“Dear Byng,—­Fellowes is gone.  I found him dead in his rooms.  An inquest will be held to-morrow.  There are no signs of violence; neither of suicide or anything else.  If you want me, I shall be at my rooms after ten o’clock to-night.  I have got all his papers.”  Yours ever,

“Ian Stafford.”

Jasmine watched Rudyard closely as he read.  A strange look passed over his face, but his hand was steady as he put the note in his pocket.  She then saw him look searchingly at Al’mah as he went forward to greet her.

On the instant Rudyard had made up his mind what to do.  It was clear that Al’mah did not know that Fellowes was dead, or she would not be here; for he knew of their relations, though he had never told Jasmine.  Jasmine did not suspect the truth, or Al’mah would not be where she was; and Fellowes would never have written to Jasmine the letter for which he had paid with his life.

Al’mah was gently appreciative of the welcome she received from both Byng and Jasmine, and she prepared to sing.

“Yes, I think I am in good voice,” she said to Jasmine, presently.  Then Rudyard went, giving his wife’s arm a little familiar touch as he passed, and said: 

“Remember, we must have some patriotic things tonight.  I’m sure Al’mah will feel so, too.  Something really patriotic and stirring.  We shall need it—­yes we shall need cheering very badly before we’ve done.  We’re not going to have a walk-over in South Africa.  Cheering up is what we want, and we must have it.”

Again he cast a queer, inquiring look at Al’mah, to which he got no response, and to himself he said, grimly:  “Well, it’s better she should not know it—­here.”

His mind was in a maze.  He moved as in a dream.  He was pale, but he had an air of determination.  Once he staggered with dizziness, then he righted himself and smiled at some one near.  That some one winked at his neighbour.

“It’s true, then, what we hear about him,” the neighbour said, and suggestively raised fingers to his mouth.

Al’mah sang as perhaps she had seldom sung.  There was in her voice an abandon and tragic intensity, a wonderful resonance and power, which captured her hearers as they had never been captured before.  First she sang a love-song, then a song of parting.  Afterwards came a lyric of country, which stirred her audience deeply.  It was a challenge to every patriot to play his part for home and country.  It was an appeal to the spirit of sacrifice; it was an inspiration and an invocation.  Men’s eyes grew moist.

And now another, a final song, a combination of all—­of love, and loss and parting and ruin, and war and patriotism and destiny.  With the first low notes of it Jasmine rose slowly from her seat, like one in a dream, and stood staring blindly at Al’mah.  The great voice swelled out in a passion of agony, then sank away into a note of despair that gripped the heart.