Swirling Waters

"What's that?"

"That you stay on at Monte for a few days. I don't want to be left here alone. I hate being alone."

"I'm due back in London. Urgent business matters."

"Leave them for a few days. Leave them to your managers. Stay here and amuse me."

Larssen knew when to give way—or seem to give way—and how to do so gracefully.

"I'll stay on without asking any conditions," he answered with flattering cordiality. "It's not often I get a command so pleasant to carry out!"

CHAPTER XI
A LETTER FROM RIVIÈRE

Why had he not come to Monte Carlo as arranged? Why had he sent no line to Olive to excuse himself? Why had he made no further inquiry about Clifford Matheson—or had he indeed made some inquiry which might set him on the track of his brother's disappearance?

It was vital to know how matters stood with this John Rivière before he could march forward unhesitatingly with the Hudson Bay flotation.

The result of the advertisements in the Paris newspapers was annoying. Where the shipowner had hoped for one answer—or perhaps a couple pointing in the same direction—over a dozen had been received. This meant waste of precious time while Sylvester unravelled them. Over the 'phone Larssen and his secretary had discussed the various answers; rejected some of them; wired for confirmatory details in respect of others. Provincial hotel-keepers and railway guards were so keenly "on the make" that they were ready to swear to identity on the slenderest basis of fact.

In pursuit of two of the clues, Sylvester travelled as far north as Valognes in the Cotentin, and as far east as Gérardmer in the Hautes-Vosges. Both journeys were fruitless, and worse than fruitless—waste of precious time and energy.

While Larssen waited eagerly for definite news from his secretary with whom he kept constantly in touch by telegram, news came in unexpected fashion through Olive.

"I've just heard from Rivière," she announced. "He's at Arles—down with a touch of fever. That's the reason he hadn't written before. Those scientist people are terribly casual in social matters."

"May I see the letter?" asked Lars Larssen. His reason for asking was a desire to study the man's handwriting and draw conclusions from it. He was a keen student of handwriting.

After he had read through the note he remarked drily: "I guess I can give you another reason."

"For his not writing?"

"Yes.... Cherchez la femme."

"Why do you say that?"

"This note was written by a woman."

"It's a very decided hand for a woman."

"Yes it is. I'd stake big on that. Look at the long crossings to the t's. Look at the way the date is written. Look at the way words run into one another."

Olive examined the letter carefully, and laughed. "You're right," said she. "He's travelling with some woman. Those men who are supposed to be wrapped up in their scientific experiments—you can't trust them far!"

Then she added with a curious touch of conscious virtue: "But he'd no right to get that woman to send a letter to me."

Larssen had noted the printed heading to the letter, "Hotel du Forum, Arles," and he wired at once to Morris Sylvester to proceed to Arles and hunt out further details. It seemed an unnecessary precaution, but the shipowner never neglected the tiniest detail when he had a big scheme to engineer.

His relief at the letter proved short-lived. Late that night came a message from Sylvester:—

"Rivière not at Arles and not down with fever. Am following up further clues. Will wire again in the morning."

Larssen did not show this wire to Olive. He had told her nothing of his search for Rivière—had not even appeared specially interested in him. But in point of fact his interest in the mysterious half-brother of the dead man was steadily growing with every fresh check to the search. The intuition on which he placed such firm faith told him insistently that John Rivière was a factor vital to the fulfilment of his ambitions.

All the morning he looked for the telegram his secretary was to send him. It came in the early afternoon:—

"Have found Rivière under extraordinary circumstances. Letter and photograph follow."

CHAPTER XII
THE SECOND MEETING

Nîmes had captured Rivière at sight. His first day in that leisured, peaceful, fragrant town, nestling amongst the hills against the keen mistral, had decided him to settle there for some weeks. He had taken a couple of furnished rooms in a villa with a delightful old-world garden. For a lengthy stay he much preferred his own rooms to the transiency and restlessness of a hotel, and at the Villa Clémentine he had found exactly what he required. The living-room opened wide to the sun. One stepped out from its French windows into the garden, where a little pebbly path led one wandering amongst oleanders and dwarf oranges and flaming cannas, to a corner where a tiny fountain made a home for lazy goldfish floating in placid contentment under the hot sun. Here there was an arbour wreathed in gentle wisteria, where Rivière took breakfast and the mid-day meal. At nightfall a chill snapped down with the suddenness of the impetuousness Midi, and his evening meal was accordingly taken indoors.

Besides this little private preserve of his own, there was the beautiful public garden of Nîmes—called the Jardin de la Fontaine—draping a hillside that looks down upon the marble baths of the Romans, almost as freshly new to-day as two thousand years ago. A thick battalion of trees at the summit of the hillside makes stubborn insistence to the northern mistral, so that even when the wind tears over the plains of Provence like a wild fury, scourging and freezing, the Jardin de la Fontaine is serene and windless. The mistral goes always with a cloudless sky, as though the clouds were fleeing from its icy keenness, and the sun pours full upon the semi-circle of the Jardin de la Fontaine, turning it to a hothouse where the most delicate plants and shrubs can find a home.

