If Sinners Entice Thee

“Three months.”

“And has he proposed to you?”

“He has,” she faltered, blushing more deeply.

He drew a long breath, rose slowly, and pulling aside the white blind, looked out as if in search of something. In truth, he was hesitating whether he should speak to her at once, or wait for some other opportunity. Turning to her at last, however, he said briefly, in a low, pained tone, —

“You must break off the engagement, Liane. You cannot marry him.”

“Cannot!” she gasped, her face turning pale. “Why?”

“Listen,” he continued huskily, coming closer to her, laying his big hand upon her shoulder, and looking down upon her tenderly. “Through all these years of prosperity and adversity you alone have been the one bright joy of my life. Your existence has kept me from going to the bad altogether; your influence has prevented me from sinking lower in degradation than I have already sunk. For me the facile pleasures of a stray man have ceased, because, for your sake, Liane, I gave up the old life and returned here to settle and become respectable. I admit that our life in England is a trifle tame after what we’ve been used to, but it will not, perhaps, be always so. At present my luck’s against me and we must wait in patience; therefore do not accept the first man’s offer of marriage. Life’s merely a game of rouge-et-noir. Sometimes you may win by waiting. Reflect well upon all the chances before you stake the maximum.”

“But George loves me, dad, and his family are wealthy,” she protested, meeting her father’s earnest gaze with her large grey eyes, in which stood unshed tears.

“I don’t doubt it, my girl,” he answered huskily. “I was young once. I, too, thought I loved a woman – your mother. I foolishly believed that she loved me better than anyone on earth. Ah! You wring from me my confession, because – because it should serve you as a lesson.” And he paused with bent head, while Liane held his strong but trembling hand. “It is a wretched story,” he went on in a low, harsh voice, “yet you should know it, you who would bind yourself to this man irrevocably. At the time this woman came into my life I was on leave down in the South of France, with wealth, happiness and bright prospects. I loved her and made her my wife. Then I went with my regiment to India, but already my future was blasted, for within a year of my marriage the glamour fell from my eyes and I knew that I had been duped. A fault committed by her threw such opprobrium upon me that I was compelled to throw up my commission, leave her and go back to England. I could not return to my friends in London, because she would discover and annoy me; therefore I have drifted hither and thither, falling lower and lower in the social scale, until, ruined and without means, I became a common blackleg and swindler. But it belongs to the past. It is dead, gone – gone for ever. Those years have gone and my youth has gone. I’ve lived like other men since then. Heaven knows it has not been a life to boast of, Liane. There have been days and years in it when I dared not trust myself to remember what had been – days of madness and folly, and months of useless apathy. Ah!” he sighed, “I was straight enough before my marriage, but my life was wrecked solely by that woman.”

His daughter listened intently, and when he had finished she echoed his deep sigh. Her father had never before told her the tragic story. She had always believed that her mother died of fever in India a year after marriage.

“Then my mother is not dead?” she observed reflectively.

“I do not know. To me she has been dead these eighteen years,” he answered, with a stern look upon his hard-set features. A lump rose in his throat, and in his eye there was a suspicion of a tear.

“Was she like me?” Liane asked softly, still holding her father’s hand and looking up at him.

“Yes, darling,” he replied. “Sometimes when you look at me I shrink from you because your eyes are so like hers. She was just your age when I married her.”

There was a long and painful silence. The hearts of father and daughter were too full for words. They were indeed an incongruous pair. He was a reckless gamester, a cunning adventurer, whose career had more than once brought him within an ace of arrest, while she, although prematurely versed in the evil ways of a polyglot world, where the laws of rectitude and morality were lax, was nevertheless pure, honest and good.

“But, dear old dad, why may I not marry George?” she asked when, after thinking deeply over the truth regarding her parentage, her mind reverted to thoughts of the man she loved.

“I cannot sufficiently explain the reason now,” he answered vaguely. “Some day, when I am aware of all the facts, you shall know.”

“But I can love no other man,” she exclaimed decisively, with eyes downcast.

“You know my wish, Liane,” her father answered rather coldly. “I feel sure you will endeavour to respect it.”

“I cannot, father! I really cannot!” she cried starting up. “Besides, you give me no reason why I should not marry.”

“I am unable to explain facts of which I am as yet unaware,” he said, withdrawing his hand.

“We love each other, therefore I cannot see why you should object.”

“I do not doubt that there is affection between you, but my objection is well based, I assure you, as some day you will be convinced.”

