soul. He bent down, laid his hot forehead against the
letter, and shut his eyes.

A clock struck presently. He opened his eyes, lifted his head, took up
the envelope, quickly tore it, and unfolded the paper within.

"HOTEL DE BYZANCE, CONSTANTINOPLE, Wednesday evening

"I am here. I want to see you. Shall I come to you to-morrow? I can come
at any time, or I can meet you at any place you choose. Only tell me the
hour and how to go if it is difficult.

"ROSAMUND."

Wednesday evening! It was now the night of Wednesday. Then Rosamund
had written to him after she had been to Santa Sophia and had met Mrs.
Clarke. She knew, and yet she wrote to him; she asked to see him; she
even offered to come to his rooms. The thing was incomprehensible.

He read the note again. He pored over every word in it almost like a
child. Then he held it in his hand, sat back in his chair and wondered.

What did Rosamund mean? Why did she wish to see him? What could she
intend to do? His intimate knowledge of what Rosamund was companioned
him at this moment--that knowledge which no separation, which no hatred
even, could ever destroy. She was fastidiously pure. She could never be
anything else. He could not conceive of her ever drawing near to, and
associating herself deliberately with, bodily degradation. He thought of
her as he had known her, with her relations, her friends, with himself,
with Robin. Always in every relation of life a radiant purity had been
about her like an atmosphere; always she had walked in rays of the sun.
Until Robin had died! And then she had withdrawn into the austere purity
of the religious life. He felt it to be absolutely impossible that she
should seek him, even seek but one interview with him, if she knew what
his life had been during the last few months. And, feeling that, he was
now forced to the conclusion that Mrs. Clarke's intuition had gone for
once astray. If Rosamund knew she would never have written that note.
Again he looked at it, read it. It must have been written in complete
ignorance. Mrs. Clarke had made a mistake. Perhaps she had been betrayed
into error by her own knowledge of guilt. And yet such a lapse was
very uncharacteristic of her. He compared his knowledge of her with his
knowledge of Rosamund. It was absolutely impossible that Rosamund had
written that letter to him with full understanding of his situation in
Constantinople. But she might have heard rumors. She might have resolved