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