyond your power,” she cried, dejectedly. “I would rather kill myself than marry him; yet I am compelled to obey his will, for if I took my life in order to escape, others must bear the penalty which I feared to face. No, if you love me you will depart, and leave me to bear my sorrow alone.”

“I refuse to obey you,” he answered, firmly. “Already you know that because I loved you so well I have borne without regret my father’s action in leaving me almost penniless. Since that day I have worked and striven with you always as my pole-star because you had promised to be mine. Your photograph looked down at me always from the mantelshelf of my dull, smoke-begrimed room. It smiled when I smiled, and was melancholy when I was sad. And the roses and violets you have sent from here made my room look so gay, and their perfume was so fresh that they seemed to breathe the same sweet odour that your chiffons always exhale. Your letters were a little cold, it is true; but I attributed that to the fact that in Nice the distractions are so many that correspondence is always sadly neglected. Picture to yourself what a blow it was to me when, on the terrace at Monte Carlo, you told me that you had another lover, and that you intended to marry him. I felt – ”

“Ah!” she cried, putting up her little hand to arrest the flow of his words, “I know, I know. But I cannot help it. I love you still – I shall love you always. But our marriage is not to be.”

He paused in deep reflection. There was one matter upon which he had never spoken to her, and he was wondering whether he should mention it, or let it remain a secret within him. In a few moments, however, he decided.

“I have already told you the cause which led my father to treat me so unjustly, Liane,” he said, looking at her seriously, “but there is one other fact of which I have never spoken. My father left me a considerable sum of money on condition that I married a woman whom I had never seen.”

“A woman you had never seen!” she exclaimed, at first surprised, then laughing at the absurdity of such an idea.

“Yes. It was his revenge. I would not promise to renounce all thought of you, therefore, in addition to leaving me practically a pauper, he made a tantalising provision that if I chose to marry this mysterious woman, of whom none of my family knew anything, I was to receive a certain sum. This woman must, according to the will, be offered a large sum as bribe to accept me as husband, therefore ever since my father’s death his solicitors have been endeavouring to discover her.”

“How extraordinary!” she said, deeply interested in his statement. “Has the woman been found?”

“Yes. I discovered her yesterday,” he replied. “You discovered her! Then she is here, in Nice?”

“Yes, strangely enough, she is here.”

“What’s her name?”

“Mariette Lepage.”

Instantly her face went pale as death.

“Mariette Lepage!” she gasped hoarsely.

“Yes. The woman whose strange letter was found upon Nelly after her death,” he answered. “What my father could have known of her I am utterly at a loss to imagine.”

“And she is actually here, in Nice,” she whispered in a strange, terrified voice, for in an instant there had arisen before her vision the dark angry eyes of the woman in mask and domino who had pelted her so unmercifully on that Sunday afternoon during Carnival.

“Yes, she is here,” he said, glancing at her sharply. “She was evidently well acquainted with poor Nelly. What do you know of her?”

“I – I know nothing,” she answered in an intense, anxious tone, as one consumed by some terrible dread. “Mariette Lepage is not my friend.”

And she sat panting, her chin sunk upon her breast as if she had been dealt a blow.

Chapter Sixteen

The Golden Hand

When a few minutes later they rose Liane declared that she must return to lunch; therefore they walked together in the sun-glare along the Promenade, at that hour all but deserted, for the cosmopolitan crowd of persons who basked in the brilliant sunshine during the morning had now sought their hotels for déjeûner. Few words they uttered, so full of gloom and sadness were both their hearts. Liane had insisted that this must be their last meeting, but time after time he had declared that he would never allow her to marry Zertho, although he could make no suggestion whereby she could escape the cruel fate which sooner or later must overwhelm her.

They had strolled about half-way towards the villa in which she and the Captain were staying, when suddenly he halted opposite a short narrow lane, which opened from the Promenade into the thoroughfare running parallel – the old and narrow Rue de France. On either side were high garden walls, and half-way along, these walls, taking a sudden turn at right angles, opened wider; therefore the way was much narrower towards where they stood than at the opposite end.