rs and your money," he said quietly.
"I have seen houses burn before, and there is generally no time to be
lost."

I wonder what there is at the bottom of that man's strange nature. Cold,
indifferent, and fatalistic, apparently one of the most selfish of men,
he nevertheless seems to possess somewhere a kind of devoted heroism, an
untainted quality of friendship only too rare in our day.

Hermione Carvel is to be married to Paul in the autumn, but there is
reason to believe that Alexander, who has rejoined his regiment in St.
Petersburg, will not find it convenient to be at the wedding. When
Balsamides was crying for help from the upper window, and when Alexander
stood quietly by Hermione's side while his brother faced the danger, the
die was cast, and she saw what a wide gulf separated the two men, and
she knew that she loved the one and hated the other with a fierce
hatred.

Poor Madame Patoff is dead, but before he left Constantinople Professor
Cutter spent half an hour in trying to demonstrate to me that she might
have been cured if Hermione had married Alexander. I am glad he is gone,
for I always detested his theories.

So the story is ended, my dear friend; and if it is told badly, it is my
fault, for I assure you that I never in my life spent so exciting a
year. It has been a long tale, too, but you have told me that from time
to time you were interested in it; and, after all, a tale is but a tale,
and is a very different affair from an artistically constructed drama,
in which facts have to be softened, so as not to look too startling in
print. I have given you facts, and if you ever meet Gregorios Balsamides
he will tell you that I have exaggerated nothing. Moreover, if you will
take the trouble to visit Santa Sophia during the last nights of
Ramazan, you will understand how Alexander Patoff disappeared; and if
you will go over the house of Laleli Khanum Effendi, which is now to be
sold, you will see how impossible it was for him to escape from such a
place. In the garden above Mesar Burnu you will see the heap of ashes,
which is all that remains of the kiosk where I gave my unlucky
tea-party; and if you will turn up the bridle-path at the left of the
Belgrade road, a hundred yards before you reach the aqueduct, you will
come upon the spot where Gregorios threatened to kill Selim, the wicked
Lala, on that bitter March night. I dare say, also, that if you visit
any of these places by chance you will remember