When Dion came out into the street he stood still on the pavement. It was between ten and eleven o’clock. Stamboul, the mysterious city, was plunged in darkness, but Pera was lit and astir, was full of blatant and furtive activities. He listened to its voices as he stood under the stars, and presently from them the voice of a woman detached itself, and said clearly and with a sort of beautifully wondering slowness, “I can see the Pleiades.”

Tears started into his eyes. He was afraid of that voice and yet his whole being longed desperately to hear it again. The knowledge that Rosamund was here in Constantinople, very near to him—how it had changed the whole city for him! Every light that gleamed, every sound that rose up, seemed to hold for him a terrible vital meaning. And he knew that all the time he had been living in Constantinople it had been to him a horrible city of roaring emptiness, and he knew that now, in a moment, it had become the true center of the world. He was amazed and he was horrified by the power and intensity of the love within him. In this moment he knew it for an undying thing. Nothing could kill it, no act of Rosamund’s, no act of his. Even lust had not suffocated the purity of it, even satiety of the flesh had not lessened the yearning of it, or availed to deprive it of its ardent simplicity, of its ideal character. In it there was still the child with his wonder, the boy with his stirring aspirations towards life, the man with his full-grown passion. He had sought to kill it and he had not even touched it. He knew that now and was shaken by the knowledge. Where did it dwell then, this thing that governed him and that he could not break? He longed to get at it, to seize it, hold it to some fierce light, examine it. And then? Would he wish to cast it away?

“I can see the Pleiades.”

For a moment the peace of Olympia was about him, and he heard the voices of Eternity whispering among the pine trees. Then the irreparable blotted out that green beauty, that message from the beyond; reality rushed upon him. He turned and looked at the building he had just left. It towered above him, white, bare, with its rows of windows. He knew that he would never go into it again, that he had done forever with the woman in there who hated him. Yes, he had done with her insomuch as a man can finish with any one who has been closely, intimately, for good or for evil, in his life. As he watched her windows for a moment his mind reviewed swiftly his connection with her, from the moment when she had held his hand indifferently, yet with intention, in Mrs. Chetwinde’s drawing-room, till the moment, just past, when he had said to her, “You are free.” And he knew that from the first moment when she had seen him she had made up her mind that some day he should be her lover. He hated her, and yet he knew now that in some strange and obscure way he almost respected her, for her determination, her unscrupulous courage, her will to live as she chose to live. She at any rate possessed a kind of evil strength. And he——?

Slowly he turned away from that house. He did not know where Rosamund was staying, but he thought she was probably at the Hotel de Byzance, and he walked almost mechanically towards it. He was burning with excitement, and yet there was within him something cold, capable and relentless, which considered him almost as a judge considers a criminal, which seemed to be probing into the rotten part of his nature, determined to know once and for all just how rotten it was. Rosamund surely was strong in her goodness as Mrs. Clarke was strong in her evil. He had known the cruelty of both those strengths. And why? Surely because he himself had never been really strong. Intensity of feeling had constantly betrayed him into weakness. And even now was it not weakness in him, this inability to leave off loving Rosamund after all that had happened? Perhaps the power of feeling intensely was the great betrayer of a man.

He descended the Grande Rue, moving in the midst of a press of humanity, but strongly conscious only of Rosamund’s nearness to him, until at last he was in front of the Hotel de Byzance. He stood on the opposite side of the way, looking at the lighted windows, at the doorway through which people came and went. Was she in there, close to him? Why had she come to Constantinople?

She must have come there because of him. There could not surely be any other reason for her traveling so far to the city where she knew he was living. But then she must have repented of her cruelty after the death of Robin, have thought seriously of resuming her married life. It must be so. Inexorably Dion’s reason led him to that conclusion. Having reached it he looked at himself, and again his own weakness confronted him like a specter which would not leave him, which dogged him relentlessly down all the ways of his life. Prompted, governed by that weakness, which he had actually mistaken madly for strength, for an assertion of his manhood, he had raised up between Rosamund and himself perhaps the only barrier which could never be broken down, the barrier of a great betrayal. What she had most cared for in him he had trampled into the dirt; he had slain the purity which had drawn her to him.

Mrs. Clarke had said that Rosamund knew of their connexion. He believed her. He could not help trusting her horrible capacity to read such a truth in another woman’s eyes. It must be so. Rosamund surely could only have learned in Constantinople the horrible truth which would forever divide them. She must have traveled out with the intention of seeing him again, of telling him that she repented of what she had done, and then in the city which had seen his degradation she must have found out what he was.

He saw her outraged, bitterly ashamed of having made the long journey to seek a man who had betrayed her; he saw her wounded in the soul. She had wounded him in the soul, but at this moment he scarcely thought of that. The knowledge that she was near to him seemed to have suddenly renewed the pure springs of his youth. When Cynthia Clarke had said, “Now I’m ready if you want to go to the rooms,” she had received her freedom from the Dion who had won Rosamund, not from the withered and embittered man upon whom she had perversely seized in his misery and desolation.