Here men and women in toga and flowing draperies have whiled away leisure hours, spun day-dreams, made love, or schemed affairs of state and personal ambition. To-day, it is still the resort of Nîmes where everyone meets everyone else, either by design or by the chance intercourse of a small town.

On a morning of mistral, Rivière was seated in the pleasant warmth of the Jardin, planning out a special piece of apparatus for his coming research-work. He was concentrating intently—so intently that he did not notice Miss Verney passing him with a very professional-looking campstool, easel and sketch-book.

This second encounter was pure accident. Elaine had no intentions whatever of following the man who had left Arles with such boorish brusqueness, without even the conventional good-bye at the breakfast-table. She had come to Nîmes because she was a worker, because this town contained special material necessary to her bread-winning.

She had guessed that Rivière's hurried departure from Arles was made in order to avoid meeting her. It hurt. Woman-like, she set more value on a few pleasant words of farewell over a breakfast-table and a warm handshake than on a defence from assault at the risk of a man's life. The seeming illogicality of woman is of course a mere surface illusion. It hides a train of reasoning very different to a man's. It is a mental short-cut like an Irishman's "bull," which condenses a whole chain of thought into a single link.

In this case Elaine knew that Rivière's rescue held no personal significance. He did not know at the time that it was she who was being attacked. He would have gone to the defence of any woman under similar circumstances. While altruism appealed to her strongly in a broad, general way, it did not appeal when it came home in such a specific, individual fashion.

On the other hand, a warm handshake at the breakfast-table would have its personal significance. It would be a homage to herself, and not to women in general. Its value would lie in its personal meaning.

While she knew this thought was ungenerous, yet at the same time she knew that behind it there lay a sound basis of reason.

Her pride—that form of pride which is a very wholesome self-respect—made her flush at the thought that Rivière would see her and imagine, in a man's way, that she had followed him to Nîmes. She hurried on past him with a rapid side-glance. The situation was an awkward one. She had her work to do by the old Roman baths and the Druid's Tower on the hillside, and she could not leave Nîmes without doing it.

When he came face to face with her, perhaps it would be best to give a cold bow of formal recognition—the kind of bow that says "Good morning. I'm busy. You're not wanted."

And yet, there was news for him in her possession of which he ought to be informed. It was only fair to the man who had defended her at considerable personal risk that she should do him this small service in return. In her pocket was a cutting of an advertisement in a Parisian paper, several days old, asking for the whereabouts of John Rivière. Very possibly he had not seen it himself. It was only fair to let him know of it. The stitches in his forehead, which she had noted as she hurried past—these called mutely for the small service in return.

Elaine decided to wait until he recognized her, to give him the advertisement, and then to conclude their acquaintanceship with a few formal words of which the meaning would be unmistakable. Accordingly she set her campstool not far away from him, and began her sketching in a vigorous, characteristic fashion.

It was an hour or more before her intuition warned her that Rivière was approaching from behind. As he passed, she raised her eyes quite naturally as though to look at the subject she was finishing. Their eyes met. Rivière raised his hat politely but without any special significance. His attitude conveyed no desire to renew their acquaintance. He did not stop to exchange a few words, as she expected.

Elaine was hurt. She felt that he should at least have given her the opportunity to refuse acquaintanceship. And a sudden resolve fired up within her to humble this man of ice—to melt him, and bring him to her feet, and then to dismiss him.

"Mr Rivière," she called.

He stopped, and answered with a formal "Good morning."

"I have something for you—some news."

"Yes?"

"Do you know that your friends are getting anxious about you?"

Rivière's attention concentrated. "Which friends?" he asked.

"I don't know which friends. But there's an advertisement in a Paris paper asking for your whereabouts."

"Thank you for letting me know. What does it say?"

She produced the cutting and handed it to him. He studied it in silence. There was no hint in its wording as to who was making inquiry—the advertisement merely asked for replies to be sent to a box number care of the journal. It struck Rivière that it must have been inserted by Olive.

"Thank you," he said. "I hadn't seen it before."

"I'm going to ask something in return," said Elaine, and smiled at him frankly. "I want to know why you're running away from your Monte Carlo friends."

Most women of Rivière's world would have cloaked their curiosity under some conventional, indirect form of question. Her frank directness struck him as refreshing, and he answered readily: "The lady you saw in the Côte d'Azur Rapide was my sister-in-law, Mrs Matheson. Mrs Clifford Matheson."

"The wife of that man!" she interrupted. There was anger and contempt in her voice.

"You know him?"

"My father lost the last remains of his money in one of that man's companies. It hastened his death."

"Which company?"

"The Saskatchewan Land Development Co. My father bought during the early boom in the shares."

Rivière remembered that he himself had cleared £50,000 over the flotation, and the remembrance jarred on him. The company was a moderately successful one, but in its early days the shares had been "rigged" to an unreal figure. Still, he felt compelled, almost against his will, to defend his past action.

"Did he buy for investment or merely for speculation?" asked Rivière.

"I know very little about such matters."

"As an investment, it would to-day be paying a moderate dividend."

"My father had to sell again at a big loss."

"It sounds very like speculation."

