“Then no wonder he looked dejected and stormy.  But what is the history of this instrument of torture?” she asked, holding up the sjambok again.

“Krool.”

“Krool!  Jasmine, you surely don’t mean to say that you—­”

“Not I—­it was Rudyard.  Krool was insolent—­a half-caste, you know.”

“Krool—­why, yes, it was he I saw being helped into a cab by a policeman just down there in Piccadilly.  You don’t mean that Rudyard—­”

She pushed the sjambok away from her.

“Yes—­terribly.”

“Then I suppose the insolence was terrible enough to justify it.”

“Quite, I think.”  Jasmine’s voice was calm.

“But of course it is not usual—­in these parts.”

“Rudyard is not usual in these parts, or Krool either.  It was a touch of the Vaal.”

Lady Tynemouth gave a little shudder.  “I hope it won’t become fashionable.  We are altogether too sensational nowadays.  But, seriously, Jasmine, you are not well.  You must do something.  You must have a change.”

“I am going to do something—­to have a change.”

“That’s good.  Where are you going, dear?”

“South....  And how are you getting on with your hospital-ship?”

Lady Tynemouth threw up her hands.  “Jasmine, I’m in despair.  I had set my heart upon it.  I thought I could do it easily, and I haven’t done it, after trying as hard as can be.  Everything has gone wrong, and now Tynie cables I mustn’t go to South Africa.  Fancy a husband forbidding a wife to come to him.”

“Well, perhaps it’s better than a husband forbidding his wife to leave him.”

“Jasmine, I believe you would joke if you were dying.”

“I am dying.”

There was that in the tone of Jasmine’s voice which gave her friend a start.  She eyed her suddenly with a great anxiety.

“And I’m not jesting,” Jasmine added, with a forced smile.  “But tell me what has gone wrong with all your plans.  You don’t mind what Tynemouth says.  Of course you will do as you like.”

“Of course; but still Tynie has never ‘issued instructions’ before, and if there was any time I ought to humour him it is now.  He’s so intense about the war!  But I can’t explain everything on paper to him, so I’ve written to say I’m going to South Africa to explain, and that I’ll come back by the next boat, if my reasons are not convincing.”

In other circumstances Jasmine would have laughed.  “He will find you convincing,” she said, meaningly.

“I said if he found my reasons convincing.”

“You will be the only reason to him.”

“My dear Jasmine, you are really becoming sentimental.  Tynie would blush to discover himself being silly over me.  We get on so well because we left our emotions behind us when we married.”

“Yours, I know, you left on the Zambesi,” said Jasmine, deliberately.

A dull fire came into Lady Tynemouth’s eyes, and for an instant there was danger of Jasmine losing a friend she much needed; but Lady Tynemouth had a big heart, and she knew that her friend was in a mood when anything was possible, or everything impossible.