“No, Louis.  But—­after last night—­I don’t like to see you lying here like this,” she began.

“I know it’s boring for you, my pet.  Marcella, come and sit on the edge of the bed.  We can talk better if you’re near me.”

“No, I’ll stay here,” she said decidedly.  “And it’s not boring for me.  It’s—­” She was going to say “degrading” but stopped in time.

“You know, I think I’d be all right,” he went on, “if I got up and went out now.  But I can’t be sure.  I don’t want to hurt you again, darling.”

“I know, my dear.  But I can’t help thinking this is a negative thing.  If you had something to do—­something that would interest you so much you couldn’t even think about whisky.”

“I’ve got that something in you, when you’re as sweet as you were last night,” he said softly.  She felt sickened for a minute.  The Spear in her hand wavered; it seemed to be turning to a chain again.  A chain for her, a Spear for him—­she said quietly: 

“I like taking care of you, Louis.  I’m not thinking of myself at all.  Only I can’t help wishing you’d got pneumonia, or a broken leg or something, so that you could stay in bed sort of—­honourably.”

“It’s worth while, if I get better, isn’t it, my pet?” he said, slowly.

“Anything’s worth while—­if you get better,” she said.

And so the days wore on until they had been married six weeks.  In all that time Louis never saw whisky.  This, he confessed to her, was a miracle; except for when he was with the Maories in the Prohibition Country, and when he had been in hospital for various long stretches, he had never known three days to go by without his being drunk.  So she felt that they had advanced steadily.  Moods of depression came and went, charmed away by her.  They spent a good deal of time on the roof.  They had not many books to pass the slow hours, though Dr. Angus sent two every week.  Louis began to lecture her on medicine; he really knew extraordinarily well what he had learnt:  he was an excellent teacher of facts, but he had not one iota of deductive thought in his teaching and, like Andrew Lashcairn, was remarkably impatient if she did not understand or, understanding, ventured to express an opinion of her own about anything.  They had many glamorous nights on the roof, nights that recalled the enchantment of those hours under the Aurora, nights of severe mental reservation on Marcella’s part, all unsuspected by Louis.  He confessed to her that his ideas were getting modified; a great confession for so crusted a conservative as he.

One night they were kept awake by a tropical downpour which lashed against the windows and poured through the ceiling.  Three times they had to get up and move the bed round to escape the stream of water.  Marcella seemed to be spending all the night mopping up water.

“If Mrs. King sees all this mess I expect she’ll say we mustn’t go up on the roof again,” said Louis.  “I suppose we cracked the rusty old iron by walking about on it.”