“Have you any antipathy against George personally?”

“None whatever; I rather like him,” he said. “I only tell you in plain, straightforward terms that your marriage with him is impossible, therefore the sooner you part the better;” and opening the door, he slowly left the room.

Deep in thought, Liane stood leaning against the table, in the same position as Zertho had stood when he had asked the captain for her hand. Evidently her father entertained some deep-rooted prejudice against the Stratfields; nevertheless, after calm reflection, she felt confident that sooner or later she could over-rule his objection, and persuade him to adopt her view, as she had done on previous occasions without number.

On the following afternoon a double funeral attracted hundreds of persons to the churchyard of Stratfield Mortimer, where Nelly Bridson was laid to rest in a plain grave, beneath a drooping willow, and the body of Sir John Stratfield, fourteenth baronet, was placed in the family vault, among his ancestors. When the interments were over, George met Liane and managed to whisper a few words to her. It was an appointment, and in accordance with his request, she went at sundown along the chestnut avenue to the Court, and was at once shown to the library, where her lover awaited her.

Her mourning became her well. His quick eyes detected that her black dress, though not new, bore the unmistakable cut of the fashionable dressmaker. Her figure, perfect in symmetry, was shown to advantage by her short, French corset, and the narrow band of black satin that begirt her slim waist.

“I have to offer my apologies to you, dearest,” he said, when the servant had closed the door. “At the inquest I was bound to openly confess that we had met clandestinely.”

“What apology is needed?” she asked, smiling. “We love each other, and care nothing for what the world may think.”

“That is true,” he answered, deep in thought. “But I – I have an announcement to make to you, which I fear must cause you pain.”

“An announcement! What?”

“I must leave you.”

She stood before him, looked quickly into his face, and turned pale.

“Leave me!” she gasped.

“Yes. I find, alas, I am compelled to go.”

“And only the day before yesterday you asked me to become your wife!” she cried, reproachfully. “What have I done that you should treat me thus?”

“Nothing. You have done nothing, Liane, only to fascinate me and hold me irrevocably to you,” he answered, looking earnestly into her clear, beautiful eyes. He paused. His soul was too full for utterance. Then at length he said, “I have asked you here this evening to tell you everything, for when I leave here, I fear it will be never to return.”

“Why?” she asked, looking him full in the face, with a puzzled expression.

“Because I am not wealthy, as is generally believed,” he replied, colouring deeply as he met her searching gaze. “It is useless to deceive you, therefore I must tell you the hideous truth. My father has thought fit to leave his whole fortune to my brother, and allow me to go penniless. I am therefore unable to marry.”

Liane’s lips had grown white with fear and astonishment. “And that is the reason you now intend to forsake me!” she gasped.

He bowed his head.

She passed her hand over her eyes. Her soul was in a tumult. She, too, fondly wished to believe that he actually loved her, to trust the evidence of what she saw. His words were a trifle ambiguous, and that was sufficient to fill her with uncertainty. Jealous of that delicacy which is the parent of love, and its best preserver, she checked the overflowings of her heart, and while her face streamed with tears, placed her hand protestingly upon his arm.

“Forgive me!” he cried with increased earnestness. “I know I have wronged you. Forgive me, in justice to your own virtues, Liane. In what has passed between us I feel I ought to have only expressed thanks for your goodness to me; but if my words or manner have obeyed the more fervid impulse of my soul, and declared aloud what should have been kept secret, blame my nature, not my presumption. I am ruined, and I dare not look steadily on any aim higher than your esteem.”

“Ah! do not speak to me so coldly,” the girl burst forth passionately. “I cannot bear it. You said you loved me,” and she sobbed bitterly.

“I have loved you, dear one, ever since we first met,” he answered quickly. “I love you now, even better than my life. But alas! a mysterious fate seems to govern both of us, and we are compelled to part.”

“To part!” she wailed. “Why?”

“Ere long my brother will come to take possession of this place, for it is no longer my home,” he answered, in a low, pained tone. “I shall go away to London and try to eke out a living at the Bar. For a young man without means the legal profession is but a poor one at best,” he sighed; “therefore marriage being out of the question, I am compelled to tell you the plain honest truth, and release you.”

“Release me!” she echoed wildly. “I do not desire release. I love you, George.”

“But you do not love me sufficiently to wait through the long, dark days that are at hand?” he cried, surprised at her passionate declaration! “Remember, I am penniless, without hope, without prospects, without anything save my great affection for you!”