all
allowance.

During tea she said to me, suddenly:

"Seer Marcous is not married?"

I said, no. She asked, why not? The devil seems to be driving all
womankind to ask me that question.

"Because wives are an unmitigated nuisance," said I.

A curious smile came over Carlotta's face. It was as knowing as Dame
Quickly's.

"Then-"

"Have one of these cakes," said I, hurriedly. "There is chocolate
outside and the inside is chock-full of custard."

She bit, smiled in a different and beatific way, and forgot my
matrimonial affairs. I was relieved. With her oriental training there is
no telling what Carlotta might have said.

May 31st.

To-day I have had a curious interview. Who should call on me but the
father of the hapless Harry Robinson. My first question was a natural
one. How on earth did he connect me with the death of his son? How did
he contrive to identify me as the befriender of the young Turkish girl
whose interests, he declared, were the object of his visit? It appeared
that the police had given him the necessary information, my adventures
at Waterloo having rendered their tracing of Carlotta an easy matter.
I had been wondering somewhat at the meagre newspaper reports of the
inquest. No mention was made, as I had nervously anticipated, of
the mysterious lady for whom the deceased had bought a ticket at
Alexandretta, and with whom he had come ashore. Very little evidence
appeared to have been taken, and the jury contented themselves with
giving the usual verdict of temporary insanity. I touched on this as
delicately as I could. "We succeeded in hushing things up," said my
visitor, an old man with iron-grey whiskers and a careworn sensitive
face. "I have some influence myself, and his wife's relations--"

"His wife!" I ejaculated. The ways of men are further than ever from
interpretation. The fellow was actually married!

"Yes," he sighed. "That is what would have made such a terrible scandal.
Her relatives are powerful people. We averted it, thank Heaven, and his
poor wife will never know. My boy is dead. No public investigation into
motives would bring him back to life again."

I murmured words of condolence.

"He must have been out of his mind, poor lad, when he induced the girl
to run away with him. But, as my son has ruined her," he set his teeth
as if the boy's sin stabbed him, "I must look after her welfare."

"You may set your mind at rest on that point," said I. "He smuggled her
at