“Of course he is.  You didn’t see him in the first days after his sunstroke.”

“That’s true.”

“Please give him the draught, or whatever it is, and then we really must try and get some rest.”

As she said the last words he noticed in her voice the sound of a woman who had nearly come to the end of her powers of resistance.

“It won’t take a moment,” he said.  “Where is he?”

“I’ll show you.”

She went in front of him to a cabin, in which, on a smart bed, Nigel lay supported by pillows.  One candle was burning on a bracket of white wood, giving a faint light.  Mrs. Armine stood by the head of the bed looking down upon the thin, almost lead-coloured face that was turned towards her.

“Now Doctor Isaacson is going to make you sleep.”

“Thank God.  The rheumatism’s awfully bad to-night.”

“Rheumatism?” said Isaacson.

Already he had poured some water into a glass, and dropped something into it.  He held the glass towards Nigel, not coming quite near to him.  To take the glass, it was necessary for the sick man to stretch out his arm.  Nigel made a movement to do this; but his arm dropped, and he said, almost crossly: 

“Do put it nearer.”

Then Isaacson put it to his mouth.

“Rheumatism?” he repeated, when Nigel had swallowed the draught.

“Yes.  I have it awfully badly, like creatures gnawing me almost.”

He sighed, and lay lower in the bed.

“I can’t understand it.  Rheumatism in this perfect climate!” he murmured.

Mrs. Armine made an ostentatious movement as if to go away and leave them together.

“No, don’t go, Ruby,” Nigel said.

He felt for her hand.

“I want you—­you two to be friends,” he said.  “Real friends.  Isaacson, you don’t know what she’s been in—­in all this bad time.  You don’t know.”

His feeble voice broke.

“I’ll be here to-morrow,” said Isaacson, after a pause.

“Yes, come.  You must put me—­right.”

Mrs. Armine could not accompany Isaacson to the felucca or say a word to him alone, for Nigel kept, almost clung to, her hand.

“I must stay with him till he sleeps,” she almost whispered as Isaacson was going.

She was bending slightly over the bed.  Some people might have thought that she looked like the sick man’s guardian angel, but Isaacson felt an intense reluctance to leave the dahabeeyah that night.

He looked at Mrs. Armine for a moment, saw that she fully received his look, and went away, leaving her still in that beautifully protective attitude.

He came out on deck.  The felucca was waiting.  He got into it, and was rowed out into the river by two sailors.  As they rowed they began to sing.  The lights of the Loulia slipped by, yellow light after yellow light.  From above the blue light looked down like a watchful eye.  The darkness of the water, like streaming ebony, took the felucca and the fateful voices.  And the tide gave its help to the oarsmen.  The lights began to dwindle when Isaacson said to the men: