If Sinners Entice Thee

“No,” observed Liane, with a forced smile. To her also the name of d’Auzac was synonymous of cunning, brutality, and unscrupulousness. She pictured to herself the great mountain stronghold, a grim, grey relic of an age of barbarism, the lonely dreary place peopled by ghosts of an historic past, that was to be her home, in which she was to live with this man who held her enthralled. Then she shuddered.

Her hostess noticed it, wondered, but attributed it to the draught from the open window. To her it was inconceivable that any girl could refuse Prince Zertho’s offer of marriage. He was one of the most eligible of men, his polished manner had made him a favourite everywhere, and one heard his wealth discussed wherever one visited. Either of her own daughters would, she knew, be only too pleased to become Princess.

Liane, although nothing of a coquette, was nevertheless well enough versed in the ways of the world to be tactful when occasion required, and at this moment strenuously strove not to betray her world-weariness. Although consumed by grief and despair she nevertheless smiled with feigned contentment, and a moment later with an air so gay and flippant that none would guess the terrible dread which was wearing out her young life, joined in the light amusing chatter with Madame’s daughters.

“We saw you at Monte Carlo last night,” one of the girls exclaimed, suddenly, addressing Zertho.

“Did you?” he answered, with a start. “I really saw nothing of you.”

“We were quite close to you,” observed her sister, “You were sitting with Captain Brooker, and were having quite a run of good fortune when, suddenly, you both jumped up and disappeared like magic. We tried to attract your attention, but you would not glance in our direction. Before we could get round to you you had gone. Why did you leave so quickly?”

“We wanted to catch our train,” Zertho answered, a lie ever ready upon his lips. “We had only three minutes, and just managed to scramble in.”

“Did you notice a fine, handsome-looking woman at the table, a woman in blue dress trimmed with silver?” asked Madame Bertholet.

Zertho again started. In a second, however, he recovered his self-possession.

“I am afraid I did not,” he replied with a smile.

“I was too intent upon the game. Besides,” and he paused, glancing at Liane, “female beauty ought not to attract me now.”

They all laughed in chorus.

“Of course not,” Madame agreed. “But the woman wore such a gay costume, and was altogether so reckless that I thought you might have noticed her. Everybody was looking at her. I was told that she is a well-known gambler who has won huge sums at various times, and is invariably so lucky that she is known to habitués of the table as ‘The Golden Hand.’”

“Everything her hand touches turns to gold – eh?” Zertho hazarded. “I only wish my fingers possessed the same potency. It must be delightful.”

“But she’s not at all a desirable acquaintance, if all I hear is true,” Madame observed. “Do you know nothing of her by repute?”

“I fancy I’ve heard the sobriquet before,” he replied. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice her. Did she win?”

Liane and the Prince exchanged significant glances. “Yes, while we watched she won, at a rough estimate, nearly twenty thousand francs,” one of the girls said.

“A friend who accompanied us told us all about her,” Madame observed. “Hers has been a most remarkable career. It appears that at one time she was well-known in Paris as a singer at La Scala, and the music halls in the Champs Elysées, but some mysterious circumstance caused her to leave Paris hurriedly. She was next heard of in New York, where she was singing at the music halls, and it was said that she returned to France at the country’s expense, but that, on being brought before the tribunal, the charge against her could not be substantiated, and she was therefore released. Subsequently, after a strange and chequered life, she turned up about four years ago at Monte Carlo, and became so successful that very soon she had amassed a considerable sum of money. To the attendants and those who frequent the Casino she is a mystery. For sheer recklessness no woman who comes to the tables has her equal; yet she is invariably alone, plays at her own discretion without consulting anyone, and with a thoroughly business-like air, speaks to scarcely anybody, and always rises from the table at eleven, whether winning or losing. Indeed, ‘The Golden Hand’ is altogether a most remarkable person.”

“Curious,” observed Zertho, reflectively. “I wish I had noticed her. You say she was sitting at our table?”

“Yes,” answered one of the girls. “She sat straight before you, and because you were winning she watched you closely several times.”

“Watched me!” he exclaimed, dismayed.

“Yes,” answered the girl, with a laugh. “Why, you speak as if she possessed the evil eye, or something! She’s smart and good-looking certainly, but I don’t think Liane need fear in her a rival.”

“Scarcely,” he answered, with a forced smile. But the alarming truth possessed him that Mariette had surreptitiously watched Brooker and himself before they had discovered her presence. He reproached himself bitterly for having gone to Monte Carlo that night, yet gambler that he was he had been unable to resist the temptation of the tables once again ere they left the Riviera.

