The day after his wife's death, the officer
shot himself. I think he was a colonel; and every one knew that Cassim
was mixed up in the affair. He had to leave the army, and it seemed--he
thought so himself--that his career was ruined. He sold his place in
Algiers, and took me to a farm-house in the country where we lived for a
while, and he was so lonely and miserable he would have been glad to
make up, but how could I forgive him? He'd deceived me too horribly--and
besides, in my own eyes I wasn't his wife. Surely our marriage wouldn't
be considered legal in any country outside Islam, would it? Even you, a
child like you, must see that?"
"I suppose so," Victoria answered, sadly. "But----"
"There's no 'but.' I thought so then. I think so a hundred times more
now. My life's been a martyrdom. No one could blame me if--but I was
telling you about what happened after Algiers. There was a kind of armed
truce between us in the country, though we lived only like two
acquaintances under the same roof. For months he had nobody else to talk
to, so he used to talk with me--quite freely sometimes, about a plan
some powerful Arabs, friends of his--Maieddine and his father among
others--were making for him. It sounded like a fairy story, and I used
to think he must be going mad. But he wasn't. It was all true about the
plot that was being worked. He knew I couldn't betray him, so it was a
relief to his mind, in his nervous excitement, to confide in me.
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