"Do you know that I am going to be married?" he asked, after a moment's silence.
I did not reply, but kept my eyes fixed on the ground.
"You are thinking how unhappy I shall make my wife," he continued: "how she will suffer from my bad treatment."
"Oh! no," I exclaimed. "I do not think she will be unhappy. You will, of course, love her, and that is different. You are unkind to me, but then that is not the same."
"You think I do not love you," said the Bey, taking my hands and pressing them so that it seemed as though he would crush them in his grasp. "You are mistaken, Féliknaz. I love you madly, passionately; I love you so much that I would rather see you dead here at my feet than that you should ever belong to any other than to me!"
"Why have you been so unkind to me always, then?" I murmured, half-closing my eyes, for he was gazing at me with such an intense expression on his dark, handsome face that I felt I dare not look up at him again.
"Because when I have seen you suffering through me it has hurt me too; and yet it has been a joy to me to know you were thinking of me and to suffer with you, for whenever I have made you unhappy, little one, I have been still more so myself. Your smiles and your gentleness have tamed me though, at last; and now you shall be mine, not as Féliknaz the slave, but as Féliknaz-Hanoum, for I respect you, my darling, as much as I love you!"
Mourad-bey then took me in his arms and kissed my face and neck, and then he went back to his rooms, leaving me there leaning on the balcony and trembling all over.
Allah had surely cared for me, for I had never even dared to dream of such happiness as this.