r to make
it lie straight, felt wet and cold on her neck. After a long while she
laid his head on the pillow and stood up, stretching herself because she
was so stiff.

"Don't leave me," he murmured, without opening his eyes. She laid a cool
hand on his head again. When she took it away he was fast asleep. She
stood with her hands clasped behind her, watching him for a long time.
Then she turned away with a sigh, to gaze through the window, trying to
locate her position by the stars, only to be puzzled until she
remembered that, for the last three weeks, the stars had been different
from those that kept their courses above Lashnagar. She would not have
felt so lonely had she been able to turn towards home as a Mahommedan
turns towards Mecca. After awhile, chilled and hungry and aching in her
throat, she turned back into the room.

"Being married is horrible," she whispered. "I thought it was such an
adventure."

Going across to the bed she stood looking at him, her eyes filled with
tears and, bending over him, she touched his forehead with her lips.

"Oh, my dear, my dear," she whispered. "I wish you weren't drunk."

He stirred, and his hand made a little, ineffectual movement towards
her, and dropped again.

Something in its weakness, its inadequacy, made her impatient; she felt
it impossible to come near to anything so ineffectual as that futile
hand and, taking the pillow from the other side of the bed, laid it on
the floor. She started to undress and stopped sharp.

"I can't get in my nightgown--in case he wakes up and sees me," she
said. A moment later, rolled in her old plaid travelling rug she lay on
the floor. It did not seem uncomfortable; it did not seem an
extraordinary thing to her for a girl to go to sleep on the floor; she
had her father to thank for immunity from small physical discomforts.

CHAPTER XVI

Marcella was wakened several times during the night; she was cold and
stiff, but only apprehended her discomfort vaguely as she listened to
Louis muttering--mostly in French. Each time she spoke softly to him as
she used to speak to her father when he was ill. To her he suddenly
became an invalid; as the days went on she accepted the role of mother
and nurse to him; only occasionally did a more normal love flame out,
bewildering and enchanting as his kisses on the _Oriana_ had enchanted
and bewildered her. She felt, often, contemptuous of a man who had to
stay in bed and have his clothe