"Possibly."

"I'm very sorry to hear of the loss; but a man who speculates in the stock market must look out for himself. It's a risky game for the outsider to play."

Elaine silently recognized the truth of his words. Then it came to her suddenly that Rivière had, a few moments ago, used the word "sister-in-law," and she said: "I was forgetting that Mr Matheson must be a relative of yours."

"My half-brother."

She looked at him with a searching frankness that was in its way a tacit compliment. He was radically different to the mental picture she had formed of the financier.

He continued: "The lady you saw in the train was my sister-in-law. As you already know, she expects me to join her at Monte Carlo. I don't want to be drawn into that kind of life. I want to remain quiet. I have important work to do."

"Scientific work, isn't it?"

"Yes. And there's a big stretch of it in front of me. That's why I'm not travelling on to Monte Carlo. You understand my position now, Miss Verney?"

"Quite."

"I'm right in calling you Miss Verney?"

"Yes." Then she added: "And you're wondering why an unmarried woman should be wandering alone amongst the by-ways of France?"

"I can see that you also have work to do."

Rivière looked towards her almost finished sketch of the Roman baths. She removed it and passed him the rest of the book. He found the book filled with curiously formal sketches and paintings of scenery—woodland glades, open heaths, temples, arenas, and so on. These sketches caught boldly at the high-lights of what they pictured, and ignored detail. The colouring was also very noticeably simplified—"impressionistic" would better express it.

"They look like stage scenes," he commented.

"They are. Sketches for stage scenes. I'm a scene painter. Just now I'm gathering material for the staging of a Roman drama with a setting in Roman Provence. Barrèze is to produce it at the Odéon. It's my first big chance."

Rivière pointed to one of her sketches. "Wasn't this worked into a scene for 'Ames Nues,' at the Chatelet?"

"Quite right!"

"I remember being very much impressed by it at the time.... Yours must be particularly interesting work?"

"The work one likes best is always peculiarly interesting. That's happiness—to have the work one likes best."

Seeing that Rivière was genuinely interested, she began to dilate on her work, explaining something of its technique, telling of its peculiar difficulties. She showed him her sketches taken at Arles; mentioned Orange, for its Roman arch and theatre, as a stopping-place on her return journey to Paris. There was a glow in her voice that told clearly of her absorption in her chosen work.

Rivière was enjoying the frank camaraderie of their conversation. Suddenly the thought of the newspaper cutting came back to him sharply. If Olive had inserted that advertisement, she must have some special reason for it. Perhaps she wanted to communicate with him in reference to the "death" of Matheson. Some hotel-keeper or railway-guard would no doubt have seen the advertisement and answered it, letting her know of Rivière's stay at Arles.

It would be prudent to write and allay suspicion. But he could not pen the letter himself, because his handwriting would be recognized by Olive.

Rivière solved the difficulty in his usual decisive fashion. "Miss Verney," he said, "I wonder if you would do me a very big favour without asking for my reasons in detail? It's a most unusual request I'm going to make."

Elaine remembered her resolve to thaw this man of ice, and bring him to her feet, and then dismiss him. She had thawed him already. To do him some special favour would be a most excellent means of attaining the second end. She answered:

"Anything in reason I'll do gladly."

"You know that I want to avoid Monte Carlo. I don't even want my sister-in-law to know that I'm at Nîmes."

"Yes?"

"Will you write a letter for me to say that I'm unwell and can't travel away from Arles?"

Elaine looked at him searchingly. "It's certainly a most unusual request to make of a mere acquaintance," she remarked.

"I have good reasons for asking it."

"Then I'll do what you ask."

"Would you mind coming round to my rooms?"

"Certainly; if you'll wait until I've finished this sketch."

She worked on in silence for another quarter of an hour, completing her picture with rapid, vigorous brush-strokes. Then he took up her campstool and easel, and they walked together alongside the Roman aqueduct to the centre of the town, under an avenue of tall, spreading plane trees, yellow with the first delicate leaves of Spring like the feathers of a newborn chick.

The sunshine caressed the little garden of the Villa Clémentine, coquetting with the flaming cannas, twinkling amongst the pebbles of the paths, stroking the backs of the lazy goldfish. Seating Elaine in the arbour, Rivière brought out pen and ink and a sheet of paper headed "Hotel du Forum, Place du Forum, Arles," which he happened to have kept by accident from his visit to the town. Then he dictated a formal letter to Mrs Matheson, explaining that he was laid up with a touch of fever and would not be able to join her at Monte Carlo. The illness was not serious, and there was no cause for anxiety. Nevertheless it kept him tied. He hoped she would excuse him.

"There will be a Nîmes postmark on the envelope," commented Elaine as she wrote the address.

"No; I shall go over to Arles this afternoon and post it there. As you know, it's scarcely an hour away by train." He glanced at his watch. "Past twelve o'clock already! Won't you stay and take lunch with me? Madame Giras is famous in Nîmes for her bouillabaisse."

She agreed readily, and a dainty lunch was soon served them in the covered arbour. Over the olives and bouillabaisse and the œufs provençals they chatted in easy, friendly fashion about impersonal matters—the strange charm of Provence, art, music, the theatre.

