When Sylvester, his private secretary, arrived by the afternoon train from London, Lars Larssen placed him in touch with only so much of the situation as he considered desirable. This was little. Sylvester was to stay in Paris while the shipowner went on to Monte Carlo. If the various advertisements brought a reply, Sylvester was to hunt out John Riviere in whatever part of France he might be, and then communicate with Lars Larssen for further orders.

The secretary was a quiet, self-contained, silent man of thirty or thirty-one. A heavy dark moustache curtained expression from his lips. Not only could he carry out orders to the letter, but he was to be trusted to keep his head in any unforeseen emergency and act on his own responsibility in a sound, common-sense way. But Lars Larssen trusted no man beyond the essentials of any situation. His was the brain to plan and direct. He preferred obedient tools to brilliant, independent helpers.

At the train-side, Larssen gave a final direction to his subordinate: "Keep me in touch with every move."

Back at his hotel, Sylvester occupied himself with the development of some films he had taken on the Channel passage. In his hours of leisure he was a devoted amateur photographer. At the present time there was nothing to be done but wait the possible answer to the advertisement.



CHAPTER IX

AT MONTE CARLO

Next day, the wonderful panorama of the Riviera was unfolding itself before the eyes of the shipowner. The red rocks and the dwarf pines of the Esterel coves, against which an azure sea lapped in soft caress.... Cannes with its far-flung draperies of white villas.... The proud solemnity of the Alpes Maritimes thrusting up to the snow-line and glinting white against the sun.... Fairy bungalows nesting in tropic gardens and waving welcome with their palm-fronds to the rushing train.... The Baie des Anges laughing with sky and hills.... The many-tunnelled cliff-route from Villefranche to Cap D'Ail, where moments of darkness tease one to longing for the sight of the azure coves dotted with white-winged yachts and foam-slashed motor-boats.... Europe's silken, jewelled fringe!

But scenery made no appeal to Lars Larssen. Scenery would not help him to the attainment of his great ambitions. Scenery was no use to him. His delight lay in men and women and the using of them. Business—the turning of other men's energies to his own ends—was the very breath of his being.

He was glad to reach the hectic crowdedness of the tiny principality of Monaco—that triple essence of civilization and sensuous luxury. He felt at home with the big idea that drew the whole world to the gaming tables to pay homage to the goddess Fortune. For a moment the suggestion came to him to buy up some beautiful islet and build a pleasure city on it which should be a wonder of the world. He was making a note of it for future consideration, when Olive and her father met him on the platform at Monte Carlo.

"I thought perhaps you would bring John Riviere with you," said Olive after they had exchanged greetings. A strong desire had sprung up to see this mysterious relation of Clifford's, and to be balked of any passing whim was keen annoyance to her.

"Bring a will-o'-the-wisp," answered Larssen.

"Can't you find him?" asked Sir Francis. Larssen shook his head. "Gad, that's curious. Why doesn't he write? Bad form, you know. But when a man's lived all his life in the backwoods of Canada, I suppose one can't expect him to know what's what."

Olive studied the shipowner keenly as they drove to their hotel. His massive strength of body and masterful purpose of mind, showing in every line of his face, attracted her strongly. Olive worshipped power, money, and all that breathed of them. Here was the living embodiment of money and power.

After dinner that evening all three went to the Casino. The order had been given to Sir Francis Letchmere's valet that he was to bring over to the Salle de Jeux any telegram or 'phone message that might arrive.

Larssen was keenly interested in the throng of smart men and women clustered around the tables. Here was the raw material of his craft—human nature. Moths around a candle—well, he himself had lit many candles. The process of singeing their wings intrigued him vastly.

Olive explained the game to him with a flush of excitement on her cheeks. He noted that flush and made a mental note to use it for his own ends. She took a seat at a roulette table and asked him to advise her where to stake her money. Sir Francis preferred trente-et-quarante, and went off to another table.

"I can see you've been born lucky," she whispered to Larssen.

"I'll try to share it with you," he answered, and suggested some numbers with firm, decisive confidence. Though he had keen pride in his intellect and his will, he had also firm reliance on his intuitive sense. With Lars Larssen, all three worked hand in hand.

Olive began to win. Her eyes sparkled, and she exchanged little gay pleasantries and compliments with the shipowner.

"We've made all the loose hay out of this sunshine," said Larssen after an hour or so, when a spell of losing set in. "Now we'll move to another table."

Olive obeyed him with alacrity. She liked his masterful orders. Here was a man to whom one could give confidence.

"Five louis on carre 16-20," he advised suddenly when they had found place at another table.

Without hesitation she placed a gold hundred-franc piece on the intersecting point of the four squares 16, 17, 19, 20. The croupier flicked the white marble between thumb and second finger, and it whizzed round the roulette board like an echo round the whispering gallery of St Paul's. At length it slowed down, hit against a metal deflector, and dropped sharply into one of the thirty-seven compartments of the roulette board. A croupier silently touched the square of 16 with his rake to indicate that this number had won, and the other croupier proceeded to gather in the stakes.

Forty louis in notes were pushed over to Olive.

At this moment Sir Francis' valet came up to Larssen with a telegram in his hand. The latter opened and scanned it quickly.

"What is it?" asked Olive.

"A tip to gamble the limit on number 14," replied Larssen smilingly.

Olive placed nine louis, the limit stake, on number 14, and two minutes later a pile of bank-notes aggregating 6300 francs came to her from the croupier's metal box.

