hen passing through the box-hedged lawn as a short cut to the front
door, one of the curtains of the lighted drawing-room was suddenly
thrown back, and the broad figure of man stood framed in a golden panel
of light. It was Lars Larssen.

Riviere stopped involuntarily. It was as though his antagonist had
divined his presence and had come boldly forward to meet him. And,
indeed, that was not far from the fact. Larssen, waiting alone in the
drawing-room, had had one of his strange intuitive impulses to throw
wide the curtain and look out into the night. Such an impulse he never
opposed. He had learnt by long experience that there were centres of
perception within him, uncharted by science, which gathered impressions
too vague to put a name to, and yet vitally real. He always gave rein to
his intuition and let it lead him where it chose.

Looking out into the night, the shipowner could not see Riviere, who had
stopped motionless in the shadow of a giant box clipped to the shape of
a peacock standing on a broad pedestal.

Riviere waited.

Presently Larssen turned abruptly as though someone had entered the
room. A smile of welcome was on his lips. Olive swept in, close-gowned
in black with silvery scales. She offered her hand with a radiant smile,
and Larssen took it masterfully and raised it to his lips. Riviere noted
that it was not the shipowner who had moved forward to meet Olive, but
Olive who had come gladly to him.

They stood by the fireplace, and Olive chatted animatedly to her guest.
Riviere scarcely recognized his wife in this transformation of spirit.
With him she was cold and abrupt, and captious, eyes half-lidded and
cheeks white and mask-like. Now her eyes flashed and sparkled, and there
was warm colour in her cheeks.

Of what Olive and Larssen said to one another, no word came to Riviere.
But attitude and gesture told him more than words could have done. It
was as though he were a spectator of a bioscope drama, standing in
darkness while a scene was being pictured for him in remorseless detail
behind the lighted window. That Olive's feeling for Larssen had grown
beyond mere friendship was plain beyond question. She was infatuated
with the man; and he was playing with her infatuation.

For a moment Riviere's fist clenched; then his fingers loosened, and he
watched without stirring. Larssen must, in view of his action on the
Hudson Bay coup, believe Matheson to be dead. To him, Olive was now a
widow. Th