st talk to you to-night."

One side of her mouth went down. But she turned her face quickly, and he
did not see it. They came on to the terrace before the lighted windows.

"Sit down here, Ruby--near to me."

She sat down. With the very madness for movement thrilling, tingling,
through all her weary and feverish body she was obliged to sit down
quietly.

Nigel sat down close to her. There was a silence.

"Oh," she said, almost desperately to break it, "we haven't had coffee
to-night. Shall I--would you like me to make it once more for you?"

She spoke at random. She wanted to move, to do something, anything. She
felt as if she must occupy herself in some way, or begin to cry out, to
scream.

"Shall I? Shall I?" she repeated, half getting up.

Nigel looked at her fixedly.

"No, Ruby, not to-night."

She sank back.

"Very well. But I thought you liked my coffee."

"So I did. So I shall again."

He put out his hand to touch hers.

"Only not to-night."

"Just as you like."

"We've--there are other things to-night."

He kept his eyes always fixed upon hers.

"Other things!" she said. "Yes--sleep. You must rest well to-night, and
so must I."

A fierce irony, in despite of herself, broke out in her voice as she
said the last three words. It frightened her, and she burst into a fit
of coughing, and pulled up her cloak about her bare neck. To do this she
had to draw away her hand from Nigel's. She was thankful for that.

"I swallowed quantities of dust and sand in the train," she said.

He held out his hand to take hers again, and she was forced to give it.

"I shall rest to-night," he said. "Because I've come to a resolution. If
I hadn't, if--if I followed my first thought, my first decision, I know
I should not be able to rest. I know I shouldn't."

She stared at him in silence.

"Ruby," he said, "you remember our first evening here?"

"Yes," she forced herself to say.

Would he never end? Would he never let go of her hand? never let her
get away to the Nile, to that barbarous music?

"I think we were getting close to each other then. But--but I think we
are much closer now. Don't you?"

"Yes," she managed to say.

"Closer because I've proved you; I've proved you through all this
dreadful illness."

His hand gripped hers more firmly.

"But you, perhaps, haven't proved me yet as I have proved you."

"Oh, I don't doubt your--"

"No, but I want you to know, to understand me as I believe