"You're Midas!" she whispered exultantly.

"Midas has a hurry call to the 'phone," he answered.

For the telegram was from Sylvester, and it read:—

"Fourteen replies to hand. Fourteen J. Riviere's scattered about France."



CHAPTER X

LARSSEN TURNS ANOTHER CORNER

"Clifford is a very shrewd man of business," remarked Larssen, drinking his third cognac at Ciro's at the end of a dinner which was a masterpiece even for Monte Carlo, where dining is taken au grand serieux. He did not sip cognac, but took it neat in liqueur glassfuls at a time. There was a clean-cut forcefulness even in his drinking, typical of the human dynamo of will-power within.

Sir Francis puffed out a cloud of cigar-smoke with an air of reflected glory. He had helped to capture Matheson as a son-in-law, and a compliment of this kind was therefore an indirect compliment to himself.

The capture of Matheson was, in fact, the most notable achievement of his career. Beyond that, he had done little but ornament the Boards of companies with his name; manage his estate (through an agent) with a mixture of cross conservatism and despotic benevolence; and shoot, hunt and fish with impeccable "good form." He was typical of that very large class of leisured landowner in whose creed good form is next above godliness.

"Yes, Clifford has his head screwed on right," he said.

"Before he left for Canada," continued Larssen, "he managed to gouge me for a tidy extra in shares for you and for Mrs Matheson."

Olive had been markedly listless, heavy-eyed and abstracted during the course of the dinner, a point which Larssen had noted with some puzzlement. His mind had worked over the reasons for it without arriving at any definite conclusion. But now, at this unexpected announcement, her eyes lighted up greedily.

"For me!" she exclaimed. "That's more than I expected from Clifford."

The shipowner reached to take out some papers from his breast-pocket, then stopped. "I was forgetting. I oughtn't to be talking shop over the dinner-table."

Sir Francis made an inarticulate noise which was a kind of tribute to the fetish of good form. He wanted to hear more, but did not want to ask to hear more.

"Please go on," said Olive. "Talk business now just as much as you like. Unless, of course, you'd rather not discuss details while I'm here."

"I'd sooner talk business with you present, Mrs Matheson. I think a wife has every right to be her husband's business partner. I think it's good for both sides. When my dear wife was with me, we were share-and-share partners." He paused for a moment, then continued: "Here's the draft scheme for the flotation."

He held out a paper between Sir Francis and Olive, and Sir Francis took it and read it over with an air of concentrated, conscious wisdom—the air he carefully donned at Board meetings, together with a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez.

"Clifford will be Chairman," explained Larssen. "You and Lord St Aubyn and Carleton-Wingate are the men I want for the other Directors. I, as vendor, join the Board after allotment."

"Where's the point about shares for me?" asked Sir Francis, reading on.

"That doesn't appear in the prospectus, of course. A private arrangement between Clifford and myself. Here's the memorandum."

This he handed to Olive, who nodded her head with pleasure as she read it through, her father looking over her shoulder.

"Keep it," said Larssen as she made to hand it back. "Keep it till your husband returns from Canada."

"When did he say he will be back?"

"It's very uncertain. He doesn't know himself. It's a delicate matter to handle—very delicate. That's why he went himself to Montreal."

"He wired me that he's travelling under an assumed name."

"Very prudent," commented Larssen.

"I don't quite like it," murmured Sir Francis. "Not the right thing, you know."

Larssen did not answer, but Olive rejoined sharply: "What does it matter if it helps to get the flotation off and make money?"

"Well, perhaps so. Still——"

"Can you fix up St Aubyn and Carleton-Wingate?" asked Larssen. "Quickly?"

"Yes, I expect so. But has Clifford approved this scheme?"

"Of course."

"Have you it with you?"

"Have I what?"

"I mean the agreement Clifford signed."

Sir Francis, without knowing it, had stumbled upon the crucial weakness of Larssen's daring scheme. But it would have taken a far shrewder man than he to realize the vital import of the point from Larssen's easy, almost causal answer:

"There's no signed agreement. We agreed the scheme in principle at the interview in Clifford's office, and he left details to you and me. His last words were: 'Tell my father-in-law to go ahead as quickly as he can manage.'"

"But when I put this before St Aubyn and Carleton-Wingate, they'll be expecting me to—I mean to say, isn't it deuced irregular, you know?"

Larssen did not answer this for a moment. He had a keen appreciation of the value of silence in business negotiations. He poured himself out another glass of cognac and drank it off. His attitude conveyed a contempt for Letchmere's cautiousness which he would be too polite to put into words.

"If you'd sooner write to Clifford and have his agreement to the scheme in black and white ..." was his studiously, chilly reply.

Olive put in a word: "I dislike all those niggling formalities."

"Business is business," quoted her father sententiously.

"Besides, Clifford will be back before the prospectus goes to the public."

"Probably," agreed Larssen. "But in case he is not back in time, we're to go ahead just as if he were here. That's what he told me before he left Paris. Didn't he write you to that effect, Sir Francis?"

"I heard nothing from him."

"But I showed you my telegram," answered Olive. "Clifford said to refer to Mr Larssen for all details."

"I must think matters over," said the baronet obstinately.

Lars Larssen had been studying his man through half-closed eyelids, and he now summed him up with penetrating accuracy. It was not suspicion that made Sir Francis hesitate, but petty dignity. He had become huffed. He felt that his dignity had not been sufficiently studied in the transaction. Matters had been arranged over his head without formally consulting him. It was "not the thing"—"not good form."

