Even when down below the hillside, by the aqueduct, they were still far from the Villa Clémentine and yet farther from Elaine's hotel by the station. Some conveyance was imperative. But in a quiet country town like Nîmes there are no cabs to be found wandering around at night-time. Nor was there carriage or motor-car in sight.
A peasant's cart drawn by a tiny donkey came providentially to solve the problem. Rivière laid Elaine on the straw of the cart; snatched the reins from the owner; drove home at frantic speed; had her put to bed in his own room by Mme Giras; 'phoned imperatively for a doctor and a nurse.
And now he waited in straining anxiety for the verdict. The waiting was more horrible than the nightmare flight through the shadows of the garden on the hillside. That at all events had been action; now he was being stretched in passive helplessness on the rack of Time.
After an æon of waiting, the doctor left the sick-room and closed the door noiselessly behind him. Rivière looked him square in the eye.
"I want the truth," he said in French. The words sounded as though his throat had closed in tight around them.
"We must wait until the morning before it will be possible that we may say definitely," replied the doctor.
"To say if——?"
"If we can save the right eye."
"The left?"
"I greatly fear——" A slight gesture of his two hands completed the sentence.