On the following morning, when Mrs. Armine looked out of her window, the Loulia still lay opposite.  She took glasses to see if there was any movement of the crew suggestive of impending departure.  But all seemed quiet.  The men were squatting on the lower deck in happy idleness.

Then Baroudi must presently be coming.

She decided to be patient a little longer, not to make that excuse to go to Cairo.  With the morning she felt, she did not know why, more able to endure present conditions.

But as day followed day and Baroudi made no sign, and the Loulia lay always by the western shore with the shutters closed over the cabin windows, the intense irritation of her nerves returned, and grew with each succeeding hour.

Isaacson had not gone to stay at an hotel, but had, as a matter of course, taken up his abode at the villa, and he continued to live there.  She was obliged to see him perpetually, obliged to behave to him with politeness, if not with suavity.  His watch over Nigel was tireless.  The rule he had made at the beginning of his stay was not relaxed.  Nigel was not allowed to take anything from any hand but the Doctor’s.

The relation between Doctor and patient was still a curious and even an awkward one.  Although Nigel’s trust in the Doctor was absolute, he had never returned to his former pleasant intimacy with his friend.  At first Isaacson had secretly anticipated a gradual growth of personal confidence, had thought that as weakness declined, as a little strength began to bud out almost timidly in the poor, tormented body, Nigel would revert, perhaps unconsciously, to a happier or more friendly mood.  But though the Doctor was offered the gratitude of the patient, the friend was never offered the cordiality of the friend.

Bella Donna’s influence was stubborn.  Between these two men the woman always stood, dividing them, even now when the one was ministering to the other, was bringing the other back to life, was giving up everything for the other.

For this prolonged stay in Egypt was likely to prove a serious thing to Isaacson.  Not only was he losing much money by it now.  Probably, almost certainly, he would lose money by it in the future.  There were moments when he thought about this with a secret vexation.  But they passed, and quickly.  He had his reward in the growing strength of the sick man.  Yet sometimes it was difficult to bear the almost stony reserve which took the colour out of his life in the Villa Androud.  It would have been more difficult still if he too, like Bella Donna, had not had his work to do in the dark.  Since they had arrived in Luxor he had been seeking for a motive.  The moment came when at last he found it.

Prompted by him, Hassan played upon Ibrahim’s indignation at having been supplanted for so long by Hamza, and drew from him the truth of Mrs. Armine’s days while Nigel had been away in the Fayyum.