“Then your point of view has changed,” whispered d’Alcacer.

“I told my wife to make an offer,” went on the earnest whisper of the other man.  “A sum of money.  But to tell you the truth I don’t believe very much in its success.”

D’Alcacer made no answer and only wondered whether he didn’t like better Mr. Travers’ other, unreasonable mood.  There was no denying the fact that Mr. Travers was a troubling person.  Now he suddenly gripped d’Alcacer’s fore-arm and added under his breath:  “I doubt everything.  I doubt whether the offer will ever be made.”

All this was not very impressive.  There was something pitiful in it:  whisper, grip, shudder, as of a child frightened in the dark.  But the emotion was deep.  Once more that evening, but this time aroused by the husband’s distress, d’Alcacer’s wonder approached the borders of awe.

PART VI.  THE CLAIM OF LIFE AND THE TOLL OF DEATH

I

“Have you got King Tom’s watch in there?” said a voice that seemed not to attach the slightest importance to the question.  Jorgenson, outside the door of Mrs. Travers’ part of the deckhouse, waited for the answer.  He heard a low cry very much like a moan, the startled sound of pain that may be sometimes heard in sick rooms.  But it moved him not at all.  He would never have dreamt of opening the door unless told to do so, in which case he would have beheld, with complete indifference, Mrs. Travers extended on the floor with her head resting on the edge of the camp bedstead (on which Lingard had never slept), as though she had subsided there from a kneeling posture which is the attitude of prayer, supplication, or defeat.  The hours of the night had passed Mrs. Travers by.  After flinging herself on her knees, she didn’t know why, since she could think of nothing to pray for, had nothing to invoke, and was too far gone for such a futile thing as despair, she had remained there till the sense of exhaustion had grown on her to the point in which she lost her belief in her power to rise.  In a half-sitting attitude, her head resting against the edge of the couch and her arms flung above her head, she sank into an indifference, the mere resignation of a worn-out body and a worn-out mind which often is the only sort of rest that comes to people who are desperately ill and is welcome enough in a way.  The voice of Jorgenson roused her out of that state.  She sat up, aching in every limb and cold all over.

Jorgenson, behind the door, repeated with lifeless obstinacy: 

“Do you see King Tom’s watch in there?”

Mrs. Travers got up from the floor.  She tottered, snatching at the air, and found the back of the armchair under her hand.

“Who’s there?”

She was also ready to ask:  “Where am I?” but she remembered and at once became the prey of that active dread which had been lying dormant for a few hours in her uneasy and prostrate body.  “What time is it?” she faltered out.