If Sinners Entice Thee Part 35

"Hate you. Why?"

"You could no longer grasp my hand or kiss my lips," she faltered. "No, you must not, you shall not know, for I could not bear that you of all men should spurn me, leave me, and remember me only with loathing. I could not bear it. I would rather kill myself."

She was trembling, her breast rose and fell with the exertion of the steep ascent, and her face was blanched and haggard. Her att.i.tude, whenever he referred to Zertho, always mystified and puzzled him. Had she not spoken vaguely of some strange crime?

Yet he loved her with all the strength of his being, and the sight of her terrible anxiety and dread pained him beyond measure. He was ready and willing to do anything to a.s.sist and liberate her from the mysterious thraldom, nevertheless she preserved a silence dogged and complete. He strove to discern a way out of the complicated situation, but could discover none.

"Have you ever been to the Villa Fortunee before?" he asked presently, after a long and painful silence, when they had crossed the sunny square before the Prince's palace, and were strolling along the road which skirted the rock with the small blue bay to their left and the white houses of Monte Carlo gleaming beyond.

"No," she answered. "I had no idea Mariette, `The Golden Hand,' lived here. She used always to live at the little bijou villa in the Rue Cotta at Nice."

"The Golden Hand!" he exclaimed, laughing. "Why do you call her that?"

"It is the name she has earned at the tables because of her extraordinary good fortune," Liane answered. "Her winnings at trente-et-quarante are said to have been greater perhaps than any other player during the past few years."

At that moment the road turned sharply, almost at right angles, and Liane found herself before the great white house where lived the notorious gambler, the woman whose powdered, painted face every habitue of Monte Carlo knew so well, and whose luck was the envy of them all.

She read the name of the villa upon the marble tablet, and for a moment hesitated and held back, fearing to meet face to face the woman she held in fear. But George had already entered the gateway and ascended the steps, and she felt impelled to follow, a few moments later taking a seat in the cool handsome salon where the flowers diffused a sweet subtle perfume, and the light was softly tempered by the closed sun-shutters.

Liane and her lover sat facing each other, the silence being complete save for the swish of the sea as it broke ever and anon upon the brown rocks deep below. A moment later, however, there was a sound of the opening and shutting of doors, and with a frou-frou of silk there entered "The Golden Hand."

She wore an elegant dress of pale mauve trimmed with velvet, and as she came forward into the room a smile of welcome played upon her lips, but George thought she looked older and more haggard than when he had visited her only two days before.

Closing the door quietly behind her, she crossed almost noiselessly to where they were seated, and sinking upon a settee expressed pleasure at receiving their visit.

"I was not exactly certain whether you would come, you know," she exclaimed, with a coquettish laugh. "I was afraid Liane would refuse."

"You told me that you were her friend," he said.

"And that was the entire truth," she answered.

Liane faced her, her countenance pale, her lips parted. She had held back in fear when this woman had entered, but the calm expression and pleasant smile had now entirely disarmed her suspicions. Yet she feared lest this woman whom she had known in the old days, should divulge the secret she had kept from her lover. George, the man she adored, was, she knew, fast slipping away from her. On the one hand she was forced to marry Zertho, while on the other this very woman, whom she feared, was to be bribed to accept her lover as husband. Liane looked into her face and tried to read her thoughts. But her countenance had grown cold and mysterious.

"You were not always my friend," she said at last, in a low, strained tone.

"No, not always," the woman admitted, in English. "I have seldom been generous towards my own s.e.x. I was, it is true, Liane, until recently, your enemy," she added, in a sympathetic tone. "I should be now if it were not for recent events."

"You intend, then, to prove my friend," Liane gasped excitedly, half-rising from her chair. "You--you will say nothing."

"On the contrary, I shall speak the truth."

"Ah, no," she wailed. "No, spare me that. Think! Think! surely my lot is hard enough to bear! Already I have lost George, the man I love."