But the woman known as “The Golden Hand” had watched them both, and by this time most probably knew where they were living. Neither he nor the Captain had any idea that Mariette Lepage still hovered about the tables, or they would certainly never have set foot inside the Principality.

Liane in her cool summer-like gown sat in a low wicker lounge-chair and listened to this description of the notorious woman without uttering a word. She dared not trust herself to speak lest she should divulge the secret within her breast. She had grown uncomfortable, and only breathed more freely when, ten minutes later, they made their adieux and began to descend the Boulevard back to Nice.

“So your old friend Mariette has seen you!” she exclaimed, as soon as they had walked twenty paces from the house.

“Yes,” he snapped. “Another illustration of my accursed luck. The sooner we leave Nice the better.”

“Very well,” she answered, with a weary sigh. She did not tell him that she had already ascertained from George Stratfield that “The Golden Hand” had been to Nice.

“We must leave for Paris,” he said briefly. “It will not be wise to run too great a risk. If she chooses she can make things extremely unpleasant.”

“For you?”

“No,” he answered, turning quickly towards her. “For you.”

She held her breath; the colour fled from her cheeks. He lost no opportunity of reminding her of the terrible past, and as he glanced at her and watched the effect of his words he saw with satisfaction that he still held her in a thraldom of fear.

“I thought she had left France,” he continued, as if to himself. “I had no idea that she was still here. Fortune must have been kind to her of late.”

Liane said nothing. She had not failed to notice his anxiety when Mademoiselle Bertholet had explained how Mariette had watched him, and she wondered whether, after all, he feared this remarkable woman who had played such a prominent part in their past lives; this notorious gambler who was her bitterest foe.

She was already tired of Nice, and recognised that to remain longer was only to endanger herself. The Nemesis she had so long dreaded seemed to be closing upon her.

In the Boulevard Carabacel they took an open cab to drive home, but while crossing the Place opposite the Post Office they encountered George Stratfield walking. As he passed he raised his hat to Liane, and she greeted him with a smile of sadness.

Zertho noticed the young Englishman, and his bearded face grew dark.

“What! So your lover is also here!” he exclaimed in surprise, turning to catch another glance of the well set-up figure in light grey tweed. She had carefully concealed from him and from her father the fact that George had come to Nice.

“Yes,” she answered simply, looking straight before her.

“Why did you hide the truth from me?” he demanded angrily.

“Because the knowledge that he was here could not have benefited you,” she answered.

“You have met him, of course, clandestinely,” he said, regarding her with knit brows.

“I do not deny it.”

“And you have told him, I hope, that you are to be my wife?”

“I have,” she sighed.

“Then you must not meet again. You understand,” he exclaimed fiercely. “Send the fellow back to London.”

She bit her lip, but made no answer. Her eyes were filled with tears. Without any further words they drove rapidly along the Promenade, at that hour chill after the fading of the sun, until the cab with its jingling bells pulled up before the Pension, and Liane alighted. For an instant she turned to him, bowing, then entered the villa.

Her father was out, and on going into her own room she locked the door, cast down her sunshade, tossed her hat carelessly aside, and pushing her hair from her fevered brow with both hands, stood at the open window gazing aimlessly out upon the sea. A sense of utter loneliness crept over her forlorn heart. She was, she told herself, entirely friendless, now that her father desired her to marry Zertho. Hers had been at best a cheerless, melancholy life, yet it was now without either hope, happiness, or love. The sea stretching before her was like her own future, impenetrable, a great grey expanse, dismal and limitless, without a single gleam of brightness, growing every instant darker, more obscure, more mysterious.

Thoughts of the man she loved so fondly surged through her troubled mind. She remembered how sad and melancholy he had looked when she had passed him by; how bitterly he had smiled when she bowed to him. The memory of his dear face brought back to her all the terrible past, all the hopelessness of the future, all the hideousness of the truth.

She sank beside her bed, and burying her face in the white coverlet gave way to her emotion, shedding a torrent of tears.

The dusk deepened, the twilight faded and darkness fell, still she sobbed on, murmuring constantly the name of the one man on earth she loved.

A low tapping at the door aroused her, and thinking it was her father she hastily dried her eyes and stumbled blindly across the dark room to admit him. It was, however, the Provençal femme de chambre, who handed her a note, saying in her quaint patois —

“A letter for Mademoiselle. It was brought a minute or two ago by a man who gave it to me, with strict injunctions to give it only into Mademoiselle’s own hands.”

