Three weeks and three days, and I knew not what to do.

If I failed, my love would marry the man who was worse than a fiend, while I, for whom she was to suffer this torture, was unable to help her.
And yet I had tried, God alone knows how; but only to fail.

Still, there were twenty-four days; but what were they?
Kaffar, if he were alive, might be in Africa, Australia--no one knew where.

I saw no hope.
A week more slipped by.

There were only seventeen days left now.