That Rosamund should travel to him and then know him for what he was! All his intense bitterness against her was swept away by the flood of his hatred of himself.

Suddenly the lights of the city seemed to fade before his eyes and the voices of the city seemed to lose their chattering gaiety. Darkness and horrible mutterings were about him. He heard the last door closing against him. He accounted himself from henceforth among the damned. Lifting his head he stared for a moment at the Hotel de Byzance. Now he felt sure that she was there. He knew that she was there, and he bade her an eternal farewell. Not she—as for so long he had thought—but he had broken their marriage. She had sinned in the soul. But to-night he did not see her sin. He saw only his black sin of the body, the irreparable sin he had committed against her shining purity to which he had been united.

How could he have committed that sin?

He turned away from the hotel, and went down towards his lodgings in Galata; he felt as he walked, like one treading a descent which led down into eternal darkness.

How had he come to do what he had done?

Already he saw Cynthia Clarke as something far away, an almost meaningless phantom. He wondered why he had felt power in her; he wondered what it was that had led him to her, had kept him beside her, had bound him to her. She was nothing. She had never really been anything to him. And yet she had ruined his life. He saw her pale and haggard face, her haunted cheeks and temples, the lovely shape of her head with its cloud of unshining hair, her small tenacious hands. He saw her distinctly. But she was far away, utterly remote from him. She had meant nothing to him, and yet she had ruined him. Let her go. Her work was done.

It was near midnight when he went at last to his lodgings, which were in a high house not far from the Tophane landing. From his windows he could see the Golden Horn, and the minarets and domes of Stamboul. His two rooms, though clean, were shabbily furnished and unattractive. He had a Greek servant who came in every day to do what was necessary. He never received any visitors in these rooms, which he had taken when he gave up going into the society of the diplomats and others, to whom he had been introduced at Buyukderer.

His feet echoed on the dirty staircase so he mounted slowly up till he stood in front of his own door. Slowly, like one making an effort that was almost painful to him he searched for his key and drew it out. His hand shook as he inserted the key into the keyhole. He tried to steady his hand, but he could not control its furtive and perpetual movement. When the door was open he struck a match, and lit a candle that stood on a chair in the dingy and narrow lobby. Then he turned round wearily to shut the door. He was possessed by a great fatigue, and wondered whether, if he fell on his bed in the blackness, he would be able to sleep. As he turned, he saw, lying on the matting at his feet, a square white envelope. It was lying upside down. Some one must have pushed it under the door while he was out.

He stood looking at it for a minute. Then he shut the door, bent down, picked up the envelope, turned it over and held it near the candle flame. He read his name and the handwriting was Rosamund’s.

After a long pause he took the candle and carried the letter into his sitting-room. He set the candle down on the table on which lay “The Kasidah” and a few other books, laid the letter beside it, with trembling hands drew up a chair and sat down.

Rosamund had written to him. When? Before she had learnt the truth or afterwards?

For a long time he sat there, leaning over the table, staring at the address which her hand had written. And he saw her hand, so different from Mrs. Clarke’s, and he remembered its touch upon his, absolutely unlike the touch of any other hand ever felt by him. Something quivered in his flesh. The agony of the body rushed upon him and mingled with the agony of the soul. He bent down, laid his hot forehead against the letter, and shut his eyes.

A clock struck presently. He opened his eyes, lifted his head, took up the envelope, quickly tore it, and unfolded the paper within.

“HOTEL DE BYZANCE, CONSTANTINOPLE, Wednesday evening

“I am here. I want to see you. Shall I come to you to-morrow? I can come at any time, or I can meet you at any place you choose. Only tell me the hour and how to go if it is difficult.

“ROSAMUND.”

Wednesday evening! It was now the night of Wednesday. Then Rosamund had written to him after she had been to Santa Sophia and had met Mrs. Clarke. She knew, and yet she wrote to him; she asked to see him; she even offered to come to his rooms. The thing was incomprehensible.

He read the note again. He pored over every word in it almost like a child. Then he held it in his hand, sat back in his chair and wondered.

What did Rosamund mean? Why did she wish to see him? What could she intend to do? His intimate knowledge of what Rosamund was companioned him at this moment—that knowledge which no separation, which no hatred even, could ever destroy. She was fastidiously pure. She could never be anything else. He could not conceive of her ever drawing near to, and associating herself deliberately with, bodily degradation. He thought of her as he had known her, with her relations, her friends, with himself, with Robin. Always in every relation of life a radiant purity had been about her like an atmosphere; always she had walked in rays of the sun. Until Robin had died! And then she had withdrawn into the austere purity of the religious life. He felt it to be absolutely impossible that she should seek him, even seek but one interview with him, if she knew what his life had been during the last few months. And, feeling that, he was now forced to the conclusion that Mrs. Clarke’s intuition had gone for once astray. If Rosamund knew she would never have written that note. Again he looked at it, read it. It must have been written in complete ignorance. Mrs. Clarke had made a mistake. Perhaps she had been betrayed into error by her own knowledge of guilt. And yet such a lapse was very uncharacteristic of her. He compared his knowledge of her with his knowledge of Rosamund. It was absolutely impossible that Rosamund had written that letter to him with full understanding of his situation in Constantinople. But she might have heard rumors. She might have resolved to clear them up. Having traveled out with the intention of seeking a reconciliation she might have thought it due to him to accept evil tidings of him only from his own lips. Always, he knew, she had absolutely trusted in his loyalty and faithfulness to her. Perhaps then, even though she had put him out of her life, she was unable to believe that he had tried to forget her in unfaithfulness. Perhaps that was the true explanation of her conduct.

