He did not indeed believe literally all that she had told him in her mad confession.  Much of that, he was convinced, was but a delusion.  It might be possible, indeed, for Unorna to produce forgetfulness of such a dream as she impressed upon Kafka’s mind in the cemetery that same afternoon, or even, perhaps, of some real circumstance of merely relative importance in a man’s life; but the Wanderer could not believe that it was in her power to destroy the memory of the great passion through which she pretended that he himself had passed.  He smiled at the idea, for he had always trusted his own senses and his own memory.  Unorna’s own mind was clearly wandering, or else she had invented the story, supposing him credulous enough to believe it.  In either case it did not deserve a moment’s consideration except as showing to what lengths her foolish and ill-bestowed love could lead her.

Meanwhile she was in danger.  She had aroused the violent and deadly resentment of Israel Kafka, a man who, if not positively insane, as Keyork Arabian had hinted, was by no means in a normal state of mind or body, a man beside himself with love and anger, and absolutely reckless of life for the time being, a man who, for the security of all concerned, must be at least temporarily confined in a place of safety, until a proper treatment and the lapse of a certain length of time should bring him to his senses.  For the present, he was wholly untractable, being at the mercy of the most uncontrolled passions and of one of those intermittent phases of blind fatalism to which the Semitic races are peculiarly subject.

There were two reasons which determined the Wanderer to turn to Keyork Arabian for assistance, besides his wish to see the bad business end quickly and without publicity.  Keyork, so far as the Wanderer was aware, was himself treating Israel Kafka’s case, and would therefore know what to do, if any one knew at all.  Secondly, it was clear from the message which Unorna had left with the porter of her own house that she expected Keyork to come at any moment.  He was then in immediate danger of being brought face to face with Israel Kafka without having received the least warning of his present condition, and it was impossible to say what the infuriated youth might do at such a moment.  He had been shut up, caught in his own trap, as it were, for some time, and his anger and madness might reasonably be supposed to have been aggravated rather than cooled by his unexpected confinement.  It was as likely as not that he would use the weapon he carried upon the first person with whom he found himself face to face, especially if that person made any attempt to overpower and disarm him.

The Wanderer drove to Keyork Arabian’s house, and leaving his carriage to wait in case of need, ascended the stairs and knocked at the door.  For some reason or other Keyork would not have a bell in his dwelling, whether because, like Mahomet, he regarded the bell as the devil’s instrument, or because he was really nervously sensitive to the sound of one, nobody had ever discovered.  The Wanderer knocked therefore, and Keyork answered the knock in person.