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 between Stafford and Fellowes.

“Well, what is it?” asked Fellowes, with an attempt to be casual, though there was that in Stafford’s face which gave him anxiety, he knew not why.  He had expected Jasmine, and, instead, here was Stafford, who had been so much with her of late; who, with Mennaval, had occupied so much of her time that she had scarcely spoken to him, and, when she did so, it was with a detachment which excluded him from intimate consideration.

His face wore a mechanical smile, as his pale blue eyes met the dark intensity of Stafford’s.  But slowly the peach-bloom of his cheeks faded and his long, tapering fingers played nervously with the leather-trimming of the piano-stool.

“Anything I can do for you, Stafford?” he added, with attempted nonchalance.

“There is nothing you can do for me,” was the meaning reply, “but there is something you can do advantageously for yourself, if you will think it worth while.”

“Most of us are ready to do ourselves good turns.  What am I to do?”

“You will wish to avoid it, and yet you will do yourself a good turn in not avoiding it.”

“Is that the way you talk in diplomatic circles—­cryptic, they call it, don’t they?”

Stafford’s chin hardened, and a look of repulsion and disdain crossed over his face.

“It is more cryptic, I confess, than the letter which will cause you to do yourself a good turn.”

Now Fellowes’ face turned white.  “What letter?” he asked, in a sharp, querulous voice.

“The letter you wrote Mrs. Byng from the Trafalgar Club yesterday.”

Fellowes made a feint, an attempt at bravado.  “What business is it of yours, anyhow?  What rights have you got in Mrs. Byng’s letters?”

“Only what I get from a higher authority.”

“Are you in sweet spiritual partnership with the Trinity?”

“The higher authority I mean is Mr. Byng.  Let us have no tricks with words, you fool.”

Fellowes made an ineffective attempt at self-possession.

“What the devil . . . why should I listen to you?” There was a peevish stubbornness in the tone.

“Why should you listen to me?  Well, because I have saved your life.  That should be sufficient reason for you to listen.”

“Damnation—­speak out, if you’ve got anything to say!  I don’t see what you mean, and you are damned officious.  Yes, that’s it—­damned officious.”  The peevishness was becoming insolent recklessness.

Slowly Stafford drew from his pocket the revolver Rudyard had given him.  As Fellowes caught sight of the glittering steel he fell back against the piano-stool, making a clatter, his face livid.