The departure of Mrs. Armine brought to Meyer Isaacson a sudden and
immense feeling of relief. When he looked at his watch and knew that the
train for Cairo had left the station of Luxor, when half an hour later
Ibrahim came in to tell Nigel that "my lady" had gone off "very nice
indeed," he was for a time almost joyous, as a man is joyous who has got
rid of a heavy burden, or who is unexpectedly released from some cruel
prison of circumstance. How much the enforced companionship with Mrs.
Armine had oppressed him he understood fully now. And it was difficult
for him to realize, more difficult still for him to sympathize with,
Nigel's obvious regret at his wife's going, obvious longing for her to
be back again by his side.
Isaacson's sympathy was not asked for by Nigel. Here the strong reserve
existing between the two men naturally stepped in. Isaacson strove to
dissimulate his joy, Nigel to dissimulate his feeling of sudden
loneliness. But either Isaacson played his part the better, or his
powers of observation were far more developed than Nigel's; for whereas
he saw with almost painful clearness the state of his friend's mind on
that first evening of their dual solitude, Nigel only partially guessed
at his, or very faintly suspected it.
Their dinner together threatened at first to be dreary. For Mrs.
Armine's going, instead of breaking down, had consolidated for the
moment the reserve between them. But Isaacson's inner joyousness,
however carefully concealed, made its influence felt, as joy will.
Without quite knowing why, Nigel presently began to thaw. Isaacson
turned the conversation, which had stumbled, had halted, to Nigel's
condition of health, and then Nigel said, as he had already said to his
wife:
"To-day I feel that I am waking up to life."
"Only to-day?" said the Doctor.
"Oh, I've been feeling better and better, but to-day it's as if a door
that had been creaking on its hinges was flung wide open."
"I'm not surprised. These sudden leaps forward are often a feature of
convalescence."
"They--they aren't followed by falling back, are they?" Nigel asked,
with a sudden change to uneasiness.
"Sometimes, in fever cases especially. But in a case like yours we
needn't anticipate anything of that kind."
The last words seemed to suggest to Nigel some train of thought, and
after sitting in silence two or three minutes, looking grave and rather
preoccupied, he said:
"By the way, what has been the matter with me, exactly? What have I
really had in the way of an illness? All this time I've been so occupied
in being ill that I've never asked you."
The last words were said with an attempt at lightness.
"Have I?" he added.
"No, I don't think you have," said Isaacson, in a voice that suggested a
nature at that moment certainly not inclined to be communicative.
"Has it been all sunstroke! But--but I'm sure it hasn't."
"No, I shouldn't put it down entirely to sunstroke. Hartley wasn't quite
right there, I think."
"Well, then?"
Nigel had found a safe topic for conversation, or thought he had. It was
sufficiently evident that he felt more at ease, and perhaps he was
atoning for former indifference as to the cause of his misery by a real
and keen interest about it now.
"You were unwell, you see, before you went out digging without a hat.
Weren't you?"
"Yes, that bath in the Nile near Kous. It seemed all to begin somewhere
about then. But d'you know, though I've never said so, even to you, I
believe I really was not quite myself when I took that dip. I think it
was because of that I got the chill."
"Very possibly."
"When I started, I was splendidly well. I mean when we went on board of
the _Loulia_. It's as if it was something to do with that boat. I
believe I began to go down the hill very soon after we started on her.
But it was all so gradual that I scarcely noticed anything at first. My
bath made things worse, and then the digging fairly finished me."
"Ah!"
The last course of the very light dinner was put on the table. Isaacson
poured out some Vichy water and began to squeeze the juice of half a
lemon into it. Nigel sat watching the process, which was very careful
and deliberate.
"You don't tell me what exactly has been the matter," he said, at last.
"You've had such a complication of symptoms."
"That you mean it's impossible to give a name that covers them all?"
Isaacson squeezed the last drop almost tenderly into the tumbler, took
up his napkin, and carefully dried his long, brown fingers.
"'What's in a name?'" he quoted.
He looked across the table at Nigel, and questions seemed to be shining
in his eyes.
"Do you mean that you don't want to tell me the name?" Nigel said.
It seemed that he was roused to persistence. Either curiosity or some
other feeling was awakened within him.
