riting, but she felt
sure she would know at once if she held in her hand the letter which
might mean her own release. She did not find it; but on two envelopes
she saw Beatrice's delicate handwriting, which she knew very well. She
longed to know what Beatrice had written. With a sigh she slipped the
elastic band back into its place, put the packet down and went into the
drawing-room.

Directly she saw Dion she was certain that he knew nothing of the change
in Rosamund's life. There was no excitement in his thin and wrinkled
brown face; no expectation lit up his sunken eyes making them youthful.
He looked hard, wretched and strangely old, but ruthless and forceful in
a kind of shuttered and ravaged way. She thought of a ruined house with
a cold strong light in the window. He was sitting when she came in,
leaning forward, with his hands hanging down between his knees. When he
saw her he got up slowly.

"I was near here and had nothing to do, so I came early," he said, not
apologetically, but carelessly.

He looked at her and added:

"What's happened to you to-day?"

"Nothing. What an extraordinary question!"

"Is it? You look different. There's a change."

A suspicious expression made his face ugly.

"Have you met any one?"

"Of course. How can one go out in Constantinople without meeting
people?"

"Any one new, I meant."

"No."

"You look as if you had."

"Do I?" she said, with indifference.

"Yes. You look--I don't know----"

He paused.

"I think it's younger," he added. "You never are tired or ill, but you
generally look both. To-day you don't."

"Please don't blame me for looking moderately well for once in my life."

"Why did you ask me to dinner here?"

The sound of his voice was as suspicious as the expression on his face.

"Oh, I don't know. Once in a while it doesn't matter. And all the
servants have gone away to Buyukderer."

"Then you are going there?"

"I'm not sure if I shall be able to stay there for more than a few days
if I do go."

"Why not?" he said slowly.

"It's just possible I may have to go over to England on business.
Something's gone wrong with my money matters, not the money my husband
allows me, but my own money. I had a letter from my lawyer."

"When?"

"To-day."

He stood before her in silence.

"By the way," she added, "I saw all those letters for you on the hall
table. Why don't you read them?"

"Going to England, are you?" he said, frowning.

"I ma