What was Elaine to do with her life?

In those weary days of the sick-room at NÎmes, and on the long railway journey through Lyons, BesanÇon 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 RiviÈre, 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?

RiviÈre 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 ProvenÇal 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 ClÉmentine 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 CarrÉe, 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 RiviÈre 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 RiviÈre's was weighed and re-weighed, tested and assayed by her for the gold that might be hidden within.