From that the conversation passed imperceptibly to more personal matters. Elaine, keeping to her resolve of the morning, led it in that direction. He learnt that she was an orphan; that her nearest relatives were entirely out of sympathy with her ideas and aspirations, and profoundly distasteful to her; that she took full pride in her independence and the position she was carving out for herself in the world of theatrical art.

"To be free; to be independent; to live your own life; to know that you buy your bread and bed with the money you've earned yourself—it's fine, it's splendid!" said Elaine, with flushed cheek. "I wonder if men ever have that feeling as strongly as we women do?"

"'To be free, sire, is only to change one's master,'" quoted Rivière.

"'Master' is a word I should rule out of the dictionary," she replied.

"And if ever your present freedom were suddenly denied to you by Fate?"

She shivered, and moved a little into the full blaze of the sunshine.

In the afternoon Rivière took train to Arles. The way lies by vineyards and olive orchards alternating with open, wind-swept heathland. The stunted olive trees, twisted and gnarled, pictured themselves to him as little old men worn and weary with their fight against the winds. Here the mistral was master and the olive trees his slaves.

At Arles Rivière posted his letter in a box on the platform of the station, and asked of a porter when the next train would take him back to Nîmes. Standing close by as he asked this question was a lean, wiry, crafty-looking peasant of the Camargue—a hard-bit youth toughened by his work on the soil. The most prominent feature of the face was the nose smashed out of shape. Rivière did not know that it was he himself who had left that life-mark on the young man only a few days before—he had almost forgotten the incident—but the latter recognized Rivière at once and went white with anger under the tanned skin.

Whilst he would have taken a blow from the knife as "all in the game," a smash from a bare fist that made a permanent disfigurement was completely outside his code of sportsmanship. He resented it with the white-hot passion of the Midi.

The meeting was pure chance. Crau, the young Provençal, was on the station to take train back to his home village in the marshes. Now he made a sudden resolution, and going to the booking-office, asked for a ticket for Nîmes. He had relations in that town—small tradespeople—and he would pay a visit to them for a few days.

"Our game is not yet finished, Mr Englishman," he muttered to himself. "No, not yet finished!"

When the train reached Nîmes, Rivière alighted from a first-class compartment, quite unconscious of being followed by the young Provençal from a third-class compartment. Outside the station, in the broad Avenue de la Gare that leads to the heart of the town, Rivière hailed a cab and gave the address, Villa Clémentine.

Crau was near enough to overhear.

"Villa Clémentine," he repeated to himself, and again "Villa Clémentine," to fit it securely in his memory. Then his lips worked with passionate revenge as he thought: "You have spoilt my looks, Mr Englishman; and now, sangredieu, to spoil yours!"

Before going to his relations, he went first to a chemist's.

CHAPTER XIII
AT THE MAISON CARRÉE

But that thought she thrust aside. She had her work to do in the world—the work that she loved. It called imperiously for all her energies. She was free, she was independent, her daily bread was of her own buying; and she wished circumstances to remain as they were.

Elaine decided to give up her petty resolve. She would avoid meeting him intentionally, and if they met, she would bring the plane of conversation down again to the superficiality of mere tourist acquaintanceship—"meet to-day and part to-morrow."

For his part, Rivière had found keen enjoyment in this frank camaraderie. They met as equals on the mental plane. Both were profoundly interested in their respective life-work. They held ideas in common on a score of impersonal topics. He told himself that he had behaved very boorishly in his abrupt departure from Arles. It had been unnecessary, as Chance had now pointed out to him by this second accidental encounter. This acquaintanceship was the merest passing of "ships that pass in the night"—in a day or two she would be away and back to Paris, and in all human probability they would never meet again.

It was generous of her to have greeted him as though she had not noticed the abruptness of his departure from Arles. It was generous of her to have clipped out the newspaper advertisement and to have called his attention to it. He mentally apologized to her for his curt behaviour.

The next morning, Rivière did not find Elaine at the Jardin de la Fontaine. He wanted to meet her. He wanted to let her know indirectly what he was feeling. And so, almost unconsciously, he found himself walking away from the Jardin towards the centre of the town, towards the ruined arena and the Roman temple known as the Maison Carrée. Most probably she would be sketching at one or other of them.

He found her at the Maison Carrée—a square Roman temple on which Time has laid no rougher hand than on a white-haired mother still rosy of cheek and young of heart. Elaine was sketching it in her book with the bold lines of the scene-painter, ignoring detail and working only for the high-lights and deep shadows. Round her, peeking over her shoulders and chattering shrilly, were a group of children. In the background lounged a young Provençal peasant with a nose twisted out of shape.

"Shall I lure the children away?" asked Rivière as he raised his soft felt hat.

"Thanks—it would be a relief," answered Elaine, but with a coldness in her greeting that struck him as curious.

A few coppers scattered the children; the peasant slunk sullenly away. His eye and Rivière's met, but there was no recognition on the part of the latter.

"Are you working this morning?" asked Elaine presently.

"No, I'm learning." He nodded towards her sketch-book. "May I continue the lesson?"

