ous lie of this character was
repugnant to him.

"I'm afraid you have had a dull evening," he said, "Kara was not very
amusing."

She looked at him thoughtfully.

"He has not changed very much," she said slowly.

"He's a wonderfully handsome chap, isn't he?" he asked in a tone of
admiration. "I can't understand what you ever saw in a fellow like me,
when you had a man who was not only rich, but possibly the best-looking
man in the world."

She shivered a little.

"I have seen a side of Mr. Kara that is not particularly beautiful," she
said. "Oh, John, I am afraid of that man!"

He looked at her in astonishment.

"Afraid?" he asked. "Good heavens, Grace, what a thing to say! Why I
believe he'd do anything for you."

"That is exactly what I am afraid of," she said in a low voice.

She had a reason which she did not reveal. She had first met Remington
Kara in Salonika two years before. She had been doing a tour through the
Balkans with her father--it was the last tour the famous archeologist
made--and had met the man who was fated to have such an influence upon
her life at a dinner given by the American Consul.

Many were the stories which were told about this Greek with his
Jove-like face, his handsome carriage and his limitless wealth. It
was said that his mother was an American lady who had been captured by
Albanian brigands and was sold to one of the Albanian chiefs who fell
in love with her, and for her sake became a Protestant. He had been
educated at Yale and at Oxford, and was known to be the possessor of
vast wealth, and was virtually king of a hill district forty miles out
of Durazzo. Here he reigned supreme, occupying a beautiful house which
he had built by an Italian architect, and the fittings and appointments
of which had been imported from the luxurious centres of the world.

In Albania they called him "Kara Rumo," which meant "The Black Roman,"
for no particular reason so far as any one could judge, for his skin was
as fair as a Saxon's, and his close-cropped curls were almost golden.

He had fallen in love with Grace Terrell. At first his attentions had
amused her, and then there came a time when they frightened her, for the
man's fire and passion had been unmistakable. She had made it plain to
him that he could base no hopes upon her returning his love, and, in a
scene which she even now shuddered to recall, he had revealed something
of his wild and reckless nature. On the following day sh