He drew his horse to a standstill and saw just ahead that there was an opening in the City wall and through it a long flight of steps, steps that must have been built many years ago, perhaps by the Romans.

The marble was cracked and broken in places, but was still usable.

“If I go this way,” Yamina explained following the direction of his eyes, “I can reach my house far quicker than by road.”

As she spoke, she slipped from the saddle to the ground and stood to look up at him, her eyes on his.

“I am grateful!” she said quietly.

Lord Castleford also dismounted and now, holding his horse by the bridle, he put out his hand saying,

“I am glad to have been of assistance. May I perhaps call tomorrow and see that you are no worse for the adventure?”

Yamina shook her head.

“I am afraid that my father is too ill for us to receive any guests at the moment.”

“Then may I perhaps leave a card asking for news of his health?” Lord Castleford persisted.

She gave him a smile that told him that she was amused by his insistence. At the same time she had no intention of giving way to his inquisitiveness.

“I can only repeat what I have already said, my Lord,” she said. “Goodbye! I have been most interested in our conversation.”

She turned away as she spoke without taking the hand he stretched out to her.

She descended the steps and he could only stand looking somewhat helpless as she moved with a grace that kept him watching her until finally she disappeared out of sight.

She did not turn round, she did not wave – she just walked out of his life. And he found it extremely irritating to realise that he knew no more about her than when they had first met.

Yamina was her name, but Yamina who?

She was cultured, she was a lady, but why need she be so secretive?

There was no doubt, Lord Castleford thought as he rode back to the Embassy, that she was well informed.

It surprised him that she should know so much about the war and he could not help agreeing with her that it was a confrontation that should have been avoided. Yet, from a diplomatic point of view, it was difficult to see how.

The Russians had been deliberately aggressive, determined not to accept the peace terms that Lord Stratford had tried so hard to persuade everyone to accept.

As for the scandal of the hospital at Scutari and the lack of necessary medical supplies, this was the fault of the medical authorities themselves.

They had deliberately kept the British Ambassador in the dark as to their needs. But an appeal to the Foreign Office for aid that should have been furnished by the War Office was in their eyes a worse crime than letting their patients die.