his time Mrs. Clarke had had no news from her. Till Sonia's
announcement she had not known the date fixed for her friend's return.
She received the information with her usual inflexibility, and merely
said:

"I'll go to see her this afternoon."

Then she took up a newspaper which Sonia had brought in with her and
began to sip the coffee.

As soon as she was dressed she sent a note to the British Embassy to ask
if her friend would be in at tea-time.

Lady Ingleton drew her brows together when she read it. She was
delighted to be again in Constantinople, for she had missed Carey quite
terribly, but she wished that Cynthia Clarke was anywhere else. Ever
since her visit to Liverpool she had been dreading the inevitable
meeting with the friend whose secret she had betrayed. Yet the meeting
must take place. She would be obliged some day to look once more into
Cynthia Clarke's earnest and distressed eyes. When that happened
would she hate herself very much for what she had done? She had often
wondered. She wondered now, as she read the note written in her friend's
large upright hand, as she wrote a brief answer to say she would be in
after five o'clock that day.

She was troubled by the fact that her visit to Liverpool had not yielded
the result she had hoped for. Rosamund Leith had not sought her husband.
But she had taken off the sister's dress and had given up living in the
north.

Lady Ingleton knew this from Father Robertson, with whom she
corresponded. She had never seen Rosamund or heard from her since the
interview in the Adelphi Hotel. And she was troubled, although she
had recently received from Father Robertson a letter ending with these
words:

"Pressure would be useless. I have found by experience that one cannot
hurry the human soul. It must move at its own pace. You have done your
part. Try to leave the rest with confidence in other hands. Through you
she knows the truth of her husband's condition. She has given up the
Sisterhood. Surely that means that she has taken the first step on the
road that leads to Constantinople."

But now May was here with its heat, and its sunshine, and its dust, and
Lady Ingleton must soon meet the eyes of Cynthia Clarke, and the man she
had striven to redeem was unredeemed.

She sighed as she got up from her writing-table. Perhaps perversely she
felt that she would mind meeting Cynthia Clarke less if her treachery
had been rewarded by the accomplishment of her purpo