"I don't say that. But you know we doctors often go cautiously--we don't
care to commit ourselves."
"Hartley, yes. But that isn't true of you."
He paused.
"You are hedging," he said, bluntly.
Isaacson drank the Vichy and lemon. He put down the glass.
"You are hedging," Nigel repeated. "Why?"
"Isn't it enough for you to get well? What good will it do you to know
what you have been suffering from?"
"Good! But isn't it natural that I should wish to know? Why should there
be any mystery about it?"
He stopped. Then, leaning forward a little with one arm on the table, he
said:
"Does my wife know what it is?"
"I've never told her," Isaacson answered.
"Well, but does she know?"
The voice that asked was almost suspicious. And the eyes that regarded
Isaacson were now suspicious, too.
"How can I tell? She told me she supposed it to be a sunstroke."
"That was Hartley's nonsense. Hartley put that idea into her head. But
since you came, of course she's realized there was more in it than
that."
"I dare say."
Nigel waited, as if expecting something more. But Isaacson kept silence.
Dinner was over. Nigel got up, and walking steadily, though not yet with
the brisk lightness of complete strength and buoyancy, led the way to
the drawing-room.
"Shall we sit out on the terrace?"
"If you like. But you must have a coat. I'll fetch it."
"Oh, don't you--"
But the doctor was gone. In a moment he returned with a coat and a light
rug. He helped Nigel to put the coat on, took him by the arm, led him
out to the chair, and, when he was in it, arranged the rug over his
knees.
"You're awfully good to me, Isaacson," Nigel said, almost with softness,
"awfully good to me. I am grateful."
"That's all right."
"We were speaking about it only to-day, Ruby and I. She was saying that
we mustn't presume on your kindness that we mustn't detain you out here
now that I'm out of the wood."
"She wants to get rid of me! Then she must be coming back!" The thought
darted through Isaacson's brain, upsetting a previously formed
conviction which, to a certain extent, had guided his conduct during
dinner.
"Oh, I'm in no hurry," he said, carelessly. "I want to get you quite
strong."
"Yes, but your patients in London! You know I've been feeling so ill
that I've been beastly selfish. I've thought only of myself. I've made a
slave of my wife, and now I've been keeping you out of London all this
time."
As he spoke, his voice grew warmer. His reserve seemed to be melting,
the friend to be stirring in the patient. Although certainly he did not
realize it, the absence of his wife had already made a difference in his
feeling towards Isaacson. Her perpetual silent hostility was like an
emanation that insensibly affected her husband. Now that was withdrawn
to a distance, he reverted instinctively towards--not yet to--the old
relation with his friend. He longed to get rid of all the difficulty
between them, and this could only be done by making Isaacson understand
Ruby more as he understood her. If he could only accomplish this before
Ruby came back! Now this idea came to him, and sent warmth into his
voice, warmth into his manner. Isaacson opened his lips to make some
friendly protest, but Nigel continued:
"And d'you know who made me see my selfishness--realize how tremendously
unselfish you've been in sticking to me all this time?"
Isaacson said nothing.
"My wife. She opened my eyes to it. But for her I mightn't have given a
thought to all your loss, not only your material loss, but--"
Isaacson felt as if something poisonous had stung him.
"Please don't speak of anything of that kind!" he said.
"I know I can never compensate you for all you've done for us--"
"Oh, yes, you can!"
The Doctor's voice was almost sharp. Nigel was startled by it.
"We can? How?"
"You can!" Isaacson said, laying a heavy stress on the first word.
"How?"
"First, by never speaking to me of--of the usual 'compensation' patients
make to doctors."
"But how can you expect me to accept all this devoted service and make
no kind of return?"
"Perhaps you can make me a return--the only return I want."
"But what is it?"
"I--I won't tell you to-night."
"Then when will you tell me?"
Isaacson hesitated. His face was blazing with expression. He looked
like a man powerfully stirred--almost like a man on the edge of some
outburst.
"I won't tell you to-night," he repeated.
"But you must tell me."
"At the proper time. You asked me at dinner what had been the matter
with you, what illness you had been suffering from. You observed that I
didn't care to tell you then. Well, I'll tell you before you get rid of
me."
