"By continually telling her that I am going to leave her in order to get married,--by telling her that you wish to go away, and have even decided to take her with you. She is of course alarmed by all these imaginary anxieties." "If it is so decreed by Allah!" she said quietly, "who shall prevent it?" I had been expecting denials and subterfuges. This fatalistic utterance, without answering my reproaches, took me quite aback and made me tremble. "But," I replied in a severe tone, "Allah could not command you to bring unhappiness to your daughter." "As you are going to be married----" "What matters my marriage?" I answered. "It cannot in any way affect Kondje-Gul's happiness! She knows that I love her, and that she will always retain the first place in my affections." Madame Murrah shook her head for a minute in an undecided manner. The argument which I had employed was a most simple one. At last she said: "Your wife will be an infidel; and, according to your laws, she will be entitled to demand my daughter's dismissal." Dumb-founded at hearing her raise such objections, when I had fancied that I only needed to express my commands, I gazed at her in complete astonishment. "But my wife will never know Kondje-Gul!" I exclaimed. "She will live in her own home, and Kondje-Gul will live here, so that nothing will be changed so far as we are concerned." Upon this reasoning of mine, which I thought would seem decisive to her, the Circassian reflected for a moment as if embarrassed as to how she should answer me. But suddenly, just when I thought she was convinced, she said: "All that you have said would be very true, if we were in Turkey; but you know better than I do that in your country, your religion does not permit you to have more than one wife." "But," I exclaimed, more astounded than ever at her language, "do you suppose, then, that Kondje-Gul could ever doubt my honour or my fidelity?" "My daughter is a child, and believes everything," she continued. "But, for my own part, I have consulted a lawyer, and have been informed that according to your law she has become as free as a Frenchwoman, and has lost all her rights as _cadine_ which she would have enjoyed in our country. Moreover I am informed that you can abandon her without her being able to claim any compensation from you." I was struck dumb by this bold language and the expression with which it was accompanied. This was no longer the apathetic Oriental woman whose obedience I thought I commanded like a master. I had before me another woman whose expression was thoughtful and decided--I understood it all. "While informing you that your daughter is free," I said, changing my own tone of voice, "this lawyer no doubt informed you also, that you could marry her to Count Kiusko?" "Oh, I knew that before!" she replied, smiling. "So you have been deceiving me these two months past, by leaving me to believe that you had answered him with a refusal?"