weeks since then, and it may be that the circle has been broken. Yet it
may not be so. The circle may be smaller, but not broken."

She felt how he was tempting her from word to word with a merciless
ingenuity; yet she kept to her purpose; and however hopeless it seemed,
she would struggle on.

"Excellency," she said in a low, pleading tone, "has he not suffered
enough? Has he not paid the price of that life which you would not bring
back if you could? No, in those places of your mind where no one can see
lies the thought that you would not bring back Foorgat Bey. It is not an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth that has moved you; it has not
been love of Foorgat Bey; it has been the hatred of the East for the
West. And yet you are a Christian! Has Claridge Pasha not suffered
enough, Excellency? Have you not had your fill of revenge? Have you
not done enough to hurt a man whose only crime was that he killed a man
to save a woman, and had not meant to kill?"

"Yet he says in his letter that the thought of killing would not have
stopped him."

"Does one think at such a moment? Did he think? There was no time. It
was the work of an instant. Ah, Fate was not kind, Excellency! If it
had been, I should have been permitted to kill Foorgat Bey with my own
hands."

"I should have found it hard to exact the penalty from you, madame."

The words were uttered in so neutral a way that they were enigmatical,
and she could not take offence or be sure of his meaning.