The departure of Mrs. Armine brought to Meyer Isaacson a sudden and immense feeling of relief.  When he looked at his watch and knew that the train for Cairo had left the station of Luxor, when half an hour later Ibrahim came in to tell Nigel that “my lady” had gone off “very nice indeed,” he was for a time almost joyous, as a man is joyous who has got rid of a heavy burden, or who is unexpectedly released from some cruel prison of circumstance.  How much the enforced companionship with Mrs. Armine had oppressed him he understood fully now.  And it was difficult for him to realize, more difficult still for him to sympathize with, Nigel’s obvious regret at his wife’s going, obvious longing for her to be back again by his side.

Isaacson’s sympathy was not asked for by Nigel.  Here the strong reserve existing between the two men naturally stepped in.  Isaacson strove to dissimulate his joy, Nigel to dissimulate his feeling of sudden loneliness.  But either Isaacson played his part the better, or his powers of observation were far more developed than Nigel’s; for whereas he saw with almost painful clearness the state of his friend’s mind on that first evening of their dual solitude, Nigel only partially guessed at his, or very faintly suspected it.

Their dinner together threatened at first to be dreary.  For Mrs. Armine’s going, instead of breaking down, had consolidated for the moment the reserve between them.  But Isaacson’s inner joyousness, however carefully concealed, made its influence felt, as joy will.  Without quite knowing why, Nigel presently began to thaw.  Isaacson turned the conversation, which had stumbled, had halted, to Nigel’s condition of health, and then Nigel said, as he had already said to his wife: 

“To-day I feel that I am waking up to life.”

“Only to-day?” said the Doctor.

“Oh, I’ve been feeling better and better, but to-day it’s as if a door that had been creaking on its hinges was flung wide open.”

“I’m not surprised.  These sudden leaps forward are often a feature of convalescence.”

“They—­they aren’t followed by falling back, are they?” Nigel asked, with a sudden change to uneasiness.

“Sometimes, in fever cases especially.  But in a case like yours we needn’t anticipate anything of that kind.”

The last words seemed to suggest to Nigel some train of thought, and after sitting in silence two or three minutes, looking grave and rather preoccupied, he said: 

“By the way, what has been the matter with me, exactly?  What have I really had in the way of an illness?  All this time I’ve been so occupied in being ill that I’ve never asked you.”

The last words were said with an attempt at lightness.

“Have I?” he added.

“No, I don’t think you have,” said Isaacson, in a voice that suggested a nature at that moment certainly not inclined to be communicative.

“Has it been all sunstroke!  But—­but I’m sure it hasn’t.”