hour, and to-morrow they would have left codes and conventions behind
them. There was a pang in leaving this beautiful room where his
poem had been born, and beneath which lay such a picture as man sees
nowhere else on earth. But to that which was to come, what was this?
He would write a few lines to the woman who bore his name, and
then the time would have come to go. She too was a beautiful and a
brilliant woman, but her nature was narrow and cold, and she had never
understood him for a moment. There! he had finished, and she would be
happier without him. She had her world and her child--that beautiful
boy!--But this was no time for pangs. He had chosen his destiny, and a
man cannot have all things. It was time to go. Should he take one last
glance at the boy laughing in the room beyond? He had but to push the
tapestry aside, yes--there--God!

Ah, it was grateful to get into the cool air of the street, and before
him, only a short distance away, were the towers of the Embassy. Would
he never reach them? The way had been so long--could it be that his
footsteps were already echoing on the marble floor which led to that
chamber? Yes, and the perfume of that jasmine-laden room was stealing
over his senses, and the woman he loved was in his arms. How the
golden sunset lay on the domes and minarets below! How sonorous
sounded the voices of the muezzins as they called the people to
prayer! There was music somewhere, or was it the wails for the dead
down in Galata? It was all like a part of a dream, and the outlines
were blurred and confused--What was that? A thunderclap? Why were he
and Sionèd lying prostrate there, she with horror in her wide open,
glassy eyes, he with the arms which had held her lying limply on
the blood stained floor beside him? He seemed to see them both as he
hovered above. It was death? Well, what matter? She had gone out with
him, and in some cloud-walled castle, murmurous with harmonies of