As she spoke she looked at the face of Isaacson and she knew that he had not spoken. A natural flush came to join the flush of rouge on her cheeks.
"Nigel, you've got to forgive me!" she said.
"Forgive you!"
The weak voice spoke with a stronger note than it had found on the balcony. Isaacson let go his friend's hands. He moved. The almost emotional protectiveness that had seemed mutely to exclaim, "I'll save you! Here's a hand--here are two strong hands--to save you from the abyss!" died out of his attitude. He stood up straight. But he kept his eyes fastened on his friend. Never in his consulting-room had he looked at any patient as he now looked at Nigel Armine, with such fiercely searching eyes. His face said to the leaning man before him: "Give up your secrets. I mean to know them all."
"Forgive you!" Nigel repeated.
Feebly he put out one hand and touched his wife. He was looking almost dazed.
"And to-night, when I--when I said, 'If only Isaacson were here!' did you know then?"
"That he was coming? Yes, I knew. And I nearly had to tell you--so nearly! But, you see, a woman can keep a secret."
"How did you know?"
He looked at Isaacson. But Isaacson let her answer. It was enough for him that he was with his friend. He did not care about anything else. And all this time he was at doctor's work.
"We met this morning in the temple of Edfou, and I told Doctor Isaacson about your sunstroke, and asked him to come up to-night and see you."
She lied with the quiet aplomb which Isaacson remembered almost enjoying in the Savoy Restaurant one night, when they were grouped about a supper-table. Quietly then she had handed him out the lies which he knew to be lies. She had made him presents of them, and as he had received her presents then, he received them now, but a little more indifferently. For he was deeply attentive to Nigel.
That colour, that dropped wrist, the cruel emaciation, the tremulous hands, the pathetic eyes that seemed crying for help--what did they indicate? And there were other symptoms, even stronger, in Nigel that already had almost assailed the doctor, as if clamouring for his notice and striving to tell a story.
"But why are you here, in Egypt?" asked Nigel. "You didn't come out because--?"
"No, no," said Isaacson.
"But then"--a smile that was rather like tears came into the sick man's face--"but then perhaps you came to--to see our happiness! You remember my letter, Ruby?"