Part 30 (1/2)
”How extraordinary!” she said, deeply interested in his statement. ”Has the 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 hoa.r.s.ely.
”Yes. The woman whose strange letter was found upon Nelly after her death,” he answered. ”What my father could have known of her I am utterly 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 vision the dark angry eyes of the woman in mask and domino who had pelted her so unmercifully on that Sunday afternoon during Carnival.
”Yes, she is here,” he said, glancing at her sharply. ”She was evidently well acquainted with poor Nelly. What do you know of her?”
”I--I know nothing,” she answered in an intense, anxious tone, as one consumed by some terrible dread. ”Mariette Lepage is not my friend.”
And she sat panting, her chin sunk upon her breast as if she had been dealt a blow.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
THE GOLDEN HAND.
When a few minutes later they rose Liane declared that she must return to lunch; therefore they walked together in the sun-glare along the Promenade, at that hour all but deserted, for the cosmopolitan crowd of persons who basked in the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne during the morning had now sought their hotels for dejeuner. Few words they uttered, so full of gloom and sadness were both their hearts. Liane had insisted that this must be their last meeting, but time after time he had declared that he would never allow her to marry Zertho, although he could make no suggestion whereby she could escape the cruel fate which sooner or later must overwhelm her.
They had strolled about half-way towards the villa in which she and the Captain were staying, when suddenly he halted opposite a short narrow lane, which opened from the Promenade into the thoroughfare running parallel--the old and narrow Rue de France. On either side were high garden walls, and half-way along, these walls, taking a sudden turn at right angles, opened wider; therefore the way was much narrower towards where they stood than at the opposite end.
”Let us go down here,” George suggested. ”There is more shade in the street, and you can then reach your villa by the back entrance.”
”No,” she answered, glancing with repugnance at the narrow lane, and turning away quickly. He fancied she shuddered; but, on glancing at the clean little thoroughfare only about a hundred paces in length, he could detect nothing which could cause her repulsion, and at once rea.s.sured himself that he had been mistaken.
”But it is so terribly hot and dazzling along here,” he urged.
”You should carry a sun-umbrella,” she smiled. ”But there, I suppose men 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 of uneasiness as, turning from him, she walked on, her sunshade lowered to hide her face. Puzzled, he stepped forward and quickly caught her up.
There was, he felt certain, some hidden reason why she declined to pa.s.s along that small unnamed lane. But he did not refer to the subject again, although after he had left her he pondered long and deeply upon her curious att.i.tude, and in walking back to the town he turned into the narrow pa.s.sage and pa.s.sed through it to the Rue de France, whence he took the tram down to the Place Ma.s.sena.
A dozen times had she urged him to leave her and return to London, but so full of mystery seemed all her actions that he was more than ever determined to remain and strive to elucidate the reason of her dogged silence, and solve the curious problem of her strange inexplicable terror.
It was plain that she feared Mariette Lepage, and equally certain also that this mysterious woman who feigned to be her friend was nevertheless her bitterest foe. The reason of her visit to him was not at all plain.
Her inquiries regarding the tragic circ.u.mstances of Nelly Bridson's death were, he felt confident, mere excuses. As he sat in the tram-car while it jogged slowly along the narrow noisy street, it suddenly occurred to him that from her he might possibly obtain some information which would lead him to an explanation of Liane's secret.