Then she resolved to wait no longer, but to go and find out for herself.  Perhaps it was the look of returning life in the eyes of her husband which finally decided her.

She came out on to the terrace where he was stretched in a long chair under an awning.  A book lay on one of the arms of the chair, but he was not reading it.  He was just lying there and looking out to the garden, and to the hills that edge the desert of Libya.  Isaacson was not with him.  He had gone away somewhere, perhaps for a stroll on the bank of the Nile.

Mrs. Armine sauntered up, with an indolent, careless air, and sat down near her husband.

“Dreaming?” she said, in her sweetest voice.

He shook his head.

“Waking!” he answered.  “Waking up to life.”

“You do look much stronger to-day.”

“Stronger than yesterday?” he said, eagerly.  “You think so?  You notice it, Ruby?”

“Yes.”

“That’s strange.  To-day I—­I know that all is going to be right with me.  To-day I know that presently—­Ruby, think of it!—­I shall be the man I once was.”

“And I know it, too, Nigel—­to-day—­and that is why at last I feel I can ask you something.”

“Anything—­anything.  I would do anything to please you after all this time of misery, and dulness for you!”

“It’s a prosaic little request I have to make.  I only want you to let me take the night train and run up to Cairo.”

His face fell.  He stretched out his hand to touch hers.

“Go away!  Go to Cairo!” he said.

And his voice was reluctant.

“Yes, Nigel,” she said, with gentle firmness.  “I’ve been looking over my wardrobe these last days, and I’m simply in rags.”

“But your dresses—­”

“It’s not only my dresses—­I really am in rags.  Won’t you let me go just for two days to get a few things I actually need?  I’m not going to spend a lot of money.”

“As if it was that!”

He pressed her hand, and his pressure showed his returning strength.

“It’s being without you.”

“For two days.  And you’ll have Doctor Isaacson.  I want to go while he is still with us, so as not to leave you alone.  And Nigel, while I’m gone, can’t you manage to find out what we owe him?  It must be an enormous sum.”

Nigel suddenly looked preoccupied.

“I’d never thought of that,” he said, slowly.

“No, because you’ve been ill.  But I have often.  And you must think of it now.”

“Yes; he’s saved my life.  I can never really repay him.”

“Oh, yes, you can.  Doctors do these things for fixed sums, you know.”

He shifted in his chair, and sent an uneasy glance to her.

“I wish—­how I wish that you and Isaacson could be better friends!” he dropped out, at length.

“After all I’ve told you!” she exclaimed, almost with bitterness.

“I know, I know.  But now that he’s saved my life!”