ny of a judge in the Judgment House, and there came also into her
eyes, as though in consequence, a look of scrutiny too.

"Did you kill Adrian Fellowes? Was it you?" her disordered mind asked.

She had mistaken the look in his eyes. It was the same look as the look
in hers, and in spite of all the months that had gone, both asked the
same question as in the hour when they last parted. The dead man stood
between them, as he had never stood in life--of infinitely more
importance than he had ever been in life. He had never come between
Rudyard and herself in the old life in any vital sense, not in any
sense that finally mattered. He had only been an incident; not part of
real life, but part of a general wastage of character; not a
disintegrating factor in itself. Ah, no, not Adrian Fellowes, not him!
It enraged her that Rudyard should think the dead man had had any sway
over her. It was a needless degradation, against which she revolted now.

"Why have you come here--to this room?" she asked coldly.

As a boy flushes when he has been asked a disconcerting question which
angers him or challenges his innocence, so Rudyard's face suffused; but
the flush faded as quickly as it came. His eyes then looked at her
steadily, the whites of them so white because of his bronzed face and
forehead, the glance firmer by far than in his old days in London.
There was none of that unmanageable emotion in his features, the panic
excitement, the savage disorder which were there on the day when Adrian
Fellowes' letter brought the crisis to their lives; none of the
barbaric storm which drove Krool down the staircase under the sjambok.
Here was force and iron strength, though the man seemed older, his
thick hair streaked with grey, while there was a deep fissure between
the eyebrows. The months had hardened him physically, had freed him
from all superfluous flesh; and the flabbiness had wholly gone from his
cheeks and chin. There was no sign of a luxurious life about him. He
was merely the business-like soldier with work to do. His khaki fitted
him as only uniform can fit a man with a physique without defect. He
carried in his hand a short whip of rhinoceros-hide, and as he placed
his hands upon his hips and looked at Jasmine meditatively, before he
answered her question, she recalled the scene with Krool. Her eyes were
fascinated by the whip in his hand. It seemed to her, all at once, as
though she was to be the victim of his wrath, and that