d 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."

She dropped her hand.

"This boat is my house, Doctor Isaacson, and I must seriously ask you to
leave it."

"And I must insist, as a doctor, on seeing your husband."

All pretence was dropped between them. It was a fight.

"This is great impertinence," she said. "I refuse. I've told you my
reason."

"I shall stop here till I see your husband," said Isaacson.

And he sat down again very quietly and deliberately on the divan.

"And if you like, I'll tell you my reason," he said.

But she did not ask him what it was. Through the sheet of glass he
looked at her, and it was as if he saw a pursued hare suddenly double.

"It's too utterly absurd all this argument about nothing," she said,
suddenly smiling, and in her beautiful voice. "Evidently you have been
the victim of some ridiculous stories in Cairo or Luxor. Some kind
people have been talking, as kind people talked in London. And you've
swallowed it all, as you swallowed it all in London. I suppose they said
Nigel was dying and that I was neglecting him, or some rubbish of that
sort. And so you, as a medical Don Quixote, put your lance in rest and
rush to the rescue. But you don't know Nigel if you think he'd thank you
for doing it."

In the last sentence her voice, though still preserving its almost lazy
beauty, became faintly sinister.