A sensation of foreboding--a wild, mad anxiety, filled his being. What had happened? Why might he not land? Then for the first time that fact of Vasili's vanishment came into his mind. Was there something sinister in it? Had he scented any danger to his Queen, and gone to see? A whirlwind of questions and frenzied speculation shook Paul's brain. But there was nothing to be done now but to cram on all steam and make for Constantinople.

He looked again. The green jalousies were lowered over the windows, all seemed peaceful, silent and deserted. No living being wandered in the gardens. It might have been a mausoleum for the dead. And as this thought came to him Paul almost cried aloud.

Then he dominated himself. How weak and intolerably foolish to imagine evil where perhaps none was! Why should his thoughts fly to terrible reasons for the postponement of his joy, when in truth they could as well be of the simplest? A sudden call to the city--a descent of some undesirable spying eye--a hundred and one possible things, all much more likely than any ones of fear.

He would not permit another moment of wonder. He would regain his calm and wait like a man for certainty. Thus his face wore an iron mask and his thoughts an iron band. And presently they came to Constantinople.

But of what followed afterwards it is difficult to write. For fate struck Paul on that warm June morning, and blasted his life, so that for many days he only saw red, and lived in hell.