you are not well. You must do something. You must
have a change."

"I am going to do something--to have a change."

"That's good. Where are you going, dear?"

"South.... And how are you getting on with your hospital-ship?"

Lady Tynemouth threw up her hands. "Jasmine, I'm in despair. I had set
my heart upon it. I thought I could do it easily, and I haven't done
it, after trying as hard as can be. Everything has gone wrong, and now
Tynie cables I mustn't go to South Africa. Fancy a husband forbidding a
wife to come to him."

"Well, perhaps it's better than a husband forbidding his wife to leave
him."

"Jasmine, I believe you would joke if you were dying."

"I am dying."

There was that in the tone of Jasmine's voice which gave her friend a
start. She eyed her suddenly with a great anxiety.

"And I'm not jesting," Jasmine added, with a forced smile. "But tell me
what has gone wrong with all your plans. You don't mind what Tynemouth
says. Of course you will do as you like."

"Of course; but still Tynie has never 'issued instructions' before, and
if there was any time I ought to humour him it is now. He's so intense
about the war! But I can't explain everything on paper to him, so I've
written to say I'm going to South Africa to explain, and that I'll come
back by the next boat, if my reasons are not convincing."

In other circumstances Jasmine would have laughed. "He will find you
convincing," she said, meaningly.

"I said if he found my reasons convincing."

"You will be the only reason to him."

"My dear Jasmine, you are really becoming sentimental. Tynie would
blush to discover himself being silly over me. We get on so well
because we left our emotions behind us when we married."

"Yours, I know, you left on the Zambesi," said Jasmine, deliberately.

A dull fire came into Lady Tynemouth's eyes, and for an instant there
was danger of Jasmine losing a friend she much needed; but Lady
Tynemouth had a big heart, and she knew that her friend was in a mood
when anything was possible, or everything impossible.

So she only smiled, and said, easily: "Dearest Jasmine, that umbrella
episode which made me love Ian Stafford for ever and ever without even
amen came after I was married, and so your pin doesn't prick, not a
weeny bit. No, it isn't Tynie that makes me sad. It's the Climbers who
won't pay."

"The Climbers? You want money for--"

"Yes, the hospital-ship; and I thought they'd jump at it; but they'