"Compliments are barred," she replied stiffly. "I neither give nor take them."

Rivière groped mentally for the reason of this curious change of attitude. Yesterday she had been frankly friendly; to-day she held herself distinctly aloof. Had he offended her in some way?

He continued soberly. "I'm not paying insincere compliments. It isn't your sketch which interests me so much as your method of sketching. The directness of it. The way you get to the heart of the subject without worrying over detail. The incisiveness. I'm mentally applying your method to the problems of my own work.... To stand here and watch you sketching is pure selfishness on my part."

"Like other men, you imagine that women can't get beyond detail." A flush had come into her voice. "All through the ages men have been learning from women and refusing to acknowledge it."

"In which sphere?"

"In every sphere."

"Particularize."

"Take novel-writing. Men sneer at the woman-novelist—say that she cannot draw a man to the life."

"It's largely true."

"What's the reason? Because one can't draw to any satisfaction without models to base on. Because a man never lets a woman into his innermost thoughts."

"That argument ought to cut both ways."

"It doesn't. Women give up their innermost secrets to men because——Well, because woman is the sex that gives and man the sex that takes. It's been bred in and in through the whole history of civilization."

"Woman the sex that gives? That reverses the usual idea."

"You're thinking of the things that don't matter—money, jewels, dress, mansions, servants. Those are the cheap things that man gives in return for the gifts that are priceless."

Rivière shook his head. "You argue only from a limited knowledge of the world. There are plenty of women who take everything—everything—and give nothing in return. Perhaps you don't know such women. I do."

"You mean women of the underworld? They are as men make them."

"No, I'm thinking of femmes du monde. There are plenty of virtuous married women who are as grasping as the most soulless underworlder. Probably you don't see them. You look at the world in a magic crystal that mirrors back your own thoughts and your own personality in different guises. You see a thousand YOU's, dressed up as other people."

Elaine had become very thoughtful. "My magic crystal—yes." she mused. "But surely everyone has his or her crystal to look into."

"Some can keep crystal-vision and reality apart. That's 'balance' ... And there lies the failure of the feminists—in 'balance.' They make up a bundle of all the iniquities of human nature, and try to dump it on man's side of the fence."

"I love argument, but art is long and my stay at Nîmes very brief. To-morrow I must move on to Orange."

"Then I'll not disturb you further. I expect you have a good deal to get through."

"Yes. This afternoon it's the Pont du Gard; this evening the Druids' Tower."

"This evening! The place is very lonely at night-time."

"I know. But I must sketch it in moonlight. That's essential."

"Remember Arles," warned Rivière. "You ought not to be alone."

She nodded. "I know. But I have my work to do."

Rivière felt uneasy over the matter. He did not wish to urge an undesired escort upon her, but he did not like to think of her working alone by the solitude of the Druids' Tower at night-time.

"If I can be of any service to you while you are here at Nîmes," he said, "you have only to send a note to the Villa Clémentine."

With that he said good-bye and left her. It seemed evident that he had offended her in some way. Possibly, he thought, it was by asking her to write that letter to Olive. Though she had agreed willingly enough at the time, it was possible that afterwards she had regretted it. It had offended against her sense of right. Rivière felt distressed.

Then the remembrance came to him that this was the merest tourist acquaintanceship. To-morrow she would be leaving Nîmes, and the episode would pass out of her thoughts. Probably they would never meet again. It was not worth further thought on either side.

Resolutely he banished all thoughts of Elaine from his mind, and concentrated on his own work-problems.

From the corner of a lane near the Maison Carrée, Crau, the young Provençal, had been watching them keenly as they talked together.

CHAPTER XIV
BY THE DRUIDS' TOWER

"And monsieur also?" There was tragedy in her tone. It must mean that monsieur would give up his rooms to follow the young lady.

"I shall probably remain here for a month or more," answered Rivière somewhat stiffly: and then to salve her feelings: "You are making me wonderfully comfortable. I shall always associate the Midi with Mme Giras."

"Monsieur est bien amiable!" replied the little old lady, much pleased. She hurried off to the kitchen to see that Marie was making no error of judgment in the mixing of the sauces.

Rivière felt glad that the acquaintanceship with Elaine had progressed no further. It was decidedly for the best that it had ended where it had. Both of them had their life-work to call for all their energies. Further companionship would only divert them from it. In his innermost being he knew that, and now he acknowledged it frankly to himself. From every point of view, it was best that their acquaintanceship should end.

But late that afternoon a brief note came from Elaine. "Dear Mr Rivière," it said, "I have considered your warning. If you will be so kind as to accompany me this evening while I am sketching the Druids' Tower, I shall be glad. I propose to leave the hotel about eight."

Rivière was at her hotel punctually at eight. He helped her into her warm travelling cloak, and taking up her campstool and easel they walked briskly, with healthy, swinging strides, out by the avenue of plane trees bordering the Roman aqueduct.

They ascended the now deserted garden on the hillside till they came to the ruined tower which was grey with age when Roman legions first swept in triumph over the country of the barbarians of Gaul. A chill wind set the pines and the olives whispering mournfully together. The windowless tower brooded over its memories of the past, like an aged seer blind with years. The moonlight touched it tentatively as though it feared to disturb its dreaming.

