back to your original health and
strength."

The thin, lead-coloured face drooped forward, and the eyes that were
full of a horrible malaise held for a moment the fires of hope.

"Do you really think I can ever get well?"

Isaacson did not reply for a moment. Then he said, "Will you make me a
promise?"

"What is it?"

"Will you promise me to obey implicitly everything I order you to do?"

"Do you mean--as a doctor?"

"I do."

"I promise."

"Very well. If you carry out that promise, I think I can undertake to
cure you. I think I can undertake that some day you will be once more
the strong man who rejoices in his strength."

Tears came into Nigel's eyes.

"I wonder," he said. "I wonder."

"But remember," Isaacson said, almost with solemnity, "I shall expect
from you implicit obedience to my medical orders. And the first of them
is this: you are to swallow nothing which is not given to you by me with
my own hand."

"Medicine, you mean?"

"I mean what I say--nothing; not a morsel of food, not a drop of
liquid."

"Then my wife and Hamza--"

"Will you obey me?" Isaacson interrupted, almost sternly.

"Yes," Nigel said, in a weak voice.

"And now just lie quiet, and remember you are going towards your home,
in which I intend to get you quite well."

And the _Loulia_ floated down with the tide, slowly, and broadside to
the great river, for there was no wind at all, and the weather was hot
almost as a furnace. The _Fatma_ untied, and followed her down. And the
night came, and still they floated on broadside under the stars.

Nigel was now sleeping, and Meyer Isaacson was watching.

And in a cabin close by a woman was staring at her face in a little
glass set in the lid of a gilded box, was staring, with desperation at
her heart.

Hartley had said he believed she knew of the sudden collapse of her
beauty. Believed! Before he had noticed it, she had perceived it, with a
cold horror which, gathering strength, grew into a bitter despair. And
with the despair came hatred, hatred of the man who by keeping her back
from happiness had led her to this collapse. This man was Nigel. He
thought he had saved her from her worst self. But really he had stirred
this worst self from sleep. In London she had been almost a good woman,
compared to the woman she was now. His bungling search after nobility of
spirit had roused the devil within her. She longed to let him know what
she really was. Often and often, while th