“Thank you, Justine,” she answered, in a low hoarse voice, then, closing the door again, she lit a candle, and mechanically tearing open the note found that it was dated from the Villa Fortunée, Monaco, and signed by Mariette. In it the woman who was her enemy made a strange request. She first asked that she should say no word to her father or to Zertho regarding the receipt of the note or inform them of her address, and then, continuing, she wrote: “To-morrow, at two o’clock, call upon George Stratfield, who is, as you know, staying at the Grand Hotel, and he will bring you over here to my house. It is imperative that I should see you. Fear nothing, but come. George is my friend, and he will be awaiting you.”

Chapter Eighteen

Sinned Against

Liane’s first inclination was not to comply with the request, for knowing the crafty nature of this woman, she feared that the words had been written merely to place her off her guard. Yet immediately after luncheon at the Villa Chevrier on the following day she declared her intention of going down to the English library to get some books, and leaving her father and the Prince smoking over their liqueurs, went out upon the Promenade. As soon, however, as she was out of sight of the windows of the villa, she hailed a passing cab and drove to the Grand Hotel, where she found George sitting in a wicker-chair in the doorway, consoling himself by smoking a cigarette and awaiting her.

“You have come at last,” he cried, approaching the carriage. “Don’t get out. We will drive straight to the station,” and stepping in, he gave the man directions.

“What does this mean?” inquired Liane, eagerly.

“I cannot tell its meaning, dearest,” he answered. “I merely received a note, saying that you would call for me on your way to Monaco.”

“Have you no idea why she desires to see both of us?”

“None whatever,” he replied.

“You have found her,” she observed in a deep, earnest tone. “In my letter she says that you are her friend. You don’t know her true character, I suppose,” his well-beloved added, looking earnestly into his eyes. “If you did you would not visit her.”

“She lives in an air of the most severe respectability,” he said. “I dined at the Villa Fortunée the night before last, and found her an extremely pleasant hostess.”

She smiled. Then, while driving along the Avenue de la Gare to the station she told him of Mariette’s past in similar words to those used by Madame Bertholet. He sat listening eagerly, but a dark shadow crossed his features when, in conclusion, she added, “Such, unfortunately, is the woman who is to be bribed to marry you.”

They alighted, obtained their tickets, crossed the platform, and entered the rapide. It was crowded with people going to Monte Carlo, and the tunnels rendered the journey hot, dusty and unpleasant. Nevertheless the distance was not far, and when half-an-hour later they were ascending the steep winding way which led up to the rock of Monaco, Liane’s heart sank within her, for she feared that she was acting unwisely.

“It is very remarkable that Mariette should have written to us both in this manner,” George was saying as he strolled on beside the pale-faced graceful girl. “Evidently she desires to consult us upon some matter of urgency. Perhaps it concerns us both. Who knows?”

“It may,” she answered mechanically. “She is not, however, a person to trust. Women of her character have, alas! neither feeling nor honour.”

“Is she, then, so notoriously bad?” he asked in surprise.

“You know who and what I am,” she answered, turning to him, her grave grey eyes fixed upon his. “I have been forced against my inclination to frequent the gambling-rooms through months, nay years, and I knew Mariette Lepage long ago as the most vicious of all the women who hovered about the tables in search of dupes.”

By her manner he saw that she was annoyed, and jealous that he should have visited and dined with this woman so strangely referred to in his father’s will, and he hastened to re-assure her that there was but one woman in the world for him.

“Then you will not marry her?” she cried eagerly. “Do not, for my sake. If you knew all you would rather cast the money into yonder sea than become her husband.”

“Well,” he said, “it is imperative that she should be offered the bribe to become my wife. If she refuses I shall gain fifty thousand pounds. I have thought of buying her refusal by offering to divide equally with her the sum I shall obtain.”

“Excellent!” she cried, enthusiastically. “I never thought of that. If she will do so the cruel punishment your father intended will be turned to pleasure, and you will be twenty-five thousand pounds the richer.”

“I will approach her,” he said, after brief hesitation. “You know, darling, that I love you far too well to contemplate marriage with any other woman.”

“But remember, I can never become your wife,” she observed huskily, her eyes behind her veil filled to overflowing with tears. “I am debarred from that.”

“Ah! no,” he cried, “don’t say that. Let us hope on.”

“All hope within me is dead,” she answered gloomily. “I care nothing now for the future. In a few brief days we are leaving here, and I shall say farewell, George, never again to meet you.”

“You always speak so strangely and so dismally,” he said. “You will never tell me anything of the reason you are so irrevocably bound to Zertho. In the old days at Stratfield you always took me into your confidence.”

“Yes, yes,” she answered, quickly. “I would tell you everything if I could – but I dare not. You would hate me.”

“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 attitude, 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 assist 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 Fortunée 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 habitué 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 sex. 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. “Circumstances have combined to weave about you a web in which you have become enmeshed. You are held by bonds which, alone and unassisted, 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 passion, 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.”