y life," he replied, taking up her opening
with relief. This would lead him to what he had come to tell her.

"And you won?"

"I was beaten to my knees."

"That doesn't sound like you as I knew you at Arles."

"The fight's not over yet. I managed to stumble up again for a final
round."

"May I know what the fight was about?"

"I want you to know every detail of it," he answered swiftly. "I want
your advice--your help."

"My help?" There was a faint flush in her cheeks below the bandages.
"What can _I_ do?"

He paused a moment before replying, seeking the right beginning to his
story.

"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 mys