But Isaacson did not take the outstretched hand.
"Your husband is awake," he said, abruptly.
Her hand dropped.
"I think, I'm sure, that if he knew I was here he would be very glad to see me. I know you'll tell him, and let him decide for himself."
"But I'm sure he is asleep. I left him asleep."
"That bell--"
She smiled.
"Oh, that wasn't Nigel! That was my French maid. She's very glorified here. She makes Hamza attend upon her, hand and foot."
As she spoke, Isaacson remembered the words in Nigel's letter: "She packed off her French maid so as to be quite free."
"Oh, your maid!" he said.
And his voice was colder, firmer.
"Yes."
"But surely it may have been your husband who rang?"
"No, I don't think so. I'm quite sure not. Once Nigel gets off to sleep he doesn't wake easily."
"But I thought he suffered from insomnia!"
Directly he had said the words, Isaacson realized that he had made a false step. But it was too late to retrieve it. She was upon him instantly.
"Why?" she said, sharply. "Why should you think that?"
"You--"
"I never said so! I never said a word of it!"
She remembered the steps Nigel had said he heard when they were together upon the balcony, and beneath the rouge on her face her cheeks went grey.
"I never said a word of it!" she reiterated, with her eyes fastened upon him.
"You spoke of having 'got him off to sleep'--of having 'played him to sleep.' I naturally gathered that he had been sleeping badly, and that sleep was very important to him. And then the clock!"
He pointed to the broken toy from Switzerland.
But the greyness persisted in her face. He knew that his attempted explanation was useless. He knew that she had realized his overhearing of her conversation with Nigel. Well, that fact, perhaps, cleared some ground. But he would not show that he knew.
"Your vexation about the clock proved that the patient was sleeping badly and was sensitive to the least noise."
She opened her lips twice as if to speak, and shut them without saying anything; then, as if with a fierce effort, and speaking with a voice that was hoarse and ugly as the voice he had heard in the temple, she said: "It's very late, and I'm really tired out. I can't talk any more. I've told you that Nigel is asleep and that I decline to wake him for you or for any one. The doctor who understands his case, and whom he himself has chosen to be in charge of it, is coming early to-morrow. The felucca is there"--she put out her hand towards the nearest door--"and will take you down the river. I must ask you to go. I'm tired."