"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.