It was a perfect stage scene for a secret meeting of conspirators. In the daylight, the tower was ugly with its rubble of fallen stones—unkempt like a ragged tramp—but in the moonlight there was a glamour of ages in its mournful brooding. Elaine was right to make her sketch at night-time. Rivière placed the campstool for her, and watched her in silence as she plied her pencil with swift, decisive lines.

With lithe, catlike softness, the youth Crau had followed them up the hillside, padding noiselessly in the shadows of the pines and olives. Crouching behind a tree, he felt in his breast-pocket and drew out a small package which he quietly unwrapped from its foldings. Then he waited his moment with every muscle tensed for action.

The night wind was chill. Rivière started to pace up and down a few steps away from Elaine. He approached nearer to the tree behind which Crau was crouching in shadow.

The lithe, wiry figure of the young Provençal sprang out upon him.

"Now you'll pay me what you owe!" he cried out in Provençal. "You cursed pig of an Englishman!"

Rivière did not understand the words, but the menace in the voice left no doubt as to the meaning. And the voice brought back to him the narrow ruelle at Arles where he had defended Elaine from the insult of the half-drunken peasant.

He was about to step forward to grapple with him, when a warning cry from Elaine stopped him for one crucial instant.

"Look out! There's something in his hand!" she called, and rushed impetuously forward to make her warning clear.

As she came within range, Crau raised his arm to throw his vitriol into Rivière's face, but in a fraction of a second a sudden thought changed the direction of his aim.

"Your beautiful mistress! that will serve me better!" he hissed out venomously as he flung it full upon Elaine; then fled at top speed.

"My eyes! Oh God, my eyes!" she cried, as she staggered to the ground.

Rivière sprang to her side, white with alarm. "The beast!"

"My eyes! Oh God, my eyes!" she moaned. "My eyes—my livelihood!"

CHAPTER XV
WAITING THE VERDICT

Even when down below the hillside, by the aqueduct, they were still far from the Villa Clémentine and yet farther from Elaine's hotel by the station. Some conveyance was imperative. But in a quiet country town like Nîmes there are no cabs to be found wandering around at night-time. Nor was there carriage or motor-car in sight.

A peasant's cart drawn by a tiny donkey came providentially to solve the problem. Rivière laid Elaine on the straw of the cart; snatched the reins from the owner; drove home at frantic speed; had her put to bed in his own room by Mme Giras; 'phoned imperatively for a doctor and a nurse.

And now he waited in straining anxiety for the verdict. The waiting was more horrible than the nightmare flight through the shadows of the garden on the hillside. That at all events had been action; now he was being stretched in passive helplessness on the rack of Time.

After an æon of waiting, the doctor left the sick-room and closed the door noiselessly behind him. Rivière looked him square in the eye.

"I want the truth," he said in French. The words sounded as though his throat had closed in tight around them.

"We must wait until the morning before it will be possible that we may say definitely," replied the doctor.

"To say if——?"

"If we can save the right eye."

"The left?"

"I greatly fear——" A slight gesture of his two hands completed the sentence.

"It's ghastly! That beast——!"

"But you must not despair," continued the doctor in an endeavour to be optimistic. "Madame is strong and healthy. She has a very sound constitution, and in such a case as this it is a most important factor in the recovery. You may rely on me to do my utmost. I have great hopes that we may save the right eye of madame, your wife."

"Mademoiselle," corrected Rivière mechanically.

"Mademoiselle," amended the doctor with a formal little bow.

"You will come again later to-night?"

"That would serve no useful purpose. I have injected a large dose of morphine, and mademoiselle is on the point of sleep. I have left full instructions with the Sister, and if anything unforeseen occurs, she will communicate with me by telephone."

"I have a further question to ask you, doctor. Mademoiselle Verney is alone in Nîmes. She has no friends here beyond myself, and she has been staying at the Hotel de Provence while passing through the town. Would it be better for her to be at the hotel, or at the town hospital, or here?"

"Here—decidedly!" answered the doctor. "Mme Giras is kindness itself—I know her well. I recommend that mademoiselle stay here."

Rivière could do nothing but wait the verdict of the morning, tortured by hopes and fears. The doctor had spoken of saving the right eye, but was this mere professional optimism?

Suppose Elaine were blinded for life—blinded on his account. What was she to do for her livelihood? He knew that she was an orphan; that her relations were repellant to her; and her pride could scarcely let her throw herself for long on the hospitality of her friends in Paris. Her slender means would soon be exhausted—what was she to do then?

With overwhelming conviction Rivière saw the inevitable solution. She had been blinded while trying to save him. The debt, the overwhelming debt, lay on him. He must provide for her, guard over her.

If she would accept such help....

In the cold grey of a mist-shrouded morning he woke with a new insistent thought hammering into his brain. For the first time since he had taken up the personality of John Rivière, doubt surged upon him in wave after wave of icy, sullen surf. Had he had the right to cut loose from the life of Clifford Matheson? Had one alone of a married couple the right to decide on such a separation? Had he violated some unwritten law of Fate, and was this the hand of Fate punishing him through the woman he cared for more deeply than he had yet confessed to himself?