"Get rid of you!"
"Yes, yes. Don't think I misunderstand what you've been trying to tell
me to-night. You want to convey to me in a friendly manner that now I've
accomplished my work it's time for me to be off."
Nigel was deeply hurt.
"Nothing of the sort!" he said. "It was only that my wife had made me
understand what a terrible loss to you remaining out here at such a time
must be."
"There is something I must make you understand, Armine, before I leave
you. And when I've told you what it is, you can give me the only
compensation I want, and I want it badly--badly!"
"And you won't tell me what it is now?"
"Not to-night--not in a hurry."
He got up.
"When are you expecting Mrs. Armine back?" he asked.
"In four nights. She wants a couple of full days in Cairo. Then there
are the two night journeys."
"I'll tell you before she comes back."
Isaacson turned round, and strolled away into the darkness of the
garden.
When he was alone there, he tacitly reproached himself for his vehemence
of spirit, for the heat of his temper. Yet surely they were leading him
in the right path. These words of Nigel had awakened him to the very
simple fact that this association must come to an end, and almost
immediately. He had been, he supposed now, drifting on from day to day,
postponing any decision. Mrs. Armine was stronger than he. From her,
through Nigel, had come to him this access of determination, drawn
really from her decision. As he knew this, he was able secretly to
admire for a moment this woman whom he actively hated. Her work in the
dark would send him now to work in the light.
It was inevitable. While he had believed that very possibly her
departure to Cairo was a flight from her husband, Isaacson had had a
reason for his hesitation. If Bella Donna vanished, why torture Nigel
further? Let him lose her, without knowing all that he had lost. But if
she were really coming back, and if he, Isaacson, must go--and his
departure in any case must shortly be inevitable--then, cost what it
might, the truth must be told.
As he paced the garden, he was trying to brace himself to the most
difficult, the most dreadful duty life had so far imposed upon him.
When he went back to the terrace, Nigel was no longer there. He had gone
up to bed.
The next day passed without a word between the two men on the subject of
the previous night. They talked on indifferent topics. But the cloud of
mutual reserve once more enveloped them, and intercourse was uneasy.
Another day dawned.
Mrs. Armine had now been away for two nights, and, if she held to her
announced plan, should leave Cairo on her return to Luxor on the evening
of the following day. No letter had been received from her. The question
in Isaacson's mind was, would she come back? If he spoke and she never
returned, he would have stabbed his friend to the heart for no reason.
But if she did return and he had not spoken?
He was the prey of doubt, of contending instincts. He did not know what
to do. But deep down within him was there not a voice that, like the
ground swell of the ocean, murmured ever one thing, unwearied,
persistent?
Sometimes he was aware of this voice and strove not to hear it, or not
to heed it, this voice in the depths of a man, telling him that in the
speaking of truth there is strength, and that out of weakness no good
ever came yet, nor ever will come till the end of all things.
But the telling of certain truths seems too cruel; and how can one be
cruel to a man returning to life with almost hesitating steps?
Perhaps something would happen to decide the matter, something--some
outside event. What it might be Isaacson could not say to himself.
Indeed, it was almost childish to hope for anything. He knew that. And
yet, unreasonably, he hoped.
And the event did happen, and on that day.
Late in the afternoon a telegram arrived for Nigel. Ibrahim brought it
out to the terrace where the two men were together, and Nigel opened it
with an eagerness he did not try to disguise.
"It's from her," he said. "She starts to-night, and will be here
to-morrow morning early. She's in such a hurry to be back that she's
only staying the one night in Cairo."
He looked across to Isaacson, who seemed startled.
"Is there anything the matter with you?" he asked.
"No. Why?"
"You don't look quite yourself."
"I feel perfectly well."
"Oh!"
Almost directly Isaacson made an excuse and got away. His decision was
made. There was no more combat within him. But his heart was heavy, was
sick, and he felt an acute and frightful nervousness, such as he could
imagine being experienced by a man under sentence of death, who is not
told on what day the sentence will be carried out. Apprehension fell
over him like an icy rain in the sultry air.
He walked mechanically to the bank of the Nile.
