Was she now to be governed by fear? Even to
keep Jimmy's respect and affection could she endure such dominion? As
the sun touched her with his fingers of gold, and the air, full of a
strangely languid vitality, whispered about her, as she heard the cries
from the sea, and saw human beings, vividly egoistic, going by on their
pilgrimage, she said to herself, "Not even for Jimmy!" The clamorous
city, with its fierce openness and its sinister suggestions of hidden
things, woke up in her the huntress, and, for the moment, lulled the
mother to sleep.

"Not even for Jimmy!" she thought. "I must be myself. I cannot be
otherwise. I must live perilously. To live in any other way for me would
be death."

And the line in "The Kasidah" which Dion had pondered over came to her,
and she thought of the "death that walks in form of life."

As the carriage went upon the bridge she looked across to Stamboul, and
was faced by the Mosque of the Valideh. So familiar to her was the sight
of its facade, of its cupolas and minarets, that she seldom now even
thought of it when she crossed the bridge; but to-day, perhaps because
she was unusually strung up, was restive and almost horribly alert, she
gazed at it and was intensely conscious of it. She had once said to Dion
that Stamboul was the City of the Unknown God, and now suddenly she felt
that she was nearing His altars. A strange, perverse desire to pray came
to her; to go up into one of the mosques of this mysterious city which
she loved, and to pray for her release from Dion Leith.

She smiled faintly as this idea came into her mind. The Unknown God had
surely made her as she was, had made her a huntress. Well, then, surely
she had the right to pray to Him to give her a free course for her
temperament.

"Santa Sophia!" she called to the coachman.

He cracked his whip and drove furiously on to Stamboul. In less than
a quarter of an hour he pulled up his horses before the vast Church of
Santa Sophia.

Mrs. Clarke sat still in the carriage for a moment looking up at the
ugly towering walls, covered with red and white stripes. Her face was
haggard in the sunshine, and her pale lips were set together in a hard
line. A beggar with twisted stumps instead of arms whined a petition to
her, but she neither saw him nor heard him. As she stared at the walls
on which the sun blazed she was wondering about her future. The love
of life was desperately strong within her that day. The longing for