To attempt to force matters would merely drive him into deeper obstinacy.

And yet it was vital to Larssen's plan that Sir Francis should go ahead with the work of the flotation quickly—should go ahead with it in the full belief that Clifford Matheson had agreed to the scheme and to the use of his name. It was vital that Sir Francis should take the whole responsibility of the flotation on to his own shoulders. He was to make use of his son-in-law's name with the other prospective Directors and on the printed prospectus just as though Matheson were personally sanctioning it.

Larssen himself planned to remain in the background and pull the wires unseen. When the revelation of Matheson's death came to light—as it inevitably must in the course of time—Letchmere would be so far involved that he would be forced to shoulder responsibility for the use of Matheson's name.

To try to rush matters with Sir Francis would perhaps wreck the whole delicate machinery of the scheme. Larssen quickly resolved to get at him in indirect fashion through Olive, and accordingly he answered evenly:

"Think it over by all means. There's plenty to consider. Take the draft scheme and look it through at your leisure.... Now what's the plan of amusement for to-night?"

Before going to the Casino, Olive made an excuse to return to her rooms at the Hesperides. Alone in her bedroom, she took out from a locked drawer a hypodermic syringe in silver and glass, and a phial of colourless liquid. She held the phial in her hands with a curious look of furtive tenderness, fondling it softly. For many months past this had been her cherished secret—the drug that unlocked for her new realms of fancy and exquisite sensation.

To herself she called it by a pet name, as though it were a lover.

In the course of the evening's play at the tables, Larssen was struck with her increasing animation and gaiety. The heavy, listless look had left her eyes, and they now glittered with life and fire. When they left the tables to stroll by the milk-white terraces of the Casino, there was a flush in her cheeks and iridescence in her speech very different from a couple of hours before.

A spirit of caustic, impish brilliance was in her. She turned it upon the people they had rubbed shoulders with at the tables; upon the people walking past them on the terraces; even upon her husband:

"Clifford is a 90 per cent. success. There are men who can never achieve full success in any field whatever. They climb up to 70, 80, 90 per cent., and then the grade is too steep for them."

"They stick."

"Or run backwards downhill. I'm a passenger in a car of that kind. Near to the top, but not reaching it. So I get out to walk on myself."

"There are mighty few men who have the 100 per cent. in them."

"Tell me this, Mr Larssen. Did you know you were a 100 per cent. man when you started your business life, or did you come to realize it gradually?"

"I knew it from the first," replied the shipowner steadily. "Knew it when I was a mere kiddy. Set myself apart from the other boys. Told myself I was to be their master. Made myself master. Fought for it. Fought every boy who wouldn't acknowledge it.... When I went to sea as cabin-boy on the "Mary R." of Gloucester, the men on the trawler tried to "lick me into shape," as they called it. They didn't know what they were up against. I used those men as whet-stones—used them to kick fear out of myself. You notice that I limp a little? That's a legacy from the days of the 'Mary R.'"

Olive looked at him with open admiration. "That's epic!" she exclaimed. "How far are you going to climb?"

Larssen had never revealed to any man or woman—save only to his wife—the great ultimate purpose of his life. He did not tell it to Olive. She was to be used as a pawn in the great game, just as he was using Sir Francis and the dead Clifford Matheson. It came upon him that she was now a widow. He would fan her open admiration so as to make use of it when she awoke to the fact of her widowhood.

So he answered: "How far I climb depends on the help of my best friends. I don't hide that. When my dear wife was with me, she was an inspiration to me. No man can drive his car to the summit without a woman to spur him on."

"Did marriage change you much?"

"Strengthened me. Bolted me to my foundations.... But here I'm monopolizing the conversation with talk about myself. Let's switch. What are your ambitions?"

Olive laughed—a laugh with a bitter taste in it. "I wanted to help a man to drive his car to the summit, and the car has stuck. I could inspire, but my inspiring goes to waste. I'm an engine racing without a shaft to take up its energy. Clifford is developing scruples. I don't know where he caught them. I can't stand sick people. That's my temperament—I must have energy and action around me."

"I understand that. Felt it myself at times," he answered sympathetically.

Without apparent reason her thoughts skipped to a woman who had sat near them at the roulette table. "Wasn't she the image of a disappointed vulture? I mean the woman in green. Swooping down from a distance to gorge herself with a tasty feast, and then finding a man with a rake to chase her off. I chuckled to myself as I watched her. Do men and women look to you like animals? They do to me. Monte Carlo's a Zoo, only the animals aren't caged."

"That's right! You're an extraordinarily keen observer, Mrs Matheson."

Sir Francis Letchmere approached them beamingly from the direction of the Casino. He had won money at trente-et-quarante, and was feeling very pleased with his own judgment and powers of intellect generally.

"Leave him to me," whispered Olive to Larssen. "I'll see that my father gets busy on the Hudson Bay Scheme. But on one condition."

"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 RIVIERE

Olive made good her promise at once. She packed her father back to England the very next day, to get to work on the Hudson Bay flotation, and Lars Larssen remained on at Monte Carlo.

Though he had led Olive to believe that he had given in merely to please her, yet his true motive was very different. His feelings towards her held no scrap of passion in them. He knew her as vain, shallow, feverishly pleasure-seeking—a glittering dragon-fly. As a woman she made no appeal to him. But as a tool to serve in the attaining of his ambitions, she might conceivably be highly useful.