He knew now that from the first moment of their meeting by the arena of Arles she had opened within him—against his volition—a whole realm of inner feelings which up till then had lain dormant. He had wanted no woman in this new life of his, and both at Arles and at Nîmes he had tried to shut and bolt the gate of the secret realm. Sincerely he had wanted to give his whole thoughts and energies to his future work, but here was something which persisted in his inner consciousness against his will. It was like curtaining the windows and shutting one's eyes against a storm—in spite of barriers the lightning slashes through to the retina of the eye.

Was Fate to punish him through the woman he loved?

Rivière rose with determination and flung the thought aside. "Fate" was only a bogey to frighten children with. "Fate" was a coward's master. Every man had the right to rough-hew his own life. He, Rivière, had chosen his new life with eyes open, and, right or wrong, he would stick by his choice and hew out his life on his own lines. If "Fate" were indeed a reality, then he would fight it as he had fought Lars Larssen. He would unknot the tangled threads at whatever cost to himself.

The doctor looked very grave when he had left Elaine's bedside the next morning.

"The injuries are very serious," he told Rivière. "The cornea of the right eye has almost been destroyed by the acid. It will heal over, but the sight will not be as it was before."

"You mean blinded for life—in both eyes?" asked Rivière, ruthless for his own feelings.

"We must not hope for too much," hedged the doctor. "A great deal depends on the course of the recovery. I wish not to raise false hopes...."

"You must pardon what I am going to say, doctor. I have every confidence in your skill, but is it not possible that the help of an eye specialist from Paris or Lyons might be of service?"

The doctor put false dignity aside and answered sympathetically: "You are right, monsieur, a specialist is needed. As soon as mademoiselle can stand the long journey, I would advise that she be taken to Wiesbaden, to the very greatest specialist in the world."

"You mean Hegelmann?"

"None other."

"It would not be possible for him to travel to here?"

The doctor shook his head decisively. "Only for kings does he travel. He has too many patients in his surgical home at Wiesbaden who need him daily."

"When will mademoiselle be able to make the journey?"

"Within the week, I hope."

Information of the attack had of course been given to the police, who were hot on the trail of the youth Crau. Meanwhile the local papers sent their reporters to interview Rivière. He was too well accustomed to the ways of pressmen to refuse an interview. He received them and replied with the very briefest facts of the case, explaining that he wished to avoid publicity so far as it was possible. He asked them at all events to leave out names, as French journals will sometimes do, on request.

Amongst the callers was an Englishman who sent in word that he was a local correspondent for the Europe Chronicle. Rivière had him shown into the garden of the villa, to the arbour. The would-be interviewer was a man of thirty, quiet and secretive looking, with a heavy dark moustache curtaining the expression of his lips. "Morris Sylvester" was the name on his card.

He carried a hand-camera, which he placed on a seat beside him and pointed it towards the path from the house. As Rivière approached, Sylvester's left hand was fingering the silent release of the instantaneous shutter. He had made a practice of working his camera surreptitiously while his eyes held the eyes of his subject.

"Mr Sylvester," began Rivière, "I want to ask you a favour, as one Englishman to another. Publicity is extremely distasteful to the lady who has been so terribly injured. To have her story spread broadcast for the satisfaction of idle curiosity would only add to her sufferings. Isn't it possible for you to suppress this story?"

Sylvester looked hesitant. "I am sincerely sorry for the lady," he said. "But of course I have my duty to my journal. I had intended to wire a full column, and take a picture of the scene of the attack by the Druids' Tower." He took up his camera from the seat beside him, as though to show his purpose.

After a moment of reflection he added: "Would it satisfy you if I were to suppress names?"

"I would much rather you wrote nothing at all," replied Rivière. "I know that I can't insist. I appeal to your generosity in the matter."

"Very well. Under the circumstances, in deference to the feelings of your friend, I'll take it on myself to suppress the story."

"That's very kind of you. Is there no form of quid pro quo...?" suggested Rivière tentatively.

"Thanks—nothing."

"You'll take something with me before you go?"

"Thanks—yes."

Over the glasses Sylvester chatted pleasantly about matter of no import, and then brought the conversation round to the real object of his visit—to get certain information for Lars Larssen.

"Your name seems familiar to me, somehow," he ventured. "Aren't you a scientist, Mr Rivière?"

"I do a little private research work," was the guarded admission.

"I seem to associate your name with that of Clifford Matheson, the financier."

"My half-brother."

"Ah, that's it.... A very remarkable man. I had the pleasure of interviewing him once, at his office in the Rue Lafitte."

Rivière knew that for a lie. He had never seen Sylvester before, to his knowledge, and he had a keen memory for faces. What was the man driving at? He must try and discover. With his long years of business training behind him, Rivière became suddenly expansive, talking with apparent frankness without in reality saying anything of import.

"As you say, a remarkable man. That is, as a financier. Personally I have no interests in that direction. My brother and I have very little in common. He is the man of affairs, and I am buried in my work. What was the subject of your interview with him?"

