s of the houses, keeping at some distance. The same figure
followed him furtively till he came into that part of the Embankment
where Adrian Fellowes' chambers were; then it fell behind a little, for
here the lights were brighter. It hung in the shadow of a door-way and
watched him as he approached the door of the big building where Adrian
Fellowes lived.

Presently, as he came nearer, Stafford saw a hansom standing before the
door. Something made him pause for a moment, and when, in the pause,
the figure of a woman emerged from the entrance and hastily got into
the hansom, he drew back into the darkness of a doorway, as the man did
who was now shadowing him; and he waited till it turned round and
rolled swiftly away. Then he moved forward again. When not far from the
entrance, however, another cab--a four-wheeler--discharged its occupant
at a point nearer to the building than where he waited. It was a woman.
She paid the cabman, who touched his hat with quick and grateful
emphasis, and, wheeling his old crock round, clattered away. The woman
glanced along the empty street swiftly, and then hurried to the doorway
which opened to Adrian Fellowes' chambers.

Instantly Stafford recognized her. It was Jasmine, dressed in black and
heavily veiled. He could not mistake the figure--there was none other
like it; or the turn of her head--there was only one such head in all
England. She entered the building quickly.

There was nothing to do but wait until she came out again. No passion
stirred in him, no jealousy, no anger. It was all dead. He knew why she
had come; or he thought he knew. She would tell the man who had said no
word in defense of her, done nothing to protect her, who let the worst
be believed, without one protest of her innocence, what she thought of
him. She was foolish to go to him, but women do mad things, and they
must not be expected to do the obviously sensible thing when the crisis
of their lives has come. Stafford understood it all.

One thing he was certain Jasmine did not know--the intimacy between
Fellowes and Al'mah. He himself had been tempted to speak of it in
their terrible interview that morning; but he had refrained. The
ignominy, the shame, the humiliation of that would have been beyond her
endurance. He understood; but he shrank at the thought of the nature of
the interview which she must have, at the thought of the meeting at all.

He would have some time to wait, no doubt, and he made hims