She was at the door of the sleeping-tent. He did not answer.
“Boris!”
He came in from the farther tent that he used as a dressing-room, carrying a lit candle in his hand. She went up to him with a movement of swift, ardent sincerity.
“You felt ill in the city? Did Batouch let you come back alone?”
“I preferred to be alone.”
He set down the candle on the table, and moved so that the light of it did not fall upon his face. She took his hands in hers gently. There was no response in his hands. They remained in hers, nervelessly. They felt almost like dead things in her hands. But they were not cold, but burning hot.
“You have fever!” she said.
She let one of his hands go and put one of hers to his forehead.
“Your forehead is burning, and your pulses—how they are beating! Like hammers! I must—”
“Don’t give me anything, Domini! It would be useless.”