He looked at her steadily, propping himself upon one arm. Sleep had cooled the fever in him, freshened his brain, and strengthened the beating of his heart. The room lit by the moonlight, the perfumed coolness of the night, the white face of the woman by the bed, filled him with a sense of strangeness and of mystery.
“It is my turn to watch.” And he touched her arm, thrilling, man of forty that he was, at Tiphaïne’s nearness to him in the moonlight.
“There is no need for it; I have barred the door.”
“And Croquart?”
She did not tell him of her great distrust.
“Croquart has left us as man and wife. I have too much to think about to wish to sleep.”
Tinteniac sank back on his straw, watching her as she brought him the water-pot, bread, and olives.
“I am afraid I am a broken reed,” he said, with the smile of a man contented to be ministered to by a woman’s hands.
“You must gain strength, sire, for both our sakes.”
“Yes, true.”