Carlos executes another smile at this and bows polite. "It was my fault," says he. "I was in England, waiting for a little affair that happened in Barcelona to blow over. By chance I saw her in her father's shop. Ah, you may find it difficult to believe now, Madam, but she was quite charming,—cheeks flushed like dawn on the desert, eyes like the sea, and limbs as lithe as an Arab maiden's! I talked. She listened. My English was poor; but it is not always words that win. These British girls, though! They cannot fully understand romance. It was she who insisted on marriage. I cared not a green fig. What to me was the mumbling of a churchman, I who cared not for the priests of my mother nor the rabbi of my father? Pah! Two weeks later I gave her some money and left her. Once more in the mountains of Spain I could breathe again—and I made the first English we caught settle the whole bill. That is how it came to be, Madam. Ask her."
Sadie looks at Lindy, who nods. "Father drove me out when I went back," says she; "so I came over here. Carlos had told me where to write. You got all my letters, did you, Carlos?"
"Oh, yes," says he. Then, turnin' to Sadie, "A wonderful writer of letters, Madam,—one every month!"
"Then you knew about little Carlos?" puts in Lindy. "It was a pity. Such lovely big black eyes. He was nearly two. I wish you could have seen him."
"I also had regret," says Carlos. "I read that letter many times. It was because of that, I think, that I continued to read the others, and was at pains to have them sent to me. They would fill a hamper, all of them."
"What!" says Sadie. "After you knew the kind of monster he was, Lindy, did you keep on writing to him?"
"But he was still my husband," protested Lindy.
"Bah!" says Sadie, throwin' a scornful glance at the Pasha.
Don Carlos he spreads out his hands, and shrugs his shoulders. "These English!" says he. "At first I laughed at the letters. They would come at such odd times; for you can imagine, Madam, that my life has been—well, not as the saints'. And to many different women have I read bits of these letters that came from so far,—to dancing girls, others. Some laughed with me, some wept. One tried to stab me with a dagger afterward. Women are like that. You never know when they will change into serpents. All but this one. Think! Month after month, year after year, letters, letters; about nothing much, it is true, but wishing me good health, happiness, asking me to have care for myself, and saying always that I was loved! Well? Can one go on laughing at things like that? Once I was dangerously hurt, a spearthrust that I got near Biskra, and the letter came to me where I lay in my tent. It was like a soothing voice, comforting one in the dark. Since then I have watched for those letters. When chance brought me to this side of the world, I found myself wishing for sight of the one who could remain ever the same, could hold the faith in the faithless for so long. So here I am."
"Yes, and you ought to be in jail," says Sadie emphatic. "But, since you're not, what do you propose doing next?"