The carriage stopped.  The negroes extended the damask walls, and one sprang to open the carriage door and bear the bride’s train.  In one moment’s parting of the silken walls the girl saw a sun-flooded cluster of staring faces, thronging for her arrival, and then the damask intervened and through its lane, followed by her duenna and her maids of honor, she entered the arched doorway.

She was in a garden, a great gloomy place, over-spread with ancient, moss-encrusted trees.  A broken, marble fountain flung up waters into which no sunlight flashed, and the heavy stepping stones, leading to it, were buried in untrodden grass.  A garden in which no one lingered.

The Ethiopian was marshaling them to the left, to an entrance in the dark palace walls before them.  Behind them the oncoming guests were streaming out in veiled procession.

He opened a door.  Ancient, beautiful arches framed a long vestibule and against a background of profuse cut flowers a man’s figure stepped forward in the glittering uniform of the Sultan’s guard.  Aimee had a confused impression of a thin, meager, dandified figure with a waspish waist ... of a blond mustache with upstanding ends ... of sallow cheek-bones and small, light eyes smiling at her in a strained, eager curiosity....

Through all her sinking dismay she had a flash of clear, enlightening irony at that look’s suspense.  If she were not as represented!  If his cousin’s fervor had misled his hope—!

But in that instant’s encounter his eyes cleared to triumph and gayety, and he smiled—­a smile curiously feline, ironic, for all its intended ingratiation—­a conqueror’s smile, winged to reassure and melt.

He stepped forward.  There were formal words of welcome to which she returned a speechless bow, and then he offered his arm and conducted her slowly up the stairs, his sword rattling in its scabbard, to the apartment which was to be her home, and the prison for the spirit and the body.

She knew in a moment that she hated this man and that he inspired her with fear and horror.

Across a long expanse of drawing-room he conducted her to the ancient marriage throne upon its platform, surmounted by a pompous crown from which old, embroidered silks hung heavily.

Then with an unheard phrase, and another bow, he left her to the day-long ordeal of the reception while he withdrew to his own entertainment at her father’s house.  She would not see him again until night, when he would pay her a call of ceremony.

She saw his figure hesitating a moment, as he faced the oncoming guests, such a flood of femininity, unmantled now and unveiled, sparkling in rainbow hues of silks and tulle and gauze that he had never before faced and never would again.  Like a bright wave the throng closed about him and then surged on towards the bride upon the throne.

How often, in the last years, Aimee had pitied that poor puppet of a bride, stuck there like some impaled, winged creature, helpless for flight, to the exhibition of the long stream of passersby!  How often she had promised herself that never would this be her fate, never would she be given to an unknown!  And now—­