To-day the water was like a sheet of glass, dimpled here and there by
the wayward currents, and, because of some peculiar atmospheric effect,
perhaps, the river looked narrower than usual, the farther bank less far
off. Never before had Isaacson been so forcibly struck by the magical
clearness of Egypt. Even in the midst of his misery, a misery which
physically affected him, he stood still to marvel and to admire.
How near everything looked! How startlingly every detail of things stood
out in this exquisite evening!
Presently his eyes went to the _Loulia_. She, too, looked strangely
near, strangely distinct. He watched her, only because of that at first,
but presently because he began to notice an unusual bustle on board. Men
were moving rapidly about both on the lower and on the upper deck, were
going here and there ceaselessly.
One man swarmed up the long and bending mast. Another clambered over the
balcony-rail into the stern.
What did all this movement mean?
The master of the _Loulia_ must surely be expected--the man Isaacson had
seen driving the Russian horses, and, clothed almost in rags, squatting
in the darkness of the hashish cafe in the entrails of Cairo.
And Bella Donna was hurrying back after only one night in Cairo!
Isaacson forgot the marvellous beauty of the declining day. In a few
minutes he returned to the house. But immediately after dinner, leaving
Nigel sitting on the terrace, he went again to the bank of the Nile.
The _Loulia_ was illuminated from prow to stern. Light gleamed from
every cabin window, and the crew had not only the daraboukkeh but the
pipes on board, and were making the fantasia. Some of them, too, were
dancing. Against a strong light on the lower deck, Isaacson saw black
figures, sometimes relieved for a moment, moving with a wild
grotesqueness, like crazy shadows.
He stood for several minutes listening, watching. He thought of a train
travelling towards Luxor. Then he went quickly across the garden, and
came to the terrace and Nigel.
The deep voice within him must be obeyed. He could resist it no longer.
"They're lively on the _Loulia_ to-night," Nigel said, as he came up.
"Yes," Isaacson answered.
He stood while he lighted a cigar. Then he sat down near to his friend.
The light from the drawing-room streamed out upon them from the open
French window. The shrill sound of the pipes, the dull throbbing of the
daraboukkeh, came to them from across the water.
"The whole vessel is lighted up," he added.
"Is she? Perhaps Baroudi has come up the river."
"Looks like it," said Isaacson.
He crossed, then uncrossed his legs. Never before had he felt himself to
be a coward. He knew what he must do. He knew he would do it before
Nigel and he went into the room behind them. Yet he could not force
himself to begin. He thought, "When I've smoked out this cigar."
"You've never seen Baroudi," Nigel said. "He's one of the handsomest
fellows I've ever clapped eyes on. As strong as a bull, I should think;
enormously rich. A very good chap, too, I should say. But I don't fancy
my wife liked him. He's hardly a woman's man."
"Why d'you think that?"
"I don't know. His manner, perhaps. And he doesn't seem to bother about
them. But we only saw him about twice, except on the ship coming out. He
dined here one night, and the next day we went over the _Loulia_ with
him, and we've never set eyes on him since. He went up river, and we
went down, to the Fayyum."
"But--but you went off alone to the Fayyum, didn't you? At first, I
mean?"
"Oh, yes. The morning after Baroudi had sailed for Armant."
"And Mrs. Armine was alone here for some time?"
"Yes. Just while I was getting things a little ship-shape for her. But
we didn't have much luxury after all. However, she didn't mind that."
"Wasn't--don't you think it may have been rather dull for Mrs. Armine
during that time?"
"Which time? D'you mean in the Fayyum?"
"I mean, while you were away in the Fayyum."
"I dare say it was. I expect it was. But why?"
"Well--"
Isaacson threw away his cigar.
"Not going to finish your cigar?" said Nigel.
He was evidently beginning to be surprised by his friend's words and
manner.
"No," Isaacson said. "I don't want to smoke to-night; I want to talk. I
must talk to you. You remember our conversation on the night of Mrs.
Armine's departure?"
"About my illness?"
"Yes."
"Of course I do."
"I said then that I wouldn't accept the usual money compensation for
anything I had been able to do for you."
"Yes, but--"
"And I told you you could compensate me in another way."
"What way?"
"That's what I'm going to try and tell you now. But--but it's not easy.
