I followed Mouraki out of the house. He walked in his usual slow deliberate manner. He beckoned to the sentry as we passed him, told him that two women, who would shortly come up, were to be admitted, but nobody else, until an officer came bearing further orders. Having made these arrangements, he resumed his way down, taking his place in front of me and maintaining absolute silence. I did not care to talk. I had enough to think about. But already, now I was out in the fresh air, the feeling of sick horror with which the little room had affected me began to pass away. I felt braced up again. I was better prepared for the great effort which loomed before me now as a present and urgent necessity. Mouraki had found an instrument. He had set Constantine free, that Constantine might do against me what Mouraki himself could not do openly. My friends were away. The hour of the stroke must even now be upon me. Well, the hour of my counter-stroke was come also, the counter-stroke for which my interview with Phroso and Mouraki’s absence opened the way. For he thought the passage no more than a mediæval curiosity. We reached the house and entered the hall together. As we passed through the compound I had seen an alert sentinel. Looking out from the front door, I perceived two men on guard. A party of ten or a dozen more was drawn up, an officer at its head; these were the men who waited to attend Mouraki on his evening expedition. The Pasha seated himself and wrote a note. He looked up as he finished it, saying: ‘I am informing the Lady Euphrosyne that you will await her here in half-an-hour’s time, and that she is at liberty to spend what time she pleases with you. Is that what you wish?’ ‘Precisely, your Excellency. I am much obliged to you.’ His only answer was a dignified bow; but he turned to a sub-officer who stood by him at attention and said, ‘On no account allow Lord Wheatley to be interrupted this evening. You will, of course, keep the sentries on guard behind and in front of the house, but do not let them intrude here.’ After giving his orders, the Pasha sat silent for some minutes. He had lighted his cigarette, and smoked it slowly. Then he let it out--a thing I had never seen him do before--lit another, and resumed his slow inhalings. I knew that he would speak before long, and after a few more moments he gave me the result of his meditations. We were now alone together. ‘It would have been much better,’ said he, ‘if that poor woman--whose fate I sincerely regret--had been let alone and this girl had died instead of her,’ and he nodded at me with convinced emphasis. ‘If Phroso had died!’ leapt from my lips in astonishment. ‘Yes, if Phroso had died. We would have hanged Constantine together, wept together over her grave, and each of us gone home with a sweet memory--you to your _fiancée_, I to my work. And we should have forgiven one another any little causes of reproach.’