“I am glad you have some elementary notions of ethics,” said I. It was during our drive that it occurred to me to ask her where she had procured the paint and earrings.  She explained, cheerfully, that Antoinette had supplied the funds.  I must talk seriously to Antoinette.  Her attitude towards Carlotta savours too much of idolatry.  Demoralisation will soon set in, and the utter ruin of Carlotta and my digestion will be the result.  I must also make Carlotta a small allowance.

During tea she said to me, suddenly: 

“Seer Marcous is not married?”

I said, no.  She asked, why not?  The devil seems to be driving all womankind to ask me that question.

“Because wives are an unmitigated nuisance,” said I.

A curious smile came over Carlotta’s face.  It was as knowing as Dame Quickly’s.

“Then-”

“Have one of these cakes,” said I, hurriedly.  “There is chocolate outside and the inside is chock-full of custard.”

She bit, smiled in a different and beatific way, and forgot my matrimonial affairs.  I was relieved.  With her oriental training there is no telling what Carlotta might have said.

May 31st.

To-day I have had a curious interview.  Who should call on me but the father of the hapless Harry Robinson.  My first question was a natural one.  How on earth did he connect me with the death of his son?  How did he contrive to identify me as the befriender of the young Turkish girl whose interests, he declared, were the object of his visit?  It appeared that the police had given him the necessary information, my adventures at Waterloo having rendered their tracing of Carlotta an easy matter.  I had been wondering somewhat at the meagre newspaper reports of the inquest.  No mention was made, as I had nervously anticipated, of the mysterious lady for whom the deceased had bought a ticket at Alexandretta, and with whom he had come ashore.  Very little evidence appeared to have been taken, and the jury contented themselves with giving the usual verdict of temporary insanity.  I touched on this as delicately as I could.  “We succeeded in hushing things up,” said my visitor, an old man with iron-grey whiskers and a careworn sensitive face.  “I have some influence myself, and his wife’s relations—­”

“His wife!” I ejaculated.  The ways of men are further than ever from interpretation.  The fellow was actually married!

“Yes,” he sighed.  “That is what would have made such a terrible scandal.  Her relatives are powerful people.  We averted it, thank Heaven, and his poor wife will never know.  My boy is dead.  No public investigation into motives would bring him back to life again.”

I murmured words of condolence.

“He must have been out of his mind, poor lad, when he induced the girl to run away with him.  But, as my son has ruined her,” he set his teeth as if the boy’s sin stabbed him, “I must look after her welfare.”