I want you to understand--I want you to understand."
There was a moment of silence. Then Nigel said:
"But what? Understand what?"
"Armine, do you believe thoroughly in my friendship for you?"
"Yes."
"You believe, you know, it's a friendship that is quite disinterested?"
"I'm sure it is."
"And yet you have treated me all this time with almost as much reserve
as if I had been a mere acquaintance."
Nigel looked uncomfortable.
"I didn't mean--I am deeply grateful to you," he said; "deeply grateful.
You have saved my life."
"I have, indeed," Isaacson said, solemnly. "If I had not followed you up
the river, you would certainly have died."
"Are you--you said you would tell me what was the matter with me."
"I'm going to."
"What was it?"
"The bath at Kous had nothing to do with it. As to sunstroke, you never
had it. You began to feel unwell--didn't you?--soon after you started
for your voyage?"
"Yes."
"Hasn't it ever struck you as very strange that you, a young man in
magnificent health, living an outdoor life in one of the finest climates
in the world, should be struck down by this mysterious illness?"
"Mysterious?"
"Well, wasn't it?"
"It was very odd. I always thought that, of course."
He leaned forward a little in his chair, fixing his eyes on Isaacson.
"What was my illness?"
"You've been suffering from lead-poisoning," said Isaacson, slowly, and
with an effort.
"Lead?"--Nigel leaned farther forward, moving his hands along the arms
of his reclining chair--"lead-poisoning?"
"Yes."
"I've been--you say I've been poisoned?"
"Poisoned from day to day, gradually poisoned through a considerable
period of time."
"Poisoned!"
Nigel repeated the word heavily, almost dully. For a moment he seemed
dazed.
"If I had not arrived in time, you would have been killed, undoubtedly."
"Killed! But--but who, in the name of God, should want to kill me?"
Isaacson was silent.
"I say, who should want to kill me?" reiterated Nigel.
And this time there was a sound of violence in his voice.
"There was somebody on board of the _Loulia_ who must have wished for
your death."
"But who--who? The Nubians? Ibrahim? Hamza?"
Isaacson did not answer. He could not answer at that moment.
"I treated them well, I paid them well, they had everything they could
possibly want. They had an easy time. They all seemed fond of us. They
were fond of us. I know they were."
"I don't say they were not."
"Then what d'you mean? There was nobody else on board with me."
"Yes, there was."
"There was? Then I never saw him! Do you mean to say there was some one
hidden on board? What are you talking about, Isaacson?"
He was becoming greatly, almost angrily excited.
"Armine, the compensation I want is this. I don't want to clear out and
leave you here in Egypt; I want to take you away with me."
"Take me away? Where to?"
"Anywhere--back to England."
"We are going to England as soon as I'm quite strong. But you haven't
told me! You say I've been poisoned. I want to know by whom."
* * * * *
"But perhaps you don't know! Do you know?"
Isaacson got up. He felt as if he could not speak any more sitting down.
"If you will only give me my compensation, let me take you away
quietly--I'm a doctor. Nobody will think anything of it--I need say
nothing more."
"Take me away! But I'm nearly well now, and there can be no more
danger."
"If you come away with me--no!"
"But you forget, I'm not alone. I must consult my wife."
"That is what I don't wish you to do."
"Don't? You mean, go away with you without--?"
"I mean, without Mrs. Armine."
"Leave my wife?"
"Leave Ruby? Desert her after all she's done for me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Isaacson said nothing.
Nigel looked at Isaacson in silence for what seemed to Isaacson a long
time--minutes. Then his face slowly flushed, was suffused with blood up
to his forehead. It seemed to swell, as if there was a pressure from
within outwards. Then the blood retreated, leaving behind it a sort of
dark pallor, and the eyes looked sunken in their sockets.
"You--you dare to think--you dare to--to say--?" he stammered.
"I say that you must come away from Mrs. Armine. Don't ask me to say
why."
"You--you liar! You damnable liar!"
He spoke slowly, in a low, husky voice.
"That you hated her, I knew that! She told me that. But that you--that
you should dare to--"
His voice broke, and he stopped. He leaned forward in his chair and made
a gesture.
"Go!" he said. "Get out! If I--if I were myself, I'd put you out."
