think that I have beenfalse to you. It is not my fault; I swear it is not. A fate, cruel andterrible has overwhelmed me."
For a moment he stood rigid as one transfixed.
"What is the man's name?" he inquired at last, in a hard, strained tone.
She stood silent for several moments, then slowly, without raising herhead, answered,--
"Zertho."
"His surname, I mean," he demanded.
"Prince Zertho d'Auzac," she replied, in a low, faltering voice.
He knit his brows. The title was to him sufficient proof that the womanhe loved so dearly had forsaken him in order to obtain wealth andposition. She would be Princess d'Auzac. It was the way of the world.
"And why have you kept the truth from me?" he demanded, in a harsh tonefull of reproach.
"Because I feared you--because--because I loved you, George," shesobbed.
"Love!" he echoed. "Surely you cannot love me if you can preferanother?"
"Ah! no," she cried in protestation. "I knew you would misjudge me; youwhom I loved so dearly and still love."
"Then why marry this man, whoever he is?" he interrupted fiercely. Hesaw her words were uttered with an intense earnestness. There stillburned in her eyes the unmistakable light of fond passion. "Because Imust."
"You must? I don't understand."
Her cold lips moved, but no sound came from them. In vain she tried tosuppress the fierce tumult of feelings that raged within her breast. Hewas endeavouring to wring her secret from her! the secret of Zertho'sinfluence. No, he should never know. It was terrible, horrible; itsvery thought appalled her. To save her father from exposure, disgrace,and something worse she was compelled to renounce her love, sacrificeherself, and marry the man she despised and hated.
"I have promised to marry the Prince d'Auzac because I am compelled,"she said briefly, in a low, firm voice.
"What renders it imperative?" he demanded, his face dark and serious.
"My own decision," she answered, struggling to remain calm.
"You have decided, then, to discard my love," he said fiercely. "Youprefer being the wife of a Prince rather than of a struggling barrister.Well, perhaps, after all your choice is but natural."
"I do not prefer," she declared, passionately. "Cannot you see, George,that there are circumstances which compel me to act as I am acting?Heaven knows, I have suffered enough, because you are the only man I canlove."
"Then why not remain mine, darling?" he said, more tenderly, with aslight pressure of her hand as he gazed with intense earnestness intoher tear-dimmed eyes. "We love one another, therefore why should bothour lives be wrecked?"
"Because it is imperative," she answered, gloomily.
"But what motive can you have in thus ruining your future, and castingaside all chance of happiness?" he inquired, puzzled.
"It is to secure my future, not to ruin it, that I have promised tomarry the Prince," she answered.
"And for no ulterior motive?"
"Yes," she faltered. "There is still another reason."
"What is it? Tell me."
"No, George," she answered in a low, hoarse voice. "Do not ask me, forI can never tell you--never."
"You have a hidden motive which you refuse to explain," he observedresentfully. "I have placed faith in you; surely you can trust me,Liane!"
"With everything, save that."
"Why?"
"It is a secret which I cannot disclose."
"Not even to me?"
"No, not even to you," she answered, pale to the lips. "I dare not!"
He remained silent in perplexity. A bevy of bright-faced, laughinggirls passed them in high spirits, counting as they went by the cointhey had won at the tables. Liane turned her face from them to hide heremotion, and stood motionless, leaning still upon the balustrade. Thesun was sinking behind the great dark rock whereon was perched Monaco,and the mountains were already purple in the mystic light of evening.
"Why are you so determined that we should separate, darling?" he asked,in a low, pained voice, bending down towards her averted face. "Surelyyour Prince can never love you as devotedly as I have done!"
"Ah! George," she cried, with a tender passion in her glance as sheagain turned to him, "do not tempt me. It is my duty, and I have givena pledge. I have never loved Prince Zertho, and I never shall. Minewill be a marriage of compulsion. In a few short weeks I shall bidfarewell to hope and happiness, to life and love, for I shall becomePrincess d'Auzac and lose you for ever."
"As Princess you may obtain many of the pleasures of life. Far morethan if you were my wife," he observed, in a hollow tone, as if speakingto himself.
"No, no," she protested. "The very name is to me synonymous of all thatis hateful. Ah! you do not know, George, the terrible thoughts thatseem to goad me to madness. Often I find myself reflecting whetherdeath would not be preferable to the life to which I am now condemned.Yet I am held to it immutably, forced against my will to become thisman's wife, in order that the terrible secret, which must never bedisclosed, may still remain where it is, locked in the breast of the oneman who, by its knowledge, holds me irrevocably in his power."
"Then you fear this Prince Zertho?" he said slowly, with deep emphasis.She seemed quite unlike the laughing, happy girl he had known at home intheir quiet rural village. Her strange attitude of abject dejection anddespair held him stupefied.
"Yes," she answered hoarsely, after a long pause, "I dare not disobeyhim."
"From your words it would seem that your crime is of such a terriblenature that you dare not risk exposure. Is that so?" he hazarded in ahard voice, scarcely raised above a whisper.
"My crime!" she cried, all colour instantly dying out of her handsomeface, while in her clear, grey eyes was a strange expression as if shewere haunted by some fearsome spectre of the past. Her white lipsquivered, her hands trembled, "What do you mean?" she gasped. "What doyou know of my crime?"
Next instant she started, her lips held tight together as she drewherself up unsteadily with a sudden movement.
She knew that she had involuntarily betrayed herself to the man sheloved.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
LIP-SALVE.
In a room on the second floor of an old, high, dingy-looking house inone of the dingiest back streets near the flower-market in Nice sat aman and a woman. The room was lofty, with a ceiling which had once beenpainted but had now faded and fallen away in great flakes, while thefurniture was frayed and shabby. The shutters of the two long windowswere closed, and the place was lit by a cheap shaded lamp suspended inthe centre, its light being too dim to sufficiently illuminate the wholeapartment. Beneath the circle of light stood a table marked in squares,and in its centre a roulette-wheel.
The man, lying lazily back in an armchair, smoking a long cigar, wasabout thirty-five, dark, with well-cut aquiline features, in which craftand intelligence were combined, a small pointed moustache, and a pair ofkeen black eyes full of suspicion and cunning. His companion was old,perhaps sixty, lean, ill-attired and wizened, her face being almostbrown as a toad's back, her body bent, and her voice weak and croaking.
They sat opposite to one another, talking. Around the walls there weretacked copies of a leaflet headed, in huge black capitals, "The Agony ofMonte Carlo," which declared that the advertiser, an Englishman whooffered his services to the public, had vanquished the hazard, and wasthe only person who could gain indefinitely at either roulette ortrente-et-quarante. He had solved the puzzling problem of "How to Win."
The French in which the circular was printed was not remarkable for itsgrammar or diction, but it was certainly a brilliant specimen ofadvertisement, and well calculated to entrap the unwary. Copies of ithad for several weeks been widely distributed in the streets of Nice,flung into passing cabs, or handed to those who took their daily airingon the Promenade, and it had given rise to a good deal of comment.Among many other remarkable statements, it was alleged that thediscoverer of this infalli
ble method had gained five hundred francs anhour upon an ordinary capital of five francs, and so successful had beenhis play that the Administration of the Casino, in order to avert theirown ruin, had denied him any further card of admission. The remarkableperson declared further that so certain was he of success that he wasprepared to place any stake against that of any person who doubted, andto allow the player to turn the roulette himself. To those who arrangedto play under his direction the circular promised the modest gain of onemillion two hundred thousand francs a month! Truly the remarkablecircular was aptly headed "The Agony of Monte Carlo."
The inventor