She opened the letter hesitatingly, held it in her hand for a moment without reading it, then, with an impulsive effort, did so.  When she had finished, she gave a cry of anger and struck her tiny clinched hand upon her knee.

The note ran: 

“Chere amie, you have so much indisposition in these days.  It is all too vexing to your friends.  The world will be surprised, if you allow a migraine to come between us.  Indeed, it will be shocked.  The world understands always so imperfectly, and I have no gift of explanation.  Of course, I know the war has upset many, but I thought you could not be upset so easily—­no, it cannot be the war; so I must try and think what it is.  If I cannot think by tomorrow at five o’clock, I will call again to ask you.  Perhaps the migraine will be better.  But, if you will that migraine to be far away, it will fly, and then I shall be near.  Is it not so?  You will tell me to-morrow at five, will you not, belle amie?

“A toi, M. M.”

The words scorched her eyes.  They angered her, scourged her.  One of life’s Revolutionaries was insolently ravaging the secret place where her pride dwelt.  Pride—­what pride had she now?  Where was the room for pride or vanity? . . .  And all the time she saw the face of a dead man down by the river—­a face now beneath the sod.  It flashed before her eyes at moments when she least could bear it, to agitate her soul.

M. Mennaval—­how dare he write to her so!  “Chere amie” and “A toi”—­how strange the words looked now, how repulsive and strange!  It did not seem possible that once before he had written such words to her.  But never before had these epithets or others been accompanied by such meaning as his other words conveyed.

“I will not see him to-morrow.  I will not see him ever again, if I can help it,” she said bitterly, and trembling with agitation.  “I shall go where I shall not be found.  I will go to-night.”

The door opened.  Her maid entered.  “You wanted me, madame?” asked the girl, in some excitement and very pale.

“Yes, what is the matter?  Why so agitated?” Jasmine asked.

The maid’s eyes were on the sjambok.  She pointed to it.  “It was that, madame.  We are all agitated.  It was terrible.  One had never seen anything like that before in one’s life, madame—­never.  It was like the days—­yes, of slavery.  It was like the galleys of Toulon in the old days.  It was—­”

“There, don’t be so eloquent, Lablanche.  What do you know of the galleys of Toulon or the days of slavery?”

“Madame, I have heard, I have read, I—­”

“Yes, but did you love Krool so?”

The girl straightened herself with dramatic indignation.  “Madame, that man, that creature, that toad—!”

“Then why so exercised?  Were you so pained at his punishment?  Were all the household so pained?”

“Every one hated him, madame,” said the girl, with energy.