ISKANDER EFFENDI. 53 



terrible to me. To have her in my house all clay and 

 night, unseen, unapproached< to know that she loved an- 

 other, to half suspect that she was not true even to him, 

 to spend my days in watching the churches and bazaars 

 for the priest, my nights in imagining her story, of which 

 I knew no word — this was very hard. Daily the young 

 man, known to me only as Selim Bey, as I was known to 

 him only as Iskander, came to the house and went in to 

 her apartments. Daily he paused and talked with me a 

 little while, until he said, one day, ' Iskander, I shall be 

 absent now some days. Go in and see Edith once in a 

 while ; she will be lonelv.' 



" I must pass along now rapidly with my story. I did 

 see her. I never saw woman half so lovely. At first I 

 but spoke with her at the doorway of her rooms in the 

 evening and the morning. Then I persuaded her to walk 

 out with me. First we climbed the wall on Mount Zion ; 

 then we rambled around the city. Now we walked down 

 the Valley of Jehoshaphat, now ascended the sunny slopes 

 of Olivet. Sometimes we walked as far as Bethany. Once 

 we went on horseback to Bethlehem. All this time she 

 wound around me the delicious bonds of love. 



" I know not that I should say any thing of myself, 

 but I may at least assert that I was not a man to despise 

 either for physical or mental reasons. I was young and 

 strong. I had studied much, read much, traveled much. 

 There were few subjects of ordinary conversation in such 

 a country with which I was not familiar, and she needed 

 no other guide about the Holy City. And while I named 

 all the places, she told me all the thrilling Christian his- 

 tories that cling to them. 



" A month glided by. It was the month of May, most 

 delicious of all the year in Jerusalem. 



