ss eyes, but a human
something which took no account of the years that the locust had eaten,
the old mad, bad years, the wrong and the shame of them. There was only
the look she had seen the day he first visited her in her own home,
when he had played with words she had used in the way she adored, and
would adore till she died; when he had said, in reply to her remark
that he would turn her head, that it wouldn't make any difference to
his point of view if she did turn her head! Suddenly it was all as if
that day had come back, although his then giant physical strength had
gone; although he had been mangled in the power-house of which they had
spoken that day. Come to think of it, she too had been working in the
"power-house" and had been mangled also; for she was but a thread of
what she was then, but a wisp of golden straw to the sheaf of the then
young golden wheat.

All at once, in answer to the humour in his eyes, to the playful bright
look, the tragedy and the passion which had flown out from her old self
like the flame that flares out of an opened furnace-door, sank back
again, the door closed, and all her senses were cooled as by a gentle
wind.

Her eyes met his, and the invitation in them was like the call of the
thirsty harvester in the sunburnt field. With an abandon, as startling
as it was real and true to her nature, she sank down to the floor and
buried her face in her hands at his feet. She sobbed deeply, softly.

With an exclamation of gladness and welcome he bent over her and drew
her close to him, and his hands soothed her trembling shoulders.

"Peace is the best thing of all, Jasmine," he whispered. "Peace."

They were the last words that Ian had addressed to her. It did not make
her shrink now that both had said to her the same thing, for both knew
her, each in his own way, better than she had ever known herself; and
each had taught her in his own way, but by what different means!

All at once, with a start, she caught Rudyard's arm with a little
spasmodic grasp.

"I did not kill Adrian Fellowes," she said, like a child eager to be
absolved from a false imputation. She looked up at him simply, bravely.

"Neither did I," he answered gravely, and the look in his eyes did not
change. She noted that.

"I know. It was--"

She paused. What right had she to tell!

"Yes, we both know who did it," he added. "Al'mah told me."

She hid her head in her hands again, while he hung over her wisely
wa