Page:Frank Owen - The Actress.djvu/92



Back in Constantine, late in the evening, Anniston made known his adventures to Menehem Sorcha and the lovely Berenice, even to the minutest details.

"Your story is good," observed Menehem Sorcha musingly, "yet does it make me sad. There is something pathetic, something solemn in the death of any man no matter how bad he has been. There is something majestic in the calm of peace. It makes men think. It brings out new editions of past facts. I knew Abdulla Pasha when he was as honorable as even you or I, but although some of us can never rise, even the greatest can sink, and so he did."

Menehem Sorcha lapsed into silence, but presently he commenced speaking again meditatively.

"A few days before Berenice was born," he said, "Catherine Lucio came to Constantine. She was very thin and wan looking. The beautiful rosy tint had faded from her cheek, her head was bowed down with grief, her spirit broken. She was very sick, and as I looked upon her, compassion took possession of my soul. I forgot everything. Forgot how she had treated me, forgot that she had wrecked the Pasha's life. I simply saw as she stood before me what she really was, a woman in trouble, and I took her in. Berenice of Constantine