"You remember at Nimes telling me that your father had lost the last remnant of his fortune speculating in one of the Clifford Matheson companies?"
"Yes. And I was surprised to find how different you were to my conception of your brother."
"I am Clifford Matheson."
"I don"t understand!" she gasped.
"I am Clifford Matheson. I took the name of John Riviere because ...
well, the reason for that is one part of the story I have to tell you."
The pain, so evident in the drawn lines about her mouth, made him pause.
It was the first stroke of the scalpel.
From outside the window came the care-free chirping of the birds making their Spring nests and telling the whole world of their happiness.
Presently she whispered "Go on," as though she had steeled herself to bear the next stroke of the knife.
"My reason was that I wanted to cut myself loose--completely--from my life in the financial world and from my married life. A sudden opportunity came to me two days before I first met you at Arles. I seized the opportunity and planned to disappear entirely from my world.
I arranged evidence of a violent death, in the belief that it would be accepted by my friends and by the Courts. My wife would be freed; she would come into my property; and I myself should be free to carry out in quiet the scientific work I"d planned."
"Which was _the_ reason?"
"The last."
"Your wife, then, is the woman I saw in the Cote d"Azur Rapide?"
"Yes."
Elaine considered this in silence for some moments. A question framed itself on her lips; she hesitated; finally it came out:
"Then you were not happy together?"
"My marriage was a ghastly mistake. I was quite unsuited to my wife....
But I made a bigger mistake when I thought to cut loose from the life I"d woven for myself. One thread pulled me back inexorably. I had half committed myself to a deal involving five millions of the public"s money with Lars Larssen, the shipowner----"
"Larssen!" she exclaimed.
"You know him?"
"No; but he was once pointed out to me at the Academy, the year the portrait of his little boy was exhibited there. I could feel at once the tremendous strength of will behind the man. Something beyond the human.
I was fascinated and repelled at the one time. So that is the man who----"
"Who wants to drag you into a divorce court."
Elaine sat up rigid with shock. "A divorce court! How--why? What possible----?"
"Larssen doesn"t stick at possibilities."
"I realise that, but----"
"I"ll not let him drag you into court. Be quite sure in your mind of that. But listen, Elaine!" Her name came from him unconsciously.
"Listen, I want you to know every detail. It"s your right."
Elaine flushed. Her voice held a delicate softness as she answered: "I"ll listen without interruption."
Then Riviere told her of what had happened since the crucial night of March 14th, omitting nothing that she ought to know, sparing nothing of himself. She listened quietly to his account of the interview at the Rue Laffitte when he had, as he thought, made the final settlement with Larssen; and to the recital of what had occurred from the moment of his seeing the notice in the _Europe Chronicle_ of the coming flotation of Hudson Bay Transport, Ltd.
He did not tell her of what he had seen through the lighted window of Thornton Chase, but pa.s.sed on to the interview at Larssen"s office.
She shuddered as he spoke of the shipowner"s brutal insinuations, and burst out: "It was blackmail."
"Yes, but legalized blackmail."
"You never gave in to him on that ground?"
"Listen further."
Riviere spoke of his wife"s unexpected entry into the office at Leadenhall Street, and the scene that had followed when Olive and Larssen together had bent their joint wills to the task of forcing him to his knees. When he concluded on the signature wrung out of the shipowner at the last moment, Elaine cried her relief:
"Then you"re not beaten down! I"m glad--I"m glad!"
On his further conversation with Olive, Riviere touched very briefly, merely indicating the terms his wife had rigidly demanded.
"And that"s how the matter rests at present," he ended bitterly. "I"ve taken away your livelihood; and dragged your name into this unsavoury mire; and there"s no finality reached.... But I"ll get this tangle straightened out somehow, if I have to choke Larssen to do it!"
Riviere had strode over to the window--not to look out, because the curtains were close-drawn, but from sheer force of habit. He turned round sharply as a half-whispered question--an utterly unexpected question--came from Elaine.
"Why did you leave me so abruptly at Arles?"
Riviere"s blood leapt hot in his veins and he answered recklessly: "Because I loved you! Loved you from the first moment we met! And I hadn"t the right to love you. I wasn"t running away from _you_--I was running away from _myself_."
"Now I see. I thought then.... And when you offered to devote your life to me? You remember that, don"t you?" She was trembling as she spoke.
"I meant every word of it!"
"It was not pity for me? I want the truth--nothing but the truth! Oh, if I could only see you now, to know if it were the truth!" Her hands went up impulsively to the bandages over her eyes, then dropped helplessly to her side as she remembered they must on no account be touched.
"As G.o.d hears me, it was not pity but love!" he answered with pa.s.sionate sincerity.
"Then you give me something to live for!"
Her meaning thundered upon him.
"You intended to----?"
"Yes."
"When?"