to yourself?"

"Then it's freed you?"

"Absolutely. The divorce was Larssen's trump-card. You've fought for me
far better than I could ever have fought for myself. To think of you
lying there helpless, and yet battling for me! My God, but at what a
cost to yourself!"

"If it's freed you, dear John, nothing else matters."

"It has. Now I can smash Larssen's scheme.... But what of you, what of
you?"

"We must part--now," she murmured.

"Why now?"

"Don't ask me to explain."

Riviere clenched his hand. "Yes, you're right," he said after a pause.
"We must part--for a time."

"It will be best for both of us. You must go back to your world."

"I'm wanted at Nimes a few days hence, to give evidence at the trial."

"Then leave Wiesbaden to-day."

"Give me till to-morrow near you."

"No, you must go to-day.... We'll say good-bye now."

She held out her hand, but he took her in his arms and kissed her
passionately.

"No--don't!"

"Forgive me--I'm a brute!"

"Dear John, go now. Don't stay. Go back to your world and fight your
battle. I shall recover my sight--I feel that more strongly than ever. I
shall need it if only to read your letters. Go now, and take with you my
wishes for all happiness and all success in your life-work!"

Riviere tried to answer, but the words choked in his throat.

"Elaine!" was all he could utter.

* * * * *

That night he took train for Paris, to call on Barreze the manager of
the Odeon Theatre.

There he fixed up an arrangement by which Barreze would send to Elaine,
in the guise of payment for the uncompleted work she had done for him, a
substantial sum of money. It was a temporary expedient only, but it
would serve Riviere's purpose.

Then he proceeded to Nimes to attend the trial of the youth Crau.

CHAPTER XXX

HEIR TO A THRONE

The liner "Claudia" was ripping her way eastwards through a calm
Atlantic, like shears through an endless length of blue muslin.

An unclouded morning sun beat full upon the pale cheeks and delicate
frame of Larssen's little twelve-year-old son, alone with his father on
their private promenade deck. The contrast between the broad frame of
the shipowner and the delicate, nervous, under-sized physique of his boy
was striking in its irony. Here was the strong man carving out an empire
for his descendants, and here was his only son, the inheritor-to-be.
Neither physically nor mentally could Olaf ever be