She felt a sudden wave of weakness go through her at an advancing step from the next room.  But her chin was up, her eyes fixed and desperate as the figure of the general appeared in her opening door.

“Ah, light!  This is more cheerful, little one.”

She had risen, half moved towards him.  “Is he safe?”

“The stranger?  Safe as treasure—­buried treasure, little one.”

The bey laughed, and that laughter and the glittering satisfaction of his eyes, filled her with foreboding although his next words came with smiling reassurance.

“Not a hair of his head is hurt, I give you my word.”

“But where is he—­what have you done?”

“Shut him up, to be sure.  Kept him as hostage for your sweet humility—­a novel way to win a bride, oh, essence of shyness!”

Malevolently he smiled down at her and in the back of her frightened mind she realized that this man did well to be angry, that the affront to him had been immeasurable, and that many a Turk would have simply driven his dagger through the intruder’s heart—­and her own, too.

But though she tried to tell herself that there was forbearance in him, she felt, instinctively, that there was deeper kindness in direct, thrusting fury than in this man’s sinister mockery.

She had sunk back upon the divan on the bey’s approach; now as he stood before her with that mask of a smile upon his face, drawing a silk handkerchief across a forehead she saw glistening in the candlelight, she leaned towards him again, her hands involuntarily clasping.

“Monsieur, I seem to have done you a great wrong,” she said tremblingly, “but it is not so great as you suppose.  Will you listen to me?  I—­”

“Useless, useless.”  He waved the handkerchief negligently at her.  “I have had words enough.  You are not the daughter of Tewfick Pasha—­you are his step-daughter—­your French family desires to capture you—­I know the rigmarole by heart, you observe.  And of course when a French family desires to obtain possession of a charming step-daughter, on the eve of her marriage, that family always employs a handsome young man to break into the bride’s chamber—­and point a gun at the husband—­”

His mustache lifted in a grimacing sneer.

“But it is true, and I am French,” she interposed swiftly.

“Excellent—­I do not object in the least.”  He shot his handkerchief up his cuff, and turned to her with eyes that lightly mocked the agonized appeal of the young face.  “French blood is delightful—­quicksilver and champagne.  You will enliven me, I promise you.”

“But the marriage—­it is not legal, monsieur,” she said desperately, summoning all her courage.  “Tewfick Pasha has no right to give me to you—­”

Indulgently he smiled down at her, then his narrowed eyes traveled slowly about the room.

“But this is a strange time—­and place!—­to talk of legalities.  Do not distress yourself—­your step-father is your guardian and your marriage will be as binding as the oaths of the prophet.  Have no qualms....  And now, if your French blood will smile a little—­”