His true motive in remaining at Monte Carlo was double-edged—to bring Olive into the orbit of his fascination, and to mark time until the mystery of John Riviere had been set at rest.

John Riviere worried him. Deep down in his being was a keen intuitive feeling that this mysterious half-brother of the dead man was in some way linked up with the attainment of his ambitions—to help or to hinder.

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 Riviere 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 Gerardmer 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 Riviere," 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:—

"Riviere 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 Riviere—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 Riviere 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 Riviere under extraordinary circumstances. Letter and photograph follow."



CHAPTER XII

THE SECOND MEETING

Europe's beauty-spots of to-day were the beauty-spots of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. Wherever the traveller around Europe now reaches a place that makes instant appeal; where harsh winds are screened away and blazing sunshine filters through feathery foliage; where all Nature beckons one to halt and rest awhile—there he is practically certain to find Roman remains. The wealthy Romans wintered at Nice and Cannes and St Raphael; took the waters at Baden-Baden and Aix in Savoy; made sporting centres of Treves on the Moselle and Ronda in Andalusia; dallied by the marble baths of Nimes.

Nimes had captured Riviere 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 Clementine 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 Riviere 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 Nimes—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 Nimes where everyone meets everyone else, either by design or by the chance intercourse of a small town.

On a morning of mistral, Riviere 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 Nimes because she was a worker, because this town contained special material necessary to her bread-winning.

She had guessed that Riviere'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 Riviere'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 Riviere would see her and imagine, in a man's way, that she had followed him to Nimes. 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 Nimes 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 Riviere. 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 Riviere 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. Riviere 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 Riviere," 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?"

Riviere'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 Riviere 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 Riviere'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 Cote 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."

Riviere remembered that he himself had cleared L50,000 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 Riviere.

"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 Riviere 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."

Riviere 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. Barreze is to produce it at the Odeon. It's my first big chance."

Riviere 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 Riviere 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.

Riviere 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 Riviere'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.

Riviere 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 Nimes."

"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 Clementine, coquetting with the flaming cannas, twinkling amongst the pebbles of the paths, stroking the backs of the lazy goldfish. Seating Elaine in the arbour, Riviere 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 Nimes 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 Nimes 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 oeufs provencals 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 Riviere.

"'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 Riviere 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 Riviere 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 Nimes. 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. Riviere 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 Riviere 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 Provencal, 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 Nimes. 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 Nimes, Riviere alighted from a first-class compartment, quite unconscious of being followed by the young Provencal from a third-class compartment. Outside the station, in the broad Avenue de la Gare that leads to the heart of the town, Riviere hailed a cab and gave the address, Villa Clementine.

Crau was near enough to overhear.

"Villa Clementine," he repeated to himself, and again "Villa Clementine," 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 CARREE

The mystery of John Riviere intrigued Elaine. There was certainly a mysterious something about this man which she had not fathomed. His most open confidences held deep reserves. If he had not avowed himself a scientist, she would have classed him as a man of business. In those brief comments on Stock Exchange speculation, he had spoken in a tone of easy authority which goes only with intimate knowledge. He was no recluse, but a man of the world—a man who had clearly moved amongst men and women and held his place with ease.

The idea that he was a boor had been entirely shelved. But why that brusque, boorish disappearance from Arles?

Elaine, thinking matters over in the solitude of her room on the evening of the second encounter, was beginning to regret her resolve to humble John Riviere. It began to appear petty and unworthy. She had no doubt now that she could bring him to her feet if she wished, by skilful acting. Or even—in her thoughts she whispered it to herself—or even without acting a part.

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, Riviere 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, Riviere 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 Carree. Most probably she would be sketching at one or other of them.

He found her at the Maison Carree—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 Provencal peasant with a nose twisted out of shape.

"Shall I lure the children away?" asked Riviere 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 Riviere'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."

Riviere 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."

Riviere 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 Nimes 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 Riviere. "You ought not to be alone."

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

Riviere 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 Nimes," he said, "you have only to send a note to the Villa Clementine."

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. Riviere felt distressed.

Then the remembrance came to him that this was the merest tourist acquaintanceship. To-morrow she would be leaving Nimes, 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 Carree, Crau, the young Provencal, had been watching them keenly as they talked together.



CHAPTER XIV

BY THE DRUIDS' TOWER

Mme Giras, the proprietress of the Villa Clementine, was a rosy, smiling body, plumped and rounded in almost every aspect, and with a heart of gold. Yesterday it had been plain to her shrewd, twinkling eyes that monsieur and mademoiselle were soon to make a match of it. Of course it was very shocking that mademoiselle should be travelling about alone at her age, but much could be forgiven in so charming a young lady.

When Riviere returned to the villa for lunch, he found the table in the arbour laid for two, and by one plate a rose had been placed.

"I have prepared for two," said Mme Giras, smilingly. "Is it not right?"

"Thank you; but it will not be necessary," answered Riviere.

"After all my preparations! And the lunch that was to be my chef d'oeuvre!" There was keen disappointment in her voice. "But perhaps mademoiselle will be coming to dine this evening?"

"No, nor this evening. Mademoiselle is very busy with her work. She is to leave Nimes to-morrow."

"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 Riviere 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.

Riviere 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 Riviere," 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."

Riviere 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. Riviere 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. Riviere 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 Provencal sprang out upon him.

