at mystery of the pathetic
attempt of human beings who love, or who think they love, to unite
themselves to each other, to mingle body with body and soul with soul.
She saw a woman in the dress of a "sister," the woman who was with her;
she saw a man in an Eastern city; and abruptly courage came to her on
the wings of a genuine emotion.

"I don't know how to tell you what I feel about him, Mrs. Leith," she
said. "But I want to try to. Will you let me?"

"Yes. Please tell me," said Rosamund, in a level, expressionless voice.

"Remember this; I never saw him till I saw him in Turkey, nor did my
husband. We were not able to draw any comparison between the unhappy man
and the happy man. We were unprejudiced."

"I quite understand that; thank you."

"It was in the summer. We were living at Therapia on the Bosporus. He
came to stay in a hotel not far off. My husband met him in a valley
which the Turks call Kesstane Dereh. He--your husband--was sitting there
alone by a stream. They talked. My husband asked him to call at our
summer villa. He came the next day. Of course I--I knew something of
his story"--she hurried on--"and I was prepared to meet a man who was
unhappy. (Forgive me for saying all this.)"

"But, please, I have come to hear," said Rosamund, coldly and steadily.

"Your husband--I was alone with him during his first visit--made an
extraordinary impression upon me. I scarcely know how to describe it."
She paused for a moment. "There was something intensely bitter in his
personality. Bitterness is an active principle. And yet somehow he
conveyed to me an impression of emptiness too. I remember he said to me,
'I don't quite know what I am going to do. I'm a free agent. I have no
ties.' I shall never forget his look when he said those words. I never
knew anything about loneliness--anything really--till that moment. And
after that moment I knew everything. I asked him to come on the yacht to
Brusa, or rather to Mudania; from there one goes to Brusa. He came.
You may think, perhaps, that he was eager for society, for pleasure,
distraction. It wasn't that. He was making a tremendous, a terrible
effort to lay hold on life again, to interest himself in things. He was
pushed to it."

"Pushed to it!" said Rosamund, still in the hard level voice. "Who
pushed him?"

"I can only tell you it was as I say," said Lady Ingleton, quickly and
with embarrassment. "We were very few on the yacht. Of course I saw a
good deal o