Could he then save himself from destruction by a great lie?

He sat pondering that problem, oblivious of time. Could he lie to Rosamund? All his long bitterness against her for the moment was gone, driven out by his self-condemnation. A great love must forgive. It cannot help itself. It carries within it, as a child is carried in the womb, the sweet burden of divinity, and shares in the attributes of God. So it was with Dion on that night as he sat in his dingy room. And presently his soul rejected the lie he had abominably thought of. He knew he could not tell Rosamund a life. Then what was he to do?

He drew out of a drawer a piece of letter paper, dipped a pen in ink. He had a mind to write the horrible truth which he could surely never speak.

“I have received your letter,” he wrote, in a blurred and unsteady handwriting. Then he stopped. He stared at the paper, pushed it away from him, and got up. He could not write the truth. He went to the window and looked out into the dark night. Here and there he saw faint lights. But Stamboul was almost hidden in the gloom, a city rather suggested by its shadow than actually visible. The Golden Horn was a tangled mystery. There were some withdrawn stars.

Should he not reply to Rosamund’s letter? If she had heard rumors about his life would not his silence convey to her the fact that they were true? He had perhaps only to do nothing and Rosamund would understand and—would leave Constantinople.

The blackness which shrouded Stamboul suddenly seemed to him to become more solid, impregnable. He felt that his own life would be drowned in blackness if Rosamund went away. And abruptly he knew that he must see her. Whatever the cost, whatever the shame and bitterness, he must see her at once. He would tell her, or try to tell her, what he had been through, what he had suffered, why he had done what he had done. Possibly she would be able to understand. If only he could find the words that would give her the inner truth perhaps they might reach her heart. Something intense told him that he must try to make her understand how he had loved her, through all his hideous attempts to slay his love of her. Could a woman understand such a thing? Desperately he wondered. Might not his terrible sincerity perhaps overwhelm her doubts?

He left the window, sat down again at the table, and wrote quickly.

“I have your letter. Will you meet me to-morrow at Eyub, in the cemetery on the hill? I will be near the Tekkeh of the dancing Dervishes. I will be there before noon, and will wait all day.

“DION”

When he began to write he knew that he could not make his confession to Rosamund within the four walls of his sordid and dingy room. Her power to understand would surely be taken from her there. Might it not be released under the sky of morning, within sight of those minarets which he had sometimes feared, but which he had always secretly, in some obscure way, loved even in the most abominable moments of his abominable life, as he had always secretly, beneath all the hard bitterness of his stricken heart, loved Rosamund? From them came the voice which would not be gainsaid, the voice which whispered, “In the East thou shalt find me if thou hast not found me in the West.” Might not that voice help him when he spoke to Rosamund, help her to understand him, help her perhaps even to——

But there he stopped. He dared not contemplate the possibility of her being able to accept the man he had become as her companion. And yet now he felt himself somehow closely akin to the former Dion, flesh of that man’s flesh, bone of his bone. It was as if his sin fell from him when he so utterly repented of it.

Slowly he put the note he had written into an envelope, sealed it and wrote the address—“Mrs. Dion Leith, Hotel de Byzance.” He blotted it. Then he fetched his hat and stick. He meant to take the note himself to the Hotel de Byzance. The night might be made for sleep, but he knew he could not sleep till he had seen Rosamund. When he was out in the air, and was walking uphill towards Pera, he realized that within him, in spite of all, something of hope still lingered. Rosamund’s letter to him had wrought already a wonderful change in his tortured life. The knowledge that he would see her again, be with her alone, even if only for an hour, even if only that he might tell her what would alienate her from him forever, thrilled through him, seemed even to shed a fierce strength and alertness through his body. Now that he was going to see her once more he knew what the long separation from her had meant to him. He had known the living death. Within a few hours he would have at least some moments of life. They would be terrible moments, shameful—but they would take him back into life. Fiercely, passionately, he looked forward to them.

He left his letter at the hotel, giving it into the hands of a weary Albanian night porter. Then he returned to his rooms, undressed, washed in cold water, and lay down on his bed. And presently he was praying in the dark, instinctively almost as a child prays. He was praying for the impossible. For he believed that it was absolutely impossible the Rosamund could ever forgive him for what he had done, and yet he prayed that she might forgive him. And he felt as if he were praying with all his body as well as with all his soul.

In the dawn he was tired. But he did not sleep at all.

About ten o’clock he went out to take the boat to Eyub.