“Then it will be a different matter, and I shall be very glad indeed to have your opinion.  I know its value”—­she looked towards the door by which Hamza had gone out—­“but I must treat Doctor Hartley with proper consideration.  And now I must say good night.”

Her voice still hurried.  Quickly she held out her hand.

“The felucca will take you home.  And to-morrow, as soon as Doctor Hartley has been here and I have had a talk with him and heard what he thinks, I’ll let you know all about it.  It’s very good of you to bother.”

But Isaacson did not take the outstretched hand.

“Your husband is awake,” he said, abruptly.

Her hand dropped.

“I think, I’m sure, that if he knew I was here he would be very glad to see me.  I know you’ll tell him, and let him decide for himself.”

“But I’m sure he is asleep.  I left him asleep.”

“That bell—­”

She smiled.

“Oh, that wasn’t Nigel!  That was my French maid.  She’s very glorified here.  She makes Hamza attend upon her, hand and foot.”

As she spoke, Isaacson remembered the words in Nigel’s letter:  “She packed off her French maid so as to be quite free.”

“Oh, your maid!” he said.

And his voice was colder, firmer.

“Yes.”

“But surely it may have been your husband who rang?”

“No, I don’t think so.  I’m quite sure not.  Once Nigel gets off to sleep he doesn’t wake easily.”

“But I thought he suffered from insomnia!”

Directly he had said the words, Isaacson realized that he had made a false step.  But it was too late to retrieve it.  She was upon him instantly.

“Why?” she said, sharply.  “Why should you think that?”

“You—­”

“I never said so!  I never said a word of it!”

She remembered the steps Nigel had said he heard when they were together upon the balcony, and beneath the rouge on her face her cheeks went grey.

“I never said a word of it!” she reiterated, with her eyes fastened upon him.

“You spoke of having ’got him off to sleep’—­of having ’played him to sleep.’  I naturally gathered that he had been sleeping badly, and that sleep was very important to him.  And then the clock!”

He pointed to the broken toy from Switzerland.

But the greyness persisted in her face.  He knew that his attempted explanation was useless.  He knew that she had realized his overhearing of her conversation with Nigel.  Well, that fact, perhaps, cleared some ground.  But he would not show that he knew.

“Your vexation about the clock proved that the patient was sleeping badly and was sensitive to the least noise.”

She opened her lips twice as if to speak, and shut them without saying anything; then, as if with a fierce effort, and speaking with a voice that was hoarse and ugly as the voice he had heard in the temple, she said: