That colour, that dropped wrist, the cruel emaciation, the tremulous hands, the pathetic eyes that seemed crying for help—­what did they indicate?  And there were other symptoms, even stronger, in Nigel that already had almost assailed the doctor, as if clamouring for his notice and striving to tell a story.

“But why are you here, in Egypt?” asked Nigel.  “You didn’t come out because—?”

“No, no,” said Isaacson.

“But then”—­a smile that was rather like tears came into the sick man’s face—­“but then perhaps you came to—­to see our happiness!  You remember my letter, Ruby?”

“Yes,” she said.

His hand still lay on hers.

“Well, since then it’s been a bad time for me.  But that happiness has never failed me—­never.”

“And it never shall,” she said.

As she spoke she looked up again at Isaacson, and he read a cool menace in her eyes.  Those eyes repeated what her voice had told him on the other side of that door.  They said:  “My enemy can never find a friend in my husband.”  But now that Isaacson saw these two people together, he realized the truth of their relations as words could never have made him realize them.

There was a little silence, broken only by the tiny whisper of the faskeeyeh.  Then Mrs. Armine said gently: 

“Now, Nigel, you’ve had your surprise, and you ought to sleep.  Doctor Isaacson’s coming back to-morrow to have a consultation with Doctor Hartley at four o’clock.”

She spoke as if the whole matter were already arranged.

“Sleep!  You know I can’t sleep.  I never can sleep now.”

“Is the insomnia very bad?” asked Isaacson, quietly.

“I never can sleep scarcely.  The nights are so awful.”

“Yes, Nigel, dearest.  But to-night I think you will sleep.”

“Why to-night?”

“Because of this happy surprise I arranged for you.  But I shall be sorry I arranged it if you get excited.  Do you know how late it is?  It is past eleven.  You must let Doctor Isaacson go to the felucca.  Our bargain was that to-night he should not attempt to hear all about you or enter into the case.  It would not be fair to Doctor Hartley.”

“Damn Doctor Hartley!” murmured the sick man, almost peevishly.

“I know.  But we must behave nicely to him.  Be good now, and go to bed.  I have told Doctor Isaacson a lot, and I know you’ll sleep now you can feel he’s near you.”

“I don’t want anything more to do with Hartley.  He knows nothing.  I won’t have him to-morrow.”

He spoke crossly.

“Nigel!”

She put her hand upon his.

“Forgive me, dearest!  Oh, what a brute I am!”

Tears came into his eyes.

“I martyrize her, I know I do,” he said to Isaacson; “but I don’t believe it’s my fault.  I do feel so awfully ill!”

His head drooped.  Isaacson felt his pulse.  Nigel gazed down at the divan, staring with eyes that had become filmy.  Mrs. Armine looked at Isaacson, and he, with a doctor’s memory that was combined with the memory of a man who had formerly been conquered, compared this poor pulse that fluttered beneath his sensitive fingers with another pulse which once he had felt beating strongly—­a pulse which had made him understand the defiance of a life.