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

Riviere 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 Riviere'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.

Riviere 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

Elaine lay in Riviere's room in the Villa Clementine. The doctor was injecting morphine, and a sister of mercy, grave-eyed under her spotless white coif like a Madonna of Francia, spoke soft words of comfort to soothe the agony of the blinded girl.

In the adjoining room Riviere waited the decision of the doctor—waited in tense, straining anxiety.

From that moment by the Druids' Tower when the vitriol had been flung upon Elaine, he had lived through a nightmare. Up on the hillside he was impotent to relieve her agony. No house around to take her to. Without a moment's delay he must get her into the hands of a doctor.

At first he had tried to lead her down the hillside, along the winding paths of the gardens, his hands around her shoulders. It was too slow. Twice the moaning girl had tripped over unseen obstacles. Then he caught her up in his arms and ran with her, the shadows of the trees and the undergrowth clutching at him like mocking shapes in a Dantesque vision of the nether world.

Even when down below the hillside, by the aqueduct, they were still far from the Villa Clementine and yet farther from Elaine's hotel by the station. Some conveyance was imperative. But in a quiet country town like Nimes 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. Riviere 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 aeon of waiting, the doctor left the sick-room and closed the door noiselessly behind him. Riviere 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 Riviere 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 Nimes. 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."

Riviere 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 Riviere 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 Riviere, 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 Nimes 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?

Riviere 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, Riviere, 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 Riviere. "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 Riviere, 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 Riviere. 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. Riviere 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 Riviere 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 Riviere, "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 Riviere. "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 Riviere 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 Riviere?"

"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."

Riviere 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, Riviere 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."

Riviere 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 Riviere. "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 Riviere, 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 Riviere walking along the garden path towards him. He wrote a long letter to Lars Larssen explaining that John Riviere 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, Riviere 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 Riviere 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. Barreze and the Odeon," 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?"

Riviere'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 Barreze," 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 Barreze, 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.



CHAPTER XVI

ONLY PITY!

What was Elaine to do with her life?

In those weary days of the sick-room at Nimes, and on the long railway journey through Lyons, Besancon and Strasburg to Wiesbaden, Elaine had turned over and over, in feverishly restless search for hope, the possibilities that lay before her.

Her total capital was comprised in a few hundred pounds and the furniture of the flat she shared in Paris with a girl friend—a student at the Conservatoire. The money would see her through the expenses of Dr Hegelmann's nursing home and for a few months afterwards—a year at the outside. After that she must inevitably be dependent on the charity of friends or on some charitable institution.

The thought of the time when her capital would be gone was like an icy hand gripping at her heart. "Money is terribly useless," she had said to Riviere, but there were times when she wished passionately that she had the money with which to buy comforts for a life of blindness. Those were craven moments, however—moments which she despised when they were past. Of what use to her would be the silken-padded cage she had longed to buy, when life held for her no work, no love?

Riviere she had thought of a thousand times. His every action and word in the days of their first acquaintanceship came back to her with the wonderful inner clarity of sight and hearing that belongs to those who have no outer vision.

She saw him at the arena of Arles, standing on the topmost tier a few yards distant from her, watching the red ball of the sun sink down into the mists of the grey Camargue. He was aloof and cold—icy, unapproachable, masked in reserve.

She saw him in the ruelle of Arles, with the light from the shuttered window falling on him in bars of yellow and black, fighting with Berserk fury against the bare knife of the Provencal youth. Here he was primitive man unchained—a Rodin figure with muscles knotted in a riot of hot-blooded passion. He was battling for her.

No, not for her, but for the duty that a man owes to womankind. "I didn't even know it was you," he had said curtly. That had hurt her at the time, but now it seared into her. The rescue had meant nothing—it had brought him no nearer to her. He was still cold and aloof.

She saw him in the Jardin de la Fontaine, lifting his hat with formal politeness and making to move on. Still aloof, still encased in cold reserve.

With deliberate intent she had set herself to melt him, and she had succeeded. By the arbour of the Villa Clementine she saw him, chatting animatedly in keen enjoyment of her frank camaraderie. But that was only casual friendship. Still aloof in what now mattered vitally to her.

She saw him seeking her out by the Maison Carree, standing to watch her sketch and passing to her the compliment of candid praise. Then he had come nearer, but by such a little!

She saw him silvered in the moonlight by the Druids' Tower, standing at her easel. Here he would surely have revealed himself if he had had thoughts to utter of inner feelings. But he had remained silent.

Then there rang in her ears his passionate declaration of the sick-room: "Elaine! Elaine! You have me by your side! I ask you to let me devote my life to you!"

She weighed it scrupulously in the balance of reason, and judged it Pity. It was the hasty word of a chivalrous man torn by the sight of her helplessness. If it had been love, he would not have been stopped by her refusal. Love is insistent, headstrong, ruthless of obstacles. Love would have forced his offer upon her again and again. Love would have divined the doubt in her mind. Love would have drowned it in kisses.

It was not Love but Pity that Riviere felt for her. And while she silently thanked him for it, it was not enough. She would not encumber the life of a man who felt merely Pity for her. That would be degradation worse than the acceptance of public charity.

Out of all the turmoil of her fevered thoughts there came this one conclusion: when her last money had been spent, when there only remained for her the bitter bread of charity, she would pass quietly out of life to a world where the outer sight would matter nothing.

Meanwhile, every casual word of Riviere's was weighed and re-weighed, tested and assayed by her for the gold that might be hidden within.



CHAPTER XVII

RIVIERE IS CALLED BACK

There are two sides to Wiesbaden. The one is with the gay, cosmopolitan life that saunters along the Wilhelmstrasse and dallies with the allurements of the most enticing shops in Germany; suns itself in the gardens of the Kursaal or on the wind-sheltered slopes of the Neroberg; listens to an orchestra of master-artists in the open or to a prima donna in the brilliance of the opera-house; dines, wines, gambles, dissipates, burns the lamp of life under forced draught.

The other side is with the life behind the curtains of the nursing homes, where dim flickers of life and health are jealously watched and tended. Wiesbaden is both a Bond Street and a Harley Street. Specialists in medicine and surgery have their consulting rooms a few doors away from those of specialists in jewellery, flowers or confectionery. Their names and their specialities are prominent on door-plates almost as though they were competing against the lures of the traders.

But Dr Hegelmann had no need to cry his services in the market-place. His consulting rooms and nursing home were hidden amongst the evergreens of a cool, restful garden well away from the flaunting life of the Wilhelmstrasse. By the door his name and titles were inscribed in inconspicuous lettering on a small black marble tablet. His specialty needed no proclaiming.

Riviere found the great surgeon curiously uncouth in appearance. His brown, grey-streaked beard was longer than customary and ragged in outline; his eyebrows projected like a sea-captain's; his almost bald head seemed to be stretched tight over a framework of knobs and bumps; his clothes were baggy and shapeless. But all these unessentials faded away from sight when Dr Hegelmann spoke. His voice was wonderfully compelling—a voice tuned to a sympathy all-embracing. His voice could make even German sound musical. And his hands were the hands of a musician.

Before bringing Elaine into the consulting-room, Riviere explained the facts of the vitriol outrage, gave into his hands the letter of advice from the doctor at Nimes, and then broached the subject of payment. They spoke in German, because Dr Hegelmann had steadfastly refused to learn any language beyond his own. All his energies of learning had been focused on his one specialty.

"I want to explain," said Riviere, "that Frauelein Verney is not well-to-do. She is, I believe, practically dependent on her profession."

"Then we shall adjust the scale of payment to whatever she can afford," answered the doctor readily. "I value my rich patients only because they can pay me for my poorer patients."

"Many thanks. But that was not quite my meaning. I want to ask you to charge her at the lowest rate, and allow me to make up the difference."

"Without letting her know it."

"Precisely."

"That shall be as you wish. I appreciate your motives." His voice was full of sympathy, giving a treble value to the most ordinary words. "That is the action of a true friend."

Riviere brought Elaine into the consulting-room, and left her in the great specialist's gentle hands. An assistant surgeon was there to act as interpreter.

The verdict came quickly. For a week Elaine was to be in the surgical home receiving preliminary treatment, and then Dr Hegelmann was to operate on her right eye. For the left eye there was no hope.

During the week of waiting, Riviere came twice a day to Elaine's bedside, to chat and read to her.

One day he told her that he had arranged for the use of a bench at a private biological laboratory at Wiesbaden belonging to one of the medical specialists.

"That will enable me to begin my research while you're recovering from the operation. You'll have no need to think that you might be keeping me here away from my work."

"I'm glad. It's very good to have a friend by one, but I should have worried at keeping you from your work. Now I'm relieved.... Is the laboratory here well equipped?"

"Quite sufficiently for my purposes. Of course I'm sending to Paris for my own microscope—it's a Zeiss, with a one-twelfth oil immersion—and I'll have my own rocker microtome sent over also. There's a microtome in the laboratory here, but I might take weeks to get on terms with it. If you'd ever worked with the instrument, you'd know how curiously human it is in its moods and whims. If a microtome takes a liking to you, she'll work herself to the bone while you merely rest your hand on the lever. But if she has some secret objection to you, she'll pout and sulk, and jib and rear, and generally try to drive you distracted."

Elaine smiled. "I notice that man always applies the feminine gender to anything unreliable in the way of machinery. If it's sober and steady-going, you label it masculine, like Big Ben. But if it's uncertain in action, like a motor-boat, you call it Fifi or Lolo or Vivienne."

"That's a true bill," confessed Riviere. "Henceforth I'll keep to the strictly neutral 'it' when I mention a microtome."

"I want to know the nature of your research work. You've never yet told me except in vague, general terms."

Riviere hesitated. It seemed to him scarcely a subject to discuss with one who herself was in the hands of the surgeon.

"Wouldn't you prefer a more cheerful topic?" he ventured.

Elaine appreciated the reason for his hesitation, and answered: "I want to hear of the spirit behind your technicalities. It won't depress me in the least. Please go on."

Riviere began to explain to her the big idea which he was hoping to develop in the coming years. He avoided any details that might seem to have even a remote personal bearing. He spoke with enthusiasm—his voice became aglow with inner fire. And it was clear from her attitude and from the questions she interjected from time to time that she realized the value of his idea, appreciated his motives, and was whole-heartedly interested in what he was telling her.

As Elaine listened, a tiny voice within her was whispering: "Here is your rival." And she felt glad that her rival was one of high purpose. The call of science and a high, impersonal aim, touched her as something sacred.

Riviere had brought with him a daily paper—the Frankfort edition of the Europe Chronicle—in order to read it to her. Thinking that she might be getting wearied of his personal affairs, he broke off presently, and with her agreement, opened the paper at the news pages, calling out the headlines until she intimated a wish to hear a fuller reading.

