William Le Queux - If Sinners Entice Thee

George took the paper in his trembling fingers and read the six long lines of writing, the ink of which was scarcely yet dry. Three times he read them ere he could understand their exact purport. The cold formal words crushed all joy from his heart, for he knew, alas! that the woman he loved could never be his.

It was the death-warrant to all his hopes and aspirations. He could not now ask Liane to be his wife.

With set teeth he sighed, flung down the will upon the table with an angry gesture, and casting himself again into his armchair, sat staring straight before him without uttering a word.

In addition to being cruel and unjust the codicil was certainly of a most extraordinary character. By it there was bequeathed to “my son George Basil Stratfield” the sum of one hundred thousand pounds on one condition only, namely, that within two years he married Mariette, daughter of a certain Madame Lepage, whose address was given as 89, Rue Toullier, Paris. If, however, it was discovered that Mariette was already married, or if she refused to accept the twenty thousand pounds that were to be offered her on condition that she consented to marry his son, then one-half the amount, namely, 50,000 pounds, was to be paid by the executors to George, and the remaining 50,000 pounds, together with the 20,000 pounds, was to revert to his elder brother.

“It certainly is a most extraordinary disposition,” old Mr Harrison reflected aloud, taking up the will again, and re-reading the words he had written at his dead client’s dictation.

“How does my father think I can marry a woman I’ve never seen?” cried the son. “Why, the thing’s absolutely absurd. He must have been insane when he ordered you to write such a preposterous proposal.”

“No, he was entirely in his right mind,” answered the elder man, calmly. “I must confess myself quite as surprised as you are; nevertheless, it is certain that unless you offer marriage to this mysterious young person you will obtain nothing.”

“It is my father’s vengeance,” the son cried, in a tone full of bitterness and disappointment. “I desire to marry Liane, the woman I adore, and in order to prevent me he seeks to bind me to some unknown Frenchwoman.”

“Well, in any case, effort must be made to find her,” Harrison observed. “You surely will not let fifty thousand pounds slip through your fingers. There is a chance that she is already married, or that she will refuse the twenty thousand pounds which I shall be compelled to offer her.”

“But I will only marry Liane,” George cried, impetuously.

“My dear young man, yours is a mere foolish fancy. You cannot, nay you must not, render yourself a pauper merely because of this girl, who happens to have attracted you just for the moment. In a year’s time you will regard the matter from a common-sense point of view. Your proper course is to give up all thought of the young lady, and unite with me in the search for this mysterious Mariette Lepage.”

“I decline to abandon Liane,” George answered with promptness. “If I am a pauper, well, I must bear it. My ruin is, I suppose, the last of my father’s eccentricities. I’m the scapegoat of the family.”

“It is, nevertheless, my duty to advise you,” the elder man went on, standing before the empty fireplace with his arms folded. “In any case I shall be compelled to find this woman. Have you never heard your late father speak of any family of the name of Lepage?”

“Never. He has not been out of England for twenty years, therefore I suppose it’s someone he knew long ago. What could have been his object?”

“As far as I could glean it was twofold. First, he believed that the fact of having left this sum just beyond your reach would cause you intense chagrin; and, secondly, that if you did not marry this unknown woman, you will still be unable to marry the girl against whom he held such a strange deep-rooted objection.”

“Why did he object to her, Harrison? Tell me confidentially what you know,” urged the young man earnestly.

“I only know what he told me a few days ago,” the solicitor replied. “He said he had ascertained that you had taken many clandestine walks and rides with Liane Brooker, and he declared that such a woman was no fitting wife for you.”

“Did he give any further reason?” the other demanded.

“None. He merely said that if you declined to abandon all thought of her you should not have a penny.”

“And he has kept his word,” observed George, gloomily.

“Unfortunately it appears so.”

“He was unjust – cruelly unjust!” George protested. “I strove hard at the Bar, and had already obtained a few briefs when he recalled me here to be his companion. He would not allow me to follow my profession, yet he has now cast me adrift without resources.”

“You certainly have my entire sympathy,” the old lawyer declared, kindly. “But don’t take the matter too much to heart. The woman may be already married. In this case you will receive fifty thousand.”

George’s face relaxed into a faint smile.

“I have no desire to hear of or see the woman at all,” he answered. “Act as you think fit, but remember that I shall never offer her marriage – never.”

“She may be a pretty girl,” suggested the elder man.

“And she may be some blear-eyed old hag,” snapped the dead man’s son. “It is evident from the wording of the clause that my father has heard nothing of either mother or daughter for some years.”

“That’s all the more in your favour; because if she is thirty or so, the chances are that she is married. At all costs we must discover her.”

“The whole thing is a confounded mystery,” George observed. “Who these people are is an enigma.”

“Entirely so,” the solicitor acquiesced. “There is something exceedingly mysterious about the affair. The combined circumstances are bewildering in the extreme. First, the lady you admire bears a French name, next your father hates her because of some fact of which he is aware regarding her family, and thirdly, in order to prevent you marrying her, he endeavours by an ingenious and apparently carefully-planned device, to induce you to wed a woman whose existence is unknown to us all. He was not a man who acted without strong motives, therefore I cannot help suspecting that behind all this lies some deep mystery.”

“Mystery! Of what character?”

“I have no idea. We must first find Mariette Lepage.”

“My future wife,” laughed George bitterly, rising wearily from his chair.

“Yes, the woman who is to receive twenty thousand pounds for marrying you,” repeated the solicitor smiling.

“No, Harrison,” declined the young man as he moved slowly across the room with head slightly bent. “I’ll never marry her, however fascinating she may be. Liane is pure and good; I shall marry only her.”

And opening the door impatiently he snatched up his cap, strode along the hall, and out to where his man held the bay mare in readiness.

“Ah, well!” Harrison muttered aloud when he was alone. “We shall see, young man. We shall see. I thought myself as shrewd as most men, but if I’m not mistaken there’s a mystery, strange and inexplicable, somewhere; a mystery which seems likely to lead to some amazing developments. It’s hard upon poor George, very hard; but if my client was so foolish as to desire the family skeleton to be dragged from its chest his kith and kin must of necessity bear the consequences.”

With a word to Morton, most exemplary of servants, George sprang into the saddle, and a moment later was galloping down the long straight avenue. The brilliant afterglow had now faded, dusk had fallen, and he feared that Liane, having kept the appointment, would have left disappointed and returned home. Therefore he spurred the mare onward, and was soon riding hard towards the unfrequented by-road known as Cross Lane.