...
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.
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