the last time, to make her understand...."

He went to the beaded curtain, raised it, and stepped into the flood of
warm sunlight. The voluptuous, agonizing music came in a wave over him.
Tragedy, poignant misery, rang through every note, swelled in a stream
which drowned the senses. This man-devil could play, Stafford remarked,
cynically, to himself.

"A moment--Fellowes," he said, sharply.

The music frayed into a discord and stopped.

CHAPTER XXI

THE BURNING FIERY FURNACE

There was that in Stafford's tone which made Fellowes turn with a
start. It was to this room that Fellowes had begged Jasmine to come
this morning, in the letter which Krool had so carefully placed for his
master to find, after having read it himself with minute scrutiny. It
was in this room they had met so often in those days when Rudyard was
in South Africa, and where music had been the medium of an intimacy
which had nothing for its warrant save eternal vanity and curiosity,
the evil genius of the race of women. Here it was that Krool's
antipathy to Jasmine and fierce hatred of Fellowes had been nurtured.
Krool had haunted the room, desiring the end of it all; but he had been
disarmed by a smiling kindness on Jasmine's part, which shook his
purpose again and again.

It had all been a problem which Krool's furtive mind failed to master.
If he went to the Baas with his suspicions, the chance was that he
would be flayed with a sjambok and turned into the streets; if he
warned Jasmine, the same thing might happen, or worse. But fate had at
last played into his hands, on the very day that Oom Paul had
challenged destiny, when all things were ready for the ruin of the
hated English.

Fate had sent him through the hallway between Jasmine's and Rudyard's
rooms in the moment when Jasmine had dropped Fellowes' letter; and he
had seen it fall. He knew not what it was, but it might be of
importance, for he had seen Fellowes' handwriting on an envelope among
those waiting for Jasmine's return home. In a far dark corner he had
waited till he saw Lablanche enter her mistress' room hurriedly,
without observing the letter. Then he caught it up and stole away to
the library, where he read it with malevolent eyes.

He had left this fateful letter where Rudyard would see it when he rose
in the morning. All had worked out as he had planned, and now, with his
ear against the door which led from the music-room, he strained to hear
what passed be