e did not see
him, but two days later, when returning through the Bazaar from a dance
which had been given by the Governor General, her carriage was stopped,
she was forcibly dragged from its interior, and her cries were stifled
with a cloth impregnated with a scent of a peculiar aromatic sweetness.
Her assailants were about to thrust her into another carriage, when a
party of British bluejackets who had been on leave came upon the scene,
and, without knowing anything of the nationality of the girl, had
rescued her.

In her heart of hearts she did not doubt Kara's complicity in this
medieval attempt to gain a wife, but of this adventure she had told
her husband nothing. Until her marriage she was constantly receiving
valuable presents which she as constantly returned to the only address
she knew--Kara's estate at Lemazo. A few months after her marriage she
had learned through the newspapers that this "leader of Greek society"
had purchased a big house near Cadogan Square, and then, to her
amazement and to her dismay, Kara had scraped an acquaintance with her
husband even before the honeymoon was over.

His visits had been happily few, but the growing intimacy between
John and this strange undisciplined man had been a source of constant
distress to her.

Should she, at this, the eleventh hour, tell her husband all her fears
and her suspicions?

She debated the point for some time. And never was she nearer taking him
into her complete confidence than she was as he sat in the big armchair
by the side of the piano, a little drawn of face, more than a little
absorbed in his own meditations. Had he been less worried she might have
spoken. As it was, she turned the conversation to his last work, the
big mystery story which, if it would not make his fortune, would mean a
considerable increase to his income.

At a quarter to eleven he looked at his watch, and rose. She helped him
on with his coat. He stood for some time irresolutely.

"Is there anything you have forgotten?" she asked.

He asked himself whether he should follow Kara's advice. In any
circumstance it was not a pleasant thing to meet a ferocious little
man who had threatened his life, and to meet him unarmed was tempting
Providence. The whole thing was of course ridiculous, but it was
ridiculous that he should have borrowed, and it was ridiculous that the
borrowing should have been necessary, and yet he had speculated on the
best of advice--it was Kara's ad