"Canada's future. He gave me a splendid interview—first-rate copy," lied Sylvester. "Have you seen your brother lately? Is he engaged on any big scheme just now? Perhaps you could put me on to a news story in that direction? I should be glad if you could."

Rivière knew that Sylvester was fishing for information of some kind, but what it was puzzled him completely, unless the man were now speaking the truth in his statement that he was on the look-out for financial news. That seemed the only solution of the puzzle.

"I've seen nothing of my brother lately," answered Rivière. "He's at Monte Carlo, I believe. I'm sorry not to be able to help you in the matter, but, as I said before, I'm very little interested in my brother's movements or plans. His ways and mine lie apart. If I hear of anything that might be of service to you, I'll let you know. Will you give me your address?"

"Hotel de la Poste will find me. I travel about the Midi for the Chronicle. They'll send on any message for me at the hotel."

"Many thanks for your kindness in the matter of suppressing the story of the attack," said Rivière, and his tone intimated that it was now time for the visitor to leave.

Sylvester, having gained the objects of his visit, rose and took his departure. Inside half-an-hour he had developed an excellent snap-shot of Rivière walking along the garden path towards him. He wrote a long letter to Lars Larssen explaining that John Rivière apparently knew nothing of the disappearance of Clifford Matheson, and detailing the story of Elaine and the vitriol outrage.

With the letter he enclosed a bromide print of the snapshot.

Inside a room, closely shuttered to keep out the light, Rivière was talking earnestly with Elaine a few days later. The agony of the first days had died down, but she was absolutely helpless. Her eyes were bandaged, and she was dependent on the sister of mercy and Mme Giras for everything.

"Crau is in prison," said he. "I've given formal evidence against him, and he is remanded for trial a month hence. When you are well again, they will take your evidence on commission. He will undoubtedly be sentenced to hard labour for some years."

"What does it matter to me—now?" There was despair in her voice.

"The doctor is very hopeful for you, if you will put yourself under Hegelmann's care."

"He can do nothing for me, I feel it. Only useless expense. No man can give me back the sight I want for my work."

"In time," said Rivière gently, but he could not force conviction into his voice. It went hard with him to lie to the woman he cared for most in the world, even to bring temporary comfort to her.

"My work. Barrèze and the Odéon," she murmured slowly, speaking to herself rather than to him. "My work was my life. I remember your saying to me in the garden, by the arbour, only a few days ago: 'If Fate were to deny you your freedom!' I shivered even at the words.... Do you believe in Fate?"

Rivière's fist was clenched as he answered: "I'll fight Fate for both of us."

She was silent for a few moments. Then she asked: "Will you write a letter for me?"

He brought pen and ink, and waited for her dictation.

"My dear Barrèze," she dictated slowly, "you must find someone else to paint your scenes of Provence. I am blinded for life——"

"Don't ask me to write that!"

"I am blinded for life," she continued with the clear tones of one whose mental vision sees the future unveiled. "They want me to go to Hegelmann at Wiesbaden. He is a great man, and will do for me all that surgical skill can do. There will be an operation—several, perhaps. It may perhaps give me a faint gleam of light—enough to tell light from darkness and to realize more keenly all that I have lost. I shall never see the theatre again—never paint again. I shall live on the memories of the past and the bitter thoughts of what might have been——"

"I can't write it!" he cried, torn with the pathos of the words she bade him put to paper.

"——of what might have been. My friends of the theatre must pass out of my life. They can have no use for a crippled, helpless woman, nor do I wish to cloud their happiness with my unwanted presence. Say good-bye to them for me. And you, my dear Barrèze, I would thank for the chance you gave me. Your encouragement would have had its reward if I had kept my sight. But it is gone—gone for always—and I am wreckage on the rocks...."

"Elaine, Elaine!" he cried. "You have me by your side! I ask you to let me devote my life to you!"

The answer came gently: "I must not accept such a sacrifice. You offer it out of pity for me. Later, you would repent of it. You have your work to do and your life to live in the open sunshine.... Yet don't think me ungrateful. I am deeply grateful. I shall remember what you said out of pity for me, and treasure it amongst my dearest thoughts."

"It's not pity, Elaine, but——"

He stopped abruptly. The accusing hand of memory had touched him on the shoulder. He had no right to make any such offer—it had come from his heart in passionate sincerity, but it was not his to give. Olive was still his wife. Disguise it as he would, he was still Clifford Matheson.

He must leave Elaine to think that pity alone had moulded his words. To explain to her now the shackles of circumstance that bound him fast would be sheer cruelty, for if she knew the whole truth, she would send him away from her and refuse even the temporary help he could give her.

For Elaine's sake he must keep silent.

A pause of bitter reflection raised a barrier of stone between them. When he spoke again, it was from the other side of the barrier. "At least you will let me stay by you until you leave Hegelmann's charge? That I claim.... And I believe he will be able to do for you much more than you imagine. He has worked wonders before. He will do so again. He is the foremost specialist in the world. All that money can command shall be yours."

"Money is terribly useless," said Elaine sadly.