"Why should I hate you? you cannot"--with a heart-wrung smile--"possibly think me more undesirable than I do myself; and even if it were not so, I do not think it is in me to hate anyone very much." On their drive home they meet with one or two little incidents quite as funny as the old Jews kissing each other; but this time they do not move poor Miss Le Marchant to any laughter. CHAPTER XI. "I do remember an apothecary,-- And hereabouts he dwells." Two days later she is called upon to perform the task she has undertaken. Probably she has spent those two days, and also the appertaining nights, in bracing her mind to it, for Jim can plainly see the marks of that struggle, though he is not aware of its existence, graved upon her face, on the third morning after the excursion to the Mole, when he comes in search of her. He does not find her in her accustomed corner of the terrace, but, looking down over the balustrade, sees her sitting below and alone on a small tree-shaded plateau that seems to have been levelled for lawn-tennis or bowls. Probably the giggling and chaffering of the girls on the terrace, and the respectful but persistent importunities of the Omars and Ahmeds to buy their colourful wares outspread on the hot flags have oppressed her spirits. Fritz has carried down for her an arm-chair, a cane table, and a Persian rug for her feet, and she looks as if she were established for the day. Since Byng has been out of danger Elizabeth has returned to her embroidery. She is one of those women to whom needlework is unaffectedly dear, like that other sweet woman "who was so delicate with her needle." Before she catches sight of him he watches for a few moments her bright bent head and flying white fingers, and is able to perceive how many sighs she is sewing into the pattern. "What a morning!" he says, running down the steps and joining her. "No one has any excuse for being an invalid to-day, has he?" There is no second seat, so he stands beside her, looking up over her head at the tall trees above her, from which immense garlands of ivy are hanging and swinging in the warm breeze. That potent ivy has killed one tree altogether. She glances up at him mutely, knowing that he has not come merely to tell her that the day is fine. "We can hardly keep him on his sofa; he is virtually almost well, so well that he is quite up to seeing people. He would like--he has been asking--to see _you_." He had thought her nearly as pale as it was possible for her to be when he had first come upon her. He now realizes how many degrees of colour she then had left to lose. While he speaks she has been mechanically pulling her thread through, and as he ceases, her lifted hand stops as if paralyzed, and remains holding her needle in the air. It has come, then. For all her two days' bracing, is she ready for it? "_Now?_"