“What am I going to do?” she kept on saying to herself, as she walked to and fro in this solitude.  “What am I going to do?”

It was a strange thing, perhaps, that even at this moment Baroudi, the man at a distance, frightened her more than Isaacson, the man who was near.  She did not know what either was going to do.  She was the prey of a double uncertainty.  Isaacson, she supposed, would bring her husband back to health, unless even now she found means to get rid of him.  And Baroudi, what would he do?  She looked across the river and saw the blue light.  Why was the Loulia tied up there?  Was Baroudi coming up to join her?

If he did come!  She walked faster, quite unconscious that she had quickened her pace.  If he did come she felt now that she could no longer be obedient.  She would have to see him, have to force him to come out from his deep mystery of the Eastern mind and take notice of what she was feeling.  His magnificent selfishness had dominated hers.  But she was becoming desperate.  The thought of her wrecked beauty haunted her always, though she was perpetually thrusting it away from her.  She was resolved to think that there was very little change in her appearance, and that such change as there was would only be temporary.  A little, only a little of what she wanted, and surely the Indian summer would return.

And then, she thought of Meyer Isaacson up there in the house close to her, with his horribly acute eyes that proclaimed his horribly acute brain.  That man could be pitiless, but not to Nigel.  And could he ever be pitiless to her without being pitiless to Nigel?

She looked at the water, and now stood still.

If Baroudi were on board the Loulia to-night, she would get a boat and go to him—­would not she?—­and say she could not stand her life any longer, that she must be with him.  She would let him treat her as he chose.  Thinking of Nigel’s kindness at this moment she actually longed for cruelty from Baroudi.

But she must be with him.

If she could only be with Baroudi anywhere, anyhow, she would throw the memory of this hateful life with Nigel away for ever.  She would never give Nigel another thought.  There would be no time to waste over that.

“But what am I going to do?  What am I going to do?”

That sentence came back to her mind.  Flights of the imagination were useless.  It was no use now to give the reins to imagination.

Baroudi must come up the river.  He must be coming up, or the Loulia would surely not be tied up against the western shore.  But perhaps she was there only for the night.  Perhaps she would sail on the morrow.

Mrs. Armine felt that if the next morning the Loulia was gone she would be unable to remain in Luxor.  She would have to take the train and go.  Where?  Anywhere!  To Cairo.  She could make some excuse; that she must get some clothes, mourning for Harwich.  That would do.  She would say she was going only for a couple of days.  Nigel would let her go.  And Meyer Isaacson?