But Isaacson did not move. He felt no anger, nothing but a supreme pity
for this man who could not see, could not understand the truth of a
nature with which he had held commune for so long, and, as he in his
blindness believed, in such a perfect intimacy. There was to the Doctor
something shocking in such blindness, in such ignorance. But there was
something beautiful, too. And to destroy beauty is terrible.
"If I am to go, you must hear me first," he said, quietly.
"I won't hear you--not one word!"
Again there was the gesture towards the door.
"I have saved your life," Isaacson said. "And you shall hear me!"
And then, without waiting for Nigel to speak again, very quietly, very
steadily, and with a great simplicity he told him what he had to tell.
He did not, even now, tell him all. He kept secret the visit of Mrs.
Chepstow to his consulting-room, and her self-revelation there. And he
did not mention Baroudi. At this moment of crisis the man bred up in
England fought against the Eastern Jew within Isaacson, and the Eastern
Jew gave way. But he described his visits to the Savoy, how the last
time he had gone with the resolution to beg Mrs. Chepstow not to go to
Egypt, not to link herself with his friend; how he had begun to speak,
and how her cold irony, pitiless and serene, had shown him the utter
futility of his embassy. Then he came on to the later time, after the
marriage and the departure, when he received his friend's letter
describing his happiness and his wonderful health, when he received soon
afterwards that other letter from the lady patient, speaking of Nigel's
"extraordinary colour." He told how in London he had put those letters
side by side and had compared them, and how some strong instinct of
trouble and danger had driven him, almost against his will, to Egypt,
had bound him to silence about his arrival. Then on the terrace at
Shepheard's an acquaintance casually met had increased his fears. And
so, in his quick, terse, unembroidered narrative, almost frightfully
direct, he reached the scene in the temple of Edfou. From that moment he
spared Nigel no detail. He described Mrs. Armine's obvious terror at his
appearance; her lies, her omission to tell him her husband was ill until
she realized that he--Isaacson--had already heard of the illness in
Luxor; her pretence that his dangerous malady was only a slight
indisposition caused by grief at the death of Lord Harwich; her endeavor
to prevent Isaacson from coming on board the _Loulia_; the note she had
sent by the felucca; his walk by night on the river bank till he came to
the dahabeeyah, his eavesdropping, and how the words he overheard
decided him to insist on seeing Nigel; the interview with Mrs. Armine in
the saloon, and how he had forced his way, by a stratagem, to the after
part of the vessel. Then he told of the contest with Doctor Hartley,
already influenced by Mrs. Armine, and of the final victory, won--how?
By a threat, which could only have frightened a guilty woman.
"I told Mrs. Armine that either I took charge of your case or that I
communicated with the police authorities. Then, and only then, she gave
way. She let me come on board to nurse you back to life."
"How could you have known?" Nigel exclaimed, with intensely bitter
defiance, when at last a pause came. "Even if it had been true, how
could you have known?"
"I did not know. I suspected. To save you, I drew a bow at a venture,
and I hit the mark. Your illness has been caused by the administration,
through a long period of time, of minute doses of some preparation of
lead--almost impalpable doubtless, perhaps not to be distinguished from
the sand that is blown from the desert. And Mrs. Armine either herself
gave or caused it to be given to you."
"Liar! Liar!"
"Did she ever herself give you food? Did she ever prepare your coffee?"
Nigel started up in his chair with a furious spasm of energy.
"Go! Go!" he uttered, in a sort of broken shout or cry. His face was
yellowish white. His mouth was working.
"By God! I'll put you out!"
Grasping the arms of his chair, he stood up and he advanced upon
Isaacson.
"I'll go. But I'll leave you that!"
And Isaacson drew from his pocket the letter Mrs. Armine had sent by the
felucca, and laid it on the coffee-table.
Then he turned quickly, and went away through the dark garden.
Before he was out of sight of the house, he looked back. Nigel had sunk
upon his chair in a collapsed attitude.
From the western bank of the Nile came the shrill, attenuated sound of
the pipes, the deep throbbing of the daraboukkeh, the nasal chant of the
Nubians.
And the lights of the _Loulia_ were like a line of fiery eyes staring
across the Nile.