oment. He had gone out a long way, a very long way, from the simple
ordinary emotions which come upon, or beset, normal men living normal
lives.

"Did you?" he asked. "Why?"

"I thought I could do something for you. I began last night."

"What?"

"Doing something for you. I told an acquaintance of mine called Vane,
who is attached to the British Embassy, that you were here."

A fierce flush came into Dion's face.

"I said you would probably come out to Buyukderer," she continued, "and
that I wanted to bring you to the summer Embassy and to introduce you to
the Ambassador and Lady Ingleton."

Dion sat up and pressed his hands palm downwards on the ground.

"I shall not go. How could you say that I was here? You know I had
dropped my own name."

"I gave it back to you deliberately."

"I think that was very brutal of you," he said, in a low voice, tense
with anger.

"You wanted to be very kind to me when I was in great difficulties.
Circumstances got rather in the way. That doesn't matter. The intention
was there, though you were too chivalrous to go very far in action."

"Chivalrous to whom?"

"To her."

His face went pale under its sunburn.

"What are you doing?" he said, in a low voice that was almost terrible.
"Where are you taking me?"

"Into the way you must walk in. Dion--"--even in calling him by
his Christian name for the first time her voice sounded quite
impersonal--"you've done nothing wrong. You have nothing, absolutely
nothing, to be ashamed of. Kismet! We have to yield to fate. If you
slink through the rest of your years on earth, if you get rid of your
name and hide yourself away, you will be just a coward. But you aren't
a coward, and you are not going to act like one. You must accept your
fate. You must take it right into your heart bravely and proudly, or, if
you can't do that, stoically. I should."

"If you had killed Jimmy?"

She was silent.

"If you had killed Jimmy?" he repeated, in a hard voice.

"I should never hide myself. I should always face things."

"You haven't had the blow I have had. I know I am not in fault. I know I
have nothing to blame myself for. I wasn't even careless with my gun. If
I had been I could never have forgiven myself. But I wasn't."

"It was the pony. I know. I read the account of the inquest. You were
absolutely exonerated."

"Yes. The coroner and the jury expressed their deep sympathy with me,"
he said, with intense bitterness. "They realiz