aightened 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 God hears me, it was not pity but love!" he answered with passionate
sincerity.

"Then you give me something to live for!"

Her meaning thundered upon him.

"You intended to----?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"When my money was exhausted."

"I never dreamt!"

"What else was left for me?"

"Surely you knew that I'd provide for you?"

"I couldn't accept it--then."

"You'll accept it now?"

"I must think."

"I insist! I claim it as my right! You wouldn't torture me all my life
with the thought that I'd driven you to----"

"Don't say it."

Riviere took her hand and bent to kiss it reverently. There was silence
for many moments--a silence of deep sympathy. Elaine's flushed cheeks
told Riviere more plainly than words what she was feeling.

"I'm so glad," she said at length. "So glad to know."

"And I'm glad to have told you."

"I shall get my sight back now. I have something to live for."

"Please God, you will."

"I feel it. I have something to live for.... Dear John!"

She sought to take his hand in hers, but he rose abruptly from beside
her couch and strode away.

"We're forgetting!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I'm still Clifford
Matheson."

"Not to me."

"Nothing can alter the fact."

"Let us live in dreamland awhile," she pleaded gently.

"But the awakening must come."

"We have till May 3rd."

"Till May 3rd.... And then?"

"And then you will go back to the fight."

"Yes.