“All that time my child was lost to me. We had learnt of the murder that had taken place, but the efendi was not then in the police, and the Sultani, Kiamíl’s damned prospective father-in-law, denied seeing him again. So we wrote him off as dead. When your brother came and brought him to me, so thin and deathly pale, it seemed that he came out of his tomb. And may God give you such joy in your life, my child, as much joy as I felt on that day! Of course much time passed, but finally my child got well. As he got well, he got up to leave.
“ ‘Where will you go, my child? ’
“ ‘To my fiancée, mother, to my father-in-law.’
“ ‘And how will you go to such a father-in-law, my child? Let him be hanged!’
“ ‘No, mother, I can’t. He must learn that I am neither a traitor nor a cowardly man. I must
