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.