seems best to me--freedom to be myself in defiance of deplorable social
customs--and there is no guilt in it.... Coming still nearer the very
charge, hear, O Sergius, and I will tell you of the brass on my gate,
and why I suffer it to stay there; since you, with your partialities,
account it a witness against me, it is in likelihood the foundation of
the calumny associating me with the Turk. Let me ask first, did the
Hegumen mention the name of one such associate?"

"No."

The Princess with difficulty repressed her feelings.

"Bear with me a moment," she said; "you cannot know the self-mastery I
require to thus defend myself. Can I ever again be confident of my
judgment? How doubts and fears will beset me when hereafter upon my own
responsibility I choose a course, whatever the affair! Ah, God, whom I
have sought to make my reliance, seems so far away! It will be for Him
in the great day to declare if my purpose in living here be not escape
from guiltiness in thought, from wrong and temptation, from taint to
character. For further security, I keep myself surrounded with good
women, and from the beginning took the public into confidence, giving it
privileges, and inviting it to a study of my daily life. And this is the
outcome! ... I will proceed now. The plate on the gate is a safeguard"--

"Then Mahommed has visited you?"

The slightest discernible pallor overspread her face.

"Does it surprise you so much? ... This is the way it came about. You
remember our stay at the White Castle, and doubtless you remember the