CHAPTER XXXVI

TOO LATE?

Takvor had graduated and was busily packing his books and other belongings, preparing to go to the city for a year of hospital practice, when his landlady entered with a letter. It ran as follows:

CONSTANTINOPLE, 15 June, 189-- Dear Takvor,

To-day Aunt Vartouhi was buried. Last night when she retired, she seemed perfectly well, but early this morning she awoke with severe pains, and before medical aid could be called, she died during a violent spasm. My conscience is troubling me, for I feel that I may have been in a manner responsible for her death. Not long ago our neighbor, Hassan Pasha, whom you knew in Ak Hissar as Badiark, called to renew his proposal for my hand. Aunt Vartouhi very indignantly rejected it, and the angry pasha threatened us. I may be doing him a great injustice by leading you to infer that he poisoned her; but Papasian, the priest who attended the funeral, shared my suspicions, and believing that I could not safely remain alone in Kum Kapu, insisted on my going to his home. In a day or two I shall go to Ak Hissar, and again be with dear old Dede and Vassinag, whom I have not seen since we left, five years ago. The spy whom the pasha set to watch me was at the funeral to-day, and now he is in the street before the house. My greatest fear is that I may not be able to escape him when I go home. But do not worry, for Dede will protect me until you come.

As ever, I am yours, ARMENOUHI.

Takvor read the letter, reread it, and then stood lost in meditation. Armenouhi’s letters from the school had been filled with such happiness that a thought of danger to her had never entered his mind. He looked at the date. The letter was written a week before. He was dazed trying to think of all the things that might have happened to her since she wrote. If she continued to resist the pasha, perhaps already she had suffered the fate of her aunt, or more likely she was an unwilling wife in a Turkish harem, forever beyond his reach. He took out his watch. It was nine o’clock. To his landlady’s surprise, he left his boxes half packed, hurried a few articles into his suit case, announced that he must make the boat for Calais, and ran to catch the train. How slowly that express traveled! Several times in his impatience he prepared a cablegram to Dicran; but convinced that it would not get beyond the hands of the police, he destroyed it. That night the Oriental Express was flying with him across Europe to Constantinople.