With overwhelming conviction Rivière saw the inevitable solution. She had been blinded while trying to save him. The debt, the overwhelming debt, lay on him. He must provide for her, guard over her.
If she would accept such help....
In the cold grey of a mist-shrouded morning he woke with a new insistent thought hammering into his brain. For the first time since he had taken up the personality of John Rivière, doubt surged upon him in wave after wave of icy, sullen surf. Had he had the right to cut loose from the life of Clifford Matheson? Had one alone of a married couple the right to decide on such a separation? Had he violated some unwritten law of Fate, and was this the hand of Fate punishing him through the woman he cared for more deeply than he had yet confessed to himself?
He knew now that from the first moment of their meeting by the arena of Arles she had opened within him—against his volition—a whole realm of inner feelings which up till then had lain dormant. He had wanted no woman in this new life of his, and both at Arles and at Nîmes he had tried to shut and bolt the gate of the secret realm. Sincerely he had wanted to give his whole thoughts and energies to his future work, but here was something which persisted in his inner consciousness against his will. It was like curtaining the windows and shutting one's eyes against a storm—in spite of barriers the lightning slashes through to the retina of the eye.
Was Fate to punish him through the woman he loved?
Rivière rose with determination and flung the thought aside. "Fate" was only a bogey to frighten children with. "Fate" was a coward's master. Every man had the right to rough-hew his own life. He, Rivière, had chosen his new life with eyes open, and, right or wrong, he would stick by his choice and hew out his life on his own lines. If "Fate" were indeed a reality, then he would fight it as he had fought Lars Larssen. He would unknot the tangled threads at whatever cost to himself.
The doctor looked very grave when he had left Elaine's bedside the next morning.
"The injuries are very serious," he told Rivière. "The cornea of the right eye has almost been destroyed by the acid. It will heal over, but the sight will not be as it was before."
"You mean blinded for life—in both eyes?" asked Rivière, ruthless for his own feelings.
"We must not hope for too much," hedged the doctor. "A great deal depends on the course of the recovery. I wish not to raise false hopes...."