"What an old stupid you are! You should have let her get married without saying anything! In that way you would have saved us the expense of sending her back home again."
"Well, unfortunately it's too late now for that, uncle," I answered.
To be brief, as the Turkish law does not allow the desertion or dismissal of a cadine unless she be provided for, Zouhra is to be exiled to Rhodes. The pasha has established there for his own use, a kind of Botany Bay, which is a place both of retirement and rustication for his invalided wives who have lost their freshness with age. The place is an old abbey with spacious gardens planted with mimosas and orange trees, and was purchased by auction for some ten thousand francs. The island is delightful, and provisions are to be had there for nothing, according to what my uncle tells me. Judge for yourself: fowls cost twopence each, and everything else is to be had at correspondingly low prices. There are already eleven women there, and it does not cost more than nine thousand francs a year to keep them all on a proper footing, including the board and wages of their servants.
Find me among our own boasted institutions any one to be compared with that of my uncle—an institution established to provide for similar contingencies, and the arrangements of which are equally good.
CHAPTER XV.
For the last three days that unworthy girl Zouhra has been on her way to Rhodes.