near to Stafford's hand.

"Yes, of course you will go," was the stern retort. "You will go, just
as I say."

"What shall I do abroad?" wailed the weak voice.

"What you have always done here, I suppose--live on others," was the
crushing reply. "The venue will be changed, but you won't change, not
you. If I were you, I'd try and not meet Jigger before you go. He
doesn't know quite what it is, but he knows enough to make him
reckless."

Fellowes moved towards the door in a stumbling kind of way. "I have
some things up-stairs," he said.

"They will be sent after you to your chambers. Give me the keys to the
desk in the secretary's room."

"I'll go myself, and--"

"You will leave this house at once, and everything will be sent after
you--everything. Have no fear. I will send them myself, and your
letters and private papers will not be read.... You feel you can rely
on me for that--eh?"

"Yes ... I'll go now ... abroad ... where?"

"Where you please outside the United Kingdom."

Fellowes passed heavily out through the other room, where his letter
had been read by Stafford, where his fate had been decided. He put on
his overcoat nervously and went to the outer door.

Stafford came up to him again. "You understand, there must be no
attempt to communicate here.... You will observe this?"

Fellowes nodded. "Yes, I will.... Good-night," he added, absently.

"Good-day," answered Stafford, mechanically.

The outer door shut, and Stafford turned again to the little room where
so much had happened which must change so many lives, bring so many
tears, divert so many streams of life.

How still the house seemed now! It had lost all its charm and
homelikeness. He felt stifled. Yet there was the warm sun streaming
through the doorway of the music-room, making the beaded curtains shine
like gold.

As he stood in the doorway of the little morning-room, looking in with
bitter reflection and dreading beyond words what now must come--his
meeting with Jasmine, the story he must tell her, and the exposure of a
truth so naked that his nature revolted from it, he heard a footstep
behind him. It was Krool.

Stafford looked at the saturnine face and wondered how much he knew;
but there was no glimmer of revelation in Krool's impassive look. The
eyes were always painful in their deep animal-like glow, and they
seemed more than usually intense this morning; that was all.

"Will you present my compliments to Mrs. Byng, and say-