"Your loss is my gain," Mariette Lepage said slowly. "You have lost a lover, while I have found a husband."

"And you will marry him--you?" she cried, dismayed.

"I know what are your thoughts," the other said. "My reputation is unenviable--eh?"

Liane did not answer; her lover sat rigid and silent.

"Well," went on the woman known at the tables as "The Golden Hand," "I cannot deny it. All that you see here, my house, my furniture, my pictures, the very clothes I wear, I have won fairly at the tables, because--well, because I am, I suppose, one of the fortunate ones.

Others sit and ruin themselves by unwise play, while I sit beside them and prosper. Because of that, I am pointed out by men and women as a kind of extraordinary species, and shunned by all save the professional players to whom you and I belong. But," she added, gazing meaningly at Liane, "you know my past as well as I know yours."

The words caused her to turn pale as death, while her breath came and went quickly. She was in momentary dread lest a single word of the terrible truth she was striving to hide should involuntarily escape her.

"Yes," Liane said, "I knew you well when I went daily to the Casino, and have often envied you, for while my father lost and lost you invariably won and crammed handsful of notes into your capacious purse. At first I envied you, but soon I grew to hate you."

"You hated me, because even into my hardened heart love had found its way," she said reproachfully.

"I hated you because I knew that you loved only gold. I had seen sufficient of you to know that you had no higher thought than of the chances of the red or the black. You had been aptly nicknamed `The Golden Hand.'"

"And I, too, envied you," the other said. "I envied you your grace and your beauty; yet often I felt sorry for you. You seemed so jaded and world-weary, although so young, that it was a matter of surprise that they gave you your carte at the Bureau."

"Now, strangely enough, we are rivals," Liane observed.

"Only because you are beneath the thrall of one who holds you in his power," Mariette answered. "You love each other so fervently that I could never be your rival, even if you were free."

"But, alas! I am not free," she said, in deep despondency, her eyes downcast, her head resting upon her hand.

"True," said the other, shrugging her shoulders. "Circ.u.mstances have combined to weave about you a web in which you have become enmeshed.

You are held by bonds which, alone and una.s.sisted, you cannot break asunder."

Liane, overcome with emotion she could no longer restrain, covered her face with her hands and burst into a torrent of tears. In an instant her lover was beside her, stroking her hair fondly, uttering words of sympathy and tenderness, and endeavouring to console her.

Mariette Lepage sat erect, motionless, silent, watching them.

"Ah!" she said slowly at length, "I know how fondly you love each other.

I have myself experienced the same grief, the same bitterness as that which is rending your hearts at this moment, even though I am believed to be devoid of every pa.s.sion, of every sentiment, and of every womanly feeling."

"Let me go!" Liane exclaimed, in a voice broken by sobs, rising unsteadily from her chair. "I--I cannot bear it."

"No, remain," the woman said in a firm tone, a trifle harsher than before. "I asked you here to-day because I wished to speak to you. I invited the man you love, because it is but just that he should hear what I have to say."

"Ah!" she sobbed bitterly. "You will expose me--you who have only just declared that you are my friend!"

"Be patient," the other answered. "I know your fear. You dread that I shall tell a truth which you dare not face."

She hung her head, sinking back rigidly into her chair with lips compressed. George stood watching her, like a man in a dream. He saw her crushed and hopeless beneath the terrible load upon her conscience, held speechless by some all-consuming terror, trembling like an aspen because she knew this woman intended to divulge her secret.

With all his soul he loved her, yet in those painful moments the gulf seemed to widen between them. Her white haggard face told him of the torture that racked her mind.

"Speak, Liane," he cried in a low intense tone. "What is it you fear?

Surely the truth may be uttered?"

"No, no!" she cried wildly, struggling to her feet. "No, let me leave before she tells you. I knew instinctively that, after all, she was not my friend."

"Hear me before you judge," Mariette exclaimed firmly.