She obeyed meekly.  I watched her eat.  She was famished.  I learned that she had had nothing since the early morning coffee and roll.  In spite of pain, I was curiously flattered by her return.  I represented something to her, after all—­even though the instinct of the prodigal cat had driven her hither.  I am sure it had never crossed her mind that my doors might be shut against her.  Her first words were, “I have come home.”  The first thing she did when we went into the drawing-room after dinner was to fondle my hand and lay it against her cheek and say, with a deep sigh: 

“I am so happy.”

However shallow her butterfly nature was, these things came from its depths.  No man can help feeling pleased at a child’s or an animal’s implicit trust in him.  And the pleasure is of the purest.  He feels that unreasoning intuition has penetrated to some latent germ of good in his nature, and for the moment he is disarmed of evil.  Carlotta, then, came blindly to what was best in me.  In her thoughts she sandwiched me between the cat and the cook:  well, in most sandwiches the mid-ingredient is the most essential.

She curled herself up in the familiar sofa-corner, and as it was a chilly night I sent for a wrap which I threw over her limbs.

“See, I have the dear red slippers,” she remarked, arching her instep.

“And I have my dear Carlotta,” said I.

I drew my chair near her, and gradually I learned all the unhappy story.

Pasquale had made love to her from the very first minute of their acquaintance—­even while I was hunting for the L’Histoire Comique de Francion.  He had met her many times unknown to me.  They had corresponded, her letters being addressed to a little stationer’s shop close by.  She did not love him.  Of that I have an absolute conviction.  But he was young, he was handsome, he had the libertine’s air and manner.  She was docile.  And she was ever positively truthful.  If I had questioned her she would have confessed frankly.  But I never questioned, as I never suspected.  I wondered sometimes at her readiness in quoting him.  I noticed odd coincidences; but I was too ineffectual to draw inferences from phenomena.  His appearance on the Paddington platform was prearranged; his duchessa at Ealing a myth.

Apparently he had dallied with his fancy.  The fruit was his any day for the plucking.  Perhaps a rudimentary sentiment of loyalty towards me restrained him.  Who can tell?  The night of our meeting with Hamdi brought the crisis.  The Turk’s threats had alarmed both Carlotta and myself.  It was necessary for him to strike at once.  He saw her the next day—­would to heaven I had remained at home!—­told her I was marrying her to save her from Hamdi.  I loved the other woman.  He would save her equally well from Hamdi.  The other woman met her soon after parting from Pasquale and besought her to give me