He had finished the news pages for her, and was about to put the paper aside, when the instinct of long habit made him glance at the headlines of the financial page.

Elaine heard a sudden decisive rustle of the paper as he folded it quickly, and then came a minute of silence which carried to her sensitive brain a strange sensation of tenseness.

"What is it?" she asked. "Won't you read it out?"

Riviere's voice had altered completely when he answered her. There was now a reserved, constrained note in it. "An item of news which touches me personally," he said.

"Am I not to hear it?"

"I would rather you didn't ask me."

There was silence again. Riviere sat stiff with rigid muscles while he thought out the bearings of the news item he had just read. Then he asked her to excuse him on a matter of immediate urgency.

At the post office he managed after some waiting to get telephonic communication with the Frankfort office of the Europe Chronicle.

"Tell the financial editor that Mr John Riviere wants to speak to him," he said authoritatively. "Please put me through quickly. I'm on a trunk wire."

After a pause the stereotyped reply came that the financial editor was out. His assistant was now speaking, and would take any message. Clifford Matheson would not have had such an answer made to him, but Riviere was an unknown name. He realized that he must now cool his heels in anterooms, and communicate with chiefs through the medium of their subordinates.

"You have an item in to-day's paper regarding the forthcoming notation of Hudson Bay Transport, Ltd. Mr Clifford Matheson's name is mentioned as Chairman. I should very much like to know if you have had confirmation of that item, and from where it was obtained."

"Hold the line, please. I'll make enquiries."

Presently the answer came. "Why do you wish to know?"

"Mr Matheson is my half-brother, and though I'm in close touch with him, I've had no intimation of any such move on his part."

"Hold the line, please."

Another pause ensued, followed by the formal statement. "The news came to us last night from our Paris office. We believe it to be correct. Do we understand that you wish to deny it?"

"No; I want to get confirmation of it. Thanks—good-bye."

Then he asked the post-office for a trunk call to Paris, and after an hour's wait he was put in touch with the headquarters of the Europe Chronicle. The second 'phone conversation proved as unsatisfactory as the first. A financial editor of a responsible journal does not talk freely with any unknown man who rings him up on a hasty trunk call. The reply came that the information in question reached the paper from a perfectly reliable source. If Mr Riviere cared to call at the office, they would give him proof of the accuracy of their statement. They could not discuss such a matter over the 'phone.

Riviere urged that he was speaking from Wiesbaden.

They were sorry, but they did not care to discuss the matter over the 'phone. He must either take their word for it that the information was correct, or else call in person at the Paris office.

It was clear to Riviere that he must make the journey to Paris if he were to unravel the mystery of that astounding statement. The dead Clifford Matheson mentioned authoritatively as Chairman of the new company! Why should such an impossible story be set afloat, and what was the "reliable source" spoken of? He knew that the Europe Chronicle though a sensational paper, would not print self-invented fiction on its financial page.

"I have an urgent call to Paris," he told Elaine. "I hope you will excuse my running away so brusquely? I'll be back before the day of your operation."

"Of course, I excuse you," she replied readily. "I know that something very important is calling you. And in any case, what right would I have to say yes or no to a private decision of your own?"

There leapt in her a sudden hope that he would answer from the heart. But his reply held nothing beyond a bare statement. "This matter is extremely urgent. I propose to catch a night train to Paris and be back by to-morrow evening. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?"

"I have everything ... but my sight."

"And that, Dr Hegelmann will give you within the month!" he affirmed.

In Paris early the next morning, Riviere sought out the financial editor of the Europe Chronicle. At a face-to-face interview, Riviere's personality impressed, and the newspaper man showed himself quite willing to prove the bona fides of his journal.

"If you will step into the adjoining room," he said, "I'll send you the reporter who brought us the information. Ask him any questions you like. I've perfect confidence in him, and I stand by any statement of his we print. I don't think people realize how careful we are on financial matters—they seem to think that a popular paper will print any sort of canard offhand."

There followed Riviere into the next room a tubby rosy-faced little man, brisk and smiling. "Well, sir, what can I do for you?" he rattled off cheerfully. "The financial editor tells me that I'm to preach to you the gospel of the infallibility of the Chronicle. What's the particular text you're heaving bricks at?"

Jimmy Martin's infectious good-humour brought an answering smile from Riviere. "I'm not casting doubts on the modern-day Bible," he replied. "I'm seeking information. I want to know who told you that Clifford Matheson, my half-brother, is to head the Board of Hudson Bay Transport, Ltd."

"I have it straight from the stable—from Lars Larssen."

Riviere's face did not move a muscle—he was still smiling pleasantly.

"Larssen and I are old pals," continued Martin briskly. "So when he was passing through Paris the other day he 'phoned me to the effect of come and crack a bottle with me, come and let's reminisce together over the good old days. I went; and he gave me the juicy little piece of news you saw in yesterday's rag. We saved up some of it for to-day—have you seen? Clifford Matheson heads the festal board, and the other revellers at the guinea-feast are the Right Hon. Lord St Aubyn, Sir Francis Letchmere, Bart., and G. Lowndes Hawley Carleton-Wingate, M.P. Lars Larssen sits below the salt—to wit, joins the Board after allotment. The capital is to be a cool five million, and if I were a prophet I'd tell you whether they'll get it or not."

