Like all trained microscopists, Riviere worked with both eyes open. The
amateur observer has to screw one eye tight in order to avoid a
confusion of impressions, and quickly tires himself. The trained man
keeps both eyes open, and schools his brain to concentrate on the one
vision and ignore the other. He sees only the miniature world at the
further end of his complex of lenses.

But Riviere, self-controlled as he was, could not keep attention on his
experimental slide. The vision of the miniature world faded out, and
through the other eye came the impression of the outside of the polished
brass tube of the microscope; the glass slide beyond, lit up by the
reflector as though with a searchlight; and the plate-glass bench
mirroring the cases of specimens and the shelves of chemical reagents.

And then the material vision of both eyes faded away, and he saw only
the inner vision of Elaine lying with bandaged eyes in the darkened room
of the Dr Hegelmann's surgical home. The great specialist, pulling at
his beard with his long, delicately-chiselled fingers, so out of keeping
with the shapelessness of his bulky, untidy figure, had taken Riviere
aside and had given him orders in that wonderfully musical voice of his.

"Fraulein is worrying--that is bad for the recovery. I will not have her
worried. You must tell her that everything will come right--you must
make her smile again."

"But I'm only a casual acquaintance. We met by mere chance a few days
before the attack at Nimes," Riviere had said.

"Nevertheless, you can do much for her. She will listen to you gladly.
You are no longer casual acquaintances. I am an observer of human nature
as well as a surgeon, and I know that the mind is the key to the bodily
health. I know that _you_ can influence her. Talk to her freely--it will
not tire her. That is my order."

But Riviere had not been able to carry out the spirit of the old man's
shrewd command. When he was by her bedside, a great constraint had come
upon him. What had been easy to embody in a letter, was terribly
difficult to frame in spoken speech. Several times he had tried to open
the way to a confession. He knew it must scarify Elaine, and he shrank
from it. But yet it was plain her mind was not at rest, and that was
worse for her than the knowledge of the truth.

He, too, must act the surgeon.

With sudden resolution, Riviere put away his microscope and placed his
experimental slides in their air-tight i