She shut her eyes as she prayed that Dion might be removed from her life, somehow, anyhow, by death if need be.  In the dark she created for herself she saw the minarets pointing to the sky as she and Dion had seen them together from the hill of Eyub as they sat under the giant cypress.  Then she had wanted Dion; now she prayed: 

“Take him away!  Let me be free from him!  Let me never see him again!”

And she felt as if the Unknown God were listening to her somewhere far off, knew all that was in her mind.

A stealthy movement quite near to her made her open her eyes.  The Bedouin had risen to his feet and was approaching her, moving with a little step over the matting on his way out of the church.  As he passed Mrs. Clarke he enveloped her for a moment in an indifferent glance of fire.  He burnt her with his animal disdain of her observation of him, a disdain which seemed to her impregnated with flame.  She felt the sands as he passed.  When he was gone a sensation of loneliness, even of desolation, oppressed her.

She hesitated for a moment; then she turned and followed him slowly.  He went before her, wrapped in his supreme indifference, through the Porta Basilica, and came out into the blaze of the sunshine.  As she emerged, she saw him standing quite still.  He seemed—­she was just behind him—­to be staring at a very fair woman who, accompanied by a guide, was coming towards the church.  Mrs. Clarke, intent on the Bedouin, was aware of this woman’s approach, but felt no sort of interest in her until she was quite close; then something, some dagger-thrust of the mind, coming from the woman, pierced Mrs. Clarke’s indifference.

She looked up and met the sad, pure eyes of Rosamund Leith.

For a moment she stood perfectly still gazing into those eyes.

Rosamund had stopped, but she made no gesture of recognition and did not open her lips.  She only looked at Mrs. Clarke, and as she looked a deep flush slowly spread over her face and down to her throat.

The Greek guide said something to her; she moved, lowered her eyes and went on into the church without looking back.

The Bedouin strode slowly away into the blaze of the sunshine.

Mrs. Clarke remained where she was, motionless.  For the first time perhaps in her life she was utterly amazed by an event.  Rosamund Leith here in Constantinople!  What did that mean?

Mrs. Clarke knew the arrival of Rosamund meant something that might be tremendously important to herself.  As she stood there before the church she was groping to find this something; but her mental faculties seemed to be paralyzed, and she could not find it.  Rosamund Leith’s eyes had told Mrs. Clarke something, that Rosamund knew of Dion’s unfaithfulness and who the woman was.  What did the fact of Rosamund’s coming to Constantinople in possession of that knowledge mean?

From the minaret above her head the muezzin in a piercing and nasal voice began the call to prayer.  His cry seemed to tear its way through Mrs. Clarke’s inertia.  Abruptly she was in full possession of her faculties.  That Eastern man up there, nearer to the blue than she was, cried, “Come to prayer!” But she had already uttered her prayer, and surely Rosamund Leith was the answer.