"Thanks—that's just what I wanted to know."

"You withdraw the bricks?"

"Unreservedly.... By the way, do you know where my brother is at the moment?"

"Vague idea he's in Canada. Don't know where I get it from. Those sort of things are floating in the air."

"Where is Larssen?"

"He was going on to London—dear old foggy, fried-fishy London! Ever notice that London is ringed around with the smell of fried fish and naphtha of an evening? The City smells of caretakers; and Piccadilly of patchouli; and the West End of petrol; but the smell of fish fried in tenth-rate oil in little side-streets rings them around and bottles them up. In Paris it's wood-smoke and roast coffee, and I daresay heaps healthier, but I sigh me for the downright odours of old England! Imitaciong poetry—excuse this display of emotion."

When Riviere left the office of the journal on the Boulevard des Italiens, he made his way rapidly to No. 8 Rue Laffitte, second floor. There he inquired for Clifford Matheson, and was informed that the financier was in Winnipeg.

"You're certain of that?" asked Riviere.

"Quite, sir!" answered the clerk in surprise. "We get cables from him giving addresses to send letters to. If you'd like anything forwarded, sir, leave it here and we shall attend to it."

It was now clear beyond doubt that Lars Larssen was playing a game of unparalleled audacity. He had somehow arranged to impersonate the "dead" Clifford Matheson, and was using the impersonation to float the Hudson Bay scheme on his own lines.

Riviere flushed with anger at the realization of how Lars Larssen was using his name.

But that was a trifle compared with the main issue. When he had fought Lars Larssen, it was not a mere petty squabble over a division of loot. The Hudson Bay scheme was no mere commercial machine for grinding out a ten per cent. profit. If successful, it meant an entire re-organization of the wheat traffic between Canada and Great Britain. It meant, in kernel, the control of Britain's bread-supply. It affected directly fifty millions of his fellow-countrymen.

For that reason Riviere had refused to lend his name to a scheme under which Lars Larssen would hold the reins of control. He knew the ruthlessness of the man and his overweening lust of power, which had passed the bounds of ordinary ambition and had become a Napoleonic egomania.

In refusing to act on the Board, Riviere had made an altruistic decision. But now the same problem confronted him again in a different guise. If he remained silent, the scheme would in all probability be floated in his name to a successful issue. If he remained silent, he would be betraying fifty millions of his fellow-countrymen.

He had thought to strike out from the whirlpool into peaceful waters, but the whirlpool was sucking him back.

Weighing duty against duty, he saw clearly that he must at once confront Larssen and crumple up his daring scheme. And so he wired to Elaine:

"An urgent affair calls me to London. Shall return to you at the earliest possible moment. Address, Avon Hotel, Lincoln's Inn Fields."



CHAPTER XVIII

NOT WANTED!

In the train Calaiswards, Riviere felt as though he had just plunged into an ice-cold lake fed by torrents from the snow-peaks, and had emerged tingling in every fibre with the glow of health.

The course before him was straight; the issue clean-cut. He had only to confront Lars Larssen to bring the latter to his knees. If there were opposition, the threat of a public prosecution would brush it aside.

He must resume the personality of Clifford Matheson; return to Olive; settle a generous income on Elaine. He must wind up his financial affairs and devote himself to the scientific research he had planned.

A straight, clean course.

He looked forward eagerly to the moment when he would walk into Larssen's private office and smash a fist through his hoped-for control of Hudson Bay. Until that moment, he would keep outwardly to the identity of John Riviere. But already he was feeling himself back in the personality of Clifford Matheson—the hard, firm lines had set again around his mouth, the look of masterfulness was in his eye.

* * * * *

The Channel was in its sullen mood.

Overhead, skies were grey with ragged, shapeless cloud; below, the waters were the colour of slag and slapping angrily against the plates of the starboard bow under the drive of a wind from the north-east. The ashen cliffs of Dover came to meet the packet reluctant and inhospitable. By the harbour-entrance, a petulant squall of rain beat upon them as though to shoo them away. The landing-stage was slippery and slimy with rain, soot, and petrol drippings from the motor-cars shipped to and fro. Customs-house officers eyed them with tired suspicion; porters took their money and hastened away with the curtest of acknowledgments; an engine panted sullenly as it waited for never-ending mail-bags to be hauled up from the bowels of the packets and dumped into the mail-van.

England had no welcome for Riviere at her front door.

Through the Weald of Kent, where spring comes early, this April afternoon showed the land still naked and cold. On the coppices, dispirited catkins drooped their tassels from the wet branches of the undergrowth, but the young leaves lurked within their brown coverings as though they shivered at the thought of venturing out into the bleak air. On the oaks, dead leaves from the past autumn clung obstinately to their mother-branches. The hop-lands were a dreary drab; hop-poles huddled against one another for warmth; streams ran swollen and muddy and rebellious.

"The Garden of England" had no welcome for Riviere.

They swerved through Tonbridge Junction, glistening sootily under a drizzle of rain, and dived into the yawning tunnel of River Hill as though into refuge from the bleakness of the open country. Two fellow-travellers with Riviere were discussing the gloomy outlook of a threatened railway strike which rumbled through the daily papers like distant thunder. Fragment of talk came to his ears:—

"Minimum wage.... Damned insolence.... Tie up the whole country.... Have them all flogged to work.... Not a statesman in the House.... Weak-kneed set of vote-snatchers.... If I had my way...."