"Whatever may be thenature of your secret, tell me, and let me advise you. Together we willfrustrate Zertho's plans, whatever they may be."
"Any such attempt would only place me in greater peril," she pointedout.
"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 whisperedhoarsely. "Therefore I cannot tell you."
"Your secret cannot be of such a nature as to cause that, Liane," hesaid 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," sheanswered quickly.
"Our days of bliss have passed and gone, and with them all hope hasvanished. They were full of a perfect, peaceful happiness, because youloved me with the whole strength of your soul, and I idolised you inreturn. Hour by hour the remembrance of those never-to-be-forgottenhours spent by your side comes back to me. I remember how quiet andpeaceful the English village seemed after the noise, rattle andincessant chatter of a gay Continental town, how from the first momentwe met, I, already world-weary, commenced a new life. But it is allpast--all gone, and I have now only before me a world of bitterness anddespair." And she turned her pale face from his to hide the tears whichwelled in her eyes.
"You say you were world-weary," he observed in a low tone. "I do notwonder 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 lifeof worry and privation yours must have been, dearest. Yet you told menothing of it!"
She looked at him, but her gaze wavered beneath his.
"I told you nothing because I feared that you would not choose thedaughter 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 whohave lived in the undesirable set that I have."
"Quite so," he admitted. "Nevertheless, knowing how pure and noble youare, dearest, this fact does not trouble me in the least. I am stillready, nay, anxious, to make you my wife."
She shook her head gravely. Her hand holding her sunshade trembled asshe retraced the semicircle in the dust.
"No," she exclaimed at last. "If you would be generous, George, leaveme and return to London. In future I must bear my burden myself;therefore, it is best that I should begin now. To remain here isuseless, for each time I see you only increases my sadness; each time wemeet brings back to me all the memories I am striving so hard toforget."
"But I cannot leave you, Liane," he declared decisively. "You shall notthrow yourself helplessly into the hands of this unscrupulous manwithout 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 amcompelled 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 meyou will depart, and leave me to bear my sorrow alone."
"I refuse to obey you," he answered, firmly. "Already you know thatbecause I loved you so well I have borne without regret my father'saction in leaving me almost penniless. Since that day I have worked andstriven with you always as my pole-star because you had promised to bemine. Your photograph looked down at me always from the mantelshelf ofmy dull, smoke-begrimed room. It smiled when I smiled, and wasmelancholy when I was sad. And the roses and violets you have sent fromhere made my room look so gay, and their perfume was so fresh that theyseemed to breathe the same sweet odour that your chiffons always exhale.Your letters were a little cold, it is true; but I attributed that tothe fact that in Nice the distractions are so many that correspondenceis always sadly neglected. Picture to yourself what a blow it was to mewhen, on the terrace at Monte Carlo, you told me that you had anotherlover, and that you intended to marry him. I felt--"
"Ah!" she cried, putting up her little hand to arrest the flow of hiswords, "I know, I know. But I cannot help it. I love you still--Ishall love you always. But our marriage is not to be."
He paused in deep reflection. There was one matter upon which he hadnever 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, hedecided.
"I have already told you the cause which led my father to treat me sounjustly, Liane," he said, looking at her seriously, "but there is oneother fact of which I have never spoken. My father left me aconsiderable sum of money on condition that I married a woman whom I hadnever seen."
"A woman you had never seen!" she exclaimed, at first surprised, thenlaughing at the absurdity of such an idea.
"Yes. It was his revenge. I would not promise to renounce all thoughtof you, therefore, in addition to leaving me practically a pauper, hemade a tantalising provision that if I chose to marry this mysteriouswoman, of whom none of my family knew anything, I was to receive acertain sum. This woman must, according to the will, be offered a largesum as bribe to accept me as husband, therefore ever since my father'sdeath his solicitors have been endeavouring to discover her."
"How extraordinary!" she said, deeply interested in his statement. "Hasthe 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 herdeath," he answered. "What my father could have known of her I amutterly 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 visionthe dark angry eyes of the woman in mask and domino who had pelted herso unmercifully on that Sunday afternoon during Carnival.
"Yes, she is here," he said, glancing at her sharply. "She wasevidently well acquainted with poor Nelly. What do you know of her?"
"I--I know nothing," she answered in an intense, anxious tone, as oneconsumed by some terrible dread. "Mariette Lepage is not my friend."
And she sat panting, her chin sunk upon her breast as if she had beendealt a blow.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
THE GOLDEN HAND.
When a few minutes later they rose Liane declared that she must returnto lunch; therefore they walked together in the sun-glare along thePromenade, at that hour all but deserted, for the cosmopolitan crowd ofpersons who basked in the brilliant sunshine during the morning had nowsought their hotels for dejeuner. Few words they uttered, so full ofgloom and sadness were both their hearts. Liane had insisted that thismust be their last meeting, but time after time he had declared that hewould never allow her to marry Zertho, although he could make nosuggestion whereby she could escape the cruel fate which sooner or latermust overwhelm her.
They had strolled about half-way towards the villa in which she and theCaptain were staying, when suddenly he halted opposite a short narrowlane, which opened from the Promenade into the thoroughfare runningparallel--the old and narrow Rue de France. On either side were highgarden walls, and half-way along, these walls, taking a sudden turn atright angles, opened wider; therefore the way was much narrower towardswhere they stood than at the opposite end.
"Let us go down here," George suggested. "There is more shade in thestreet, and you can then reach your villa by the back entrance."
"No," she answered, glancing with repugnance at the narrow lane, andturning away quickly. He fancied she shuddered; but, on glancing at theclean little thoroughfare only about a hundred paces in length, he coulddetect nothing which could cause her repulsion, and at once reassuredhimself that he had been mistaken.
"But it is so terribly hot and dazzling along h
ere," he urged.
"You should carry a sun-umbrella," she smiled. "But there, I supposemen don't care to be seen with green ginghams."
"But surely this glare upon the footway hurts your eyes," he continued."It is so much cooler in the Rue de France."
"No," she replied. And again he thought he detected a gesture ofuneasiness as, turning from him, she walked on, her sunshade lowered tohide her face. Puzzled, he stepped forward and quickly caught her up.There was, he felt certain, some hidden reason why she declined to passalong that small unnamed lane. But he did not refer to the