Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/157



was a breezy, sunny noon when the midday quiet rested on the house that Edith had her first glimpse of Yakka Arik.

Donovan had suggested smilingly that she might not be so closely guarded as she suspected, and that there was a fine view from a terrace opening from the second story of the stone dwelling, also that she looked peaked from long confinement indoors. It was time, said he, she began to take care of herself a little.

"Don't bother about the yashmak, either," he laughed, his grave face lighting up, "you won't scandalize Iskander and the rest. They are mostly at church."

Vaguely, Edith wondered if he was jesting. Was there a church in Yakka Arik? She asked Donovan. His smile faded.

"Rather. Not much else."

So Edith ventured out into the hall, feeling a strong sense of guilt—as once when she had been a girl in short skirts and had stolen into an orchard forbidden to her. It was a relief that no one confronted her in the hall or on the winding staircase. Her pulse quickened as she stepped through a pillared, cloisterlike room and out upon a wide balcony. There she drew a deep breath.