alized it was the day that Isaacson found the motive
he had in the dark been seeking.

And on that day, too, Mrs. Armine told herself that she could endure no
longer. She must get away to Cairo, if only for two or three days. If
Baroudi was not there, she must go to Alexandria and seek him. Baffled
desire, enforced patience, the perpetual presence of Meyer Isaacson,
with whom she was obliged to keep up a pretence of civility and even of
gratitude, and the jealousy that grows like a rank weed in the soil of
ignorance, rendered her at last almost reckless. She was sure if she
remained longer in the villa she would betray herself by some sudden
outburst. Isaacson had kept silence so long as to the cause of her
husband's illness that she sometimes nearly deceived herself into
thinking he did not know what it was. Perhaps she had been a fool to be
so much afraid of him. She strove to think so, and nearly succeeded.

The _Loulia_ lay always by the western shore of the Nile, but each
night, when she looked from the garden, the cabin windows were dark. She
had made enquiries of Ibrahim. But Ibrahim was no longer the smiling,
boyish attendant who had been her slave. He performed his duties
carefully, and was always elaborately polite, but he had an air of
secrecy, of uneasiness, and almost of gloom, and when she mentioned
Baroudi, he said:

"My lady, I know nothin'."

"Well, but on the _Loulia_?" she persisted. "The Reis--the crew--?"

"They knows nothin'. Nobody heeyah know nothin' at all."

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.