"Don't speak like that, Liane," he protested. "You surely must know how heavily those cruel words you spoke at Monte Carlo have fallen upon me. How can I have happiness when I know that ere long we must part?" They had crossed the road, and were entering the public garden in order that passers-by should not overhear their conversation, for in Nice half the people in the streets speak or understand English. "Yes," she sighed gloomily. "I know I ought not to have spoken like that, George. Forgive me, I know that happiness is not for me, yet I am trying not to wear my heart upon my sleeve." "But what compels you to marry this man, who was once an adventurer and swindler, and is still unscrupulous? Surely such a man is no fitting husband for you?" Liane glanced at him quickly in surprise. If her lover knew of Zertho's past he would no doubt have learnt that her father had also earned a precarious livelihood by his wits. "Already I have told you that a secret tie binds me irrevocably to him," she answered huskily, as slowly, side by side, they strolled beneath the trees. "It must be broken, whatever its nature," he said quickly. "Ah! I only wish it could be," she answered wistfully, again sighing. "I am compelled to wear a smiling face, but, alas! it only hides a heart worn out with weariness. I'm the most wretched girl in all the world. You think me cruel and heartless--you believe I no longer love you as I did--you must think so. Yet I assure you that day by day I am remembering with, regret those happy sunny days in Berkshire, those warm brilliant evenings when, wandering through the quiet leafy lanes, we made for ourselves a paradise which we foolishly believed would last always. And yet it is all past--all past, never to return." He saw that she was affected, and that tears stood in her eyes. "Life with me has not the charm it used then to possess, dearest," he said, in a low, intense tone, as together they sat upon one of the seats. "True, those days at Stratfield were the happiest of all I have ever known. I remember well how, each time we parted, I counted the long hours of sunshine until we met again; how, when I was away from your side, each road, house and tree reminded me of your own dear self; how in my day-dreams I imagined myself living with you always beside me. The blow came--my father died. You were my idol. I cared for nothing else in the world, and before he died I refused to obey his command to part from you." "Why," she asked quickly, "did your father object to me?" "Yes, darling, he did," he answered. This was the first time he had told her the truth, and it had come out almost involuntarily. "Then that is why he acted so unjustly towards you?" she observed, thoughtfully. "You displeased him because you loved me." He nodded in the affirmative.