shing force. Adrian
Fellowes had gained from her--she knew it all too well now--that which
had injured her husband; from which, at any rate, he ought to have been
immune. Her face flushed with a resentment far greater than that of
Rudyard's, and it was heightened by a humiliation which overwhelmed
her. She had been but a tool in every sense, she, Jasmine Byng, one who
ruled, had been used like a--she could not form the comparison in her
mind--by a dependent, a hanger-on of her husband's bounty; and it was
through her, originally, that he had been given a real chance in life
by Rudyard.

"I am sorry," she said, calmly, as soon as she could get her voice. "I
was the means of your employing him."

"That did not matter," he said, rather nervously. "There was no harm in
that, unless you knew his character before he came to me."

"You think I did?"

"I cannot think so. It would have been too ruthless--too wicked."

She saw his suffering, and it touched her. "Of course I did not know
that he could do such a thing--so shameless. He was a low coward. He
did not deserve decent burial," she added. "He had good fortune to die
as he did."

"How did he die?" Rudyard asked her, with a face so unlike what it had
always been, so changed by agitation, that it scarcely seemed his. His
eyes were fixed on hers.

She met them resolutely. Did he ask her in order to see if she had any
suspicion of himself? Had he done it? If he had, there would be some
mitigation of her suffering. Or was it Ian Stafford who had done it?
One or the other--but which?

"He died without being made to suffer," she said. "Most people who do
wrong have to suffer."

"But they live on," he said, bitterly.

"That is no great advantage unless you want to live," she replied. "Do
you know how he died?" she added, after a moment, with sharp scrutiny.

He shook his head and returned her scrutiny with added poignancy. "It
does not matter. He ceases to do any more harm. He did enough."

"Yes, quite enough," she said, with a withered look, and going over to
her writing-table, stood looking at him questioningly. He did not speak
again, however.

Presently she said, very quietly, "I am going away."

"I do not understand."

"I am going to work."

"I understand still less."

She took from the writing-table her cheque-book, and handed it to him.
He looked at it, and read the counterfoil of the cheque she had given
to Alice Tynemouth.

He was bewildered. "Wha