A sob caught her in the throat, and Alice Tynemouth wrapped her round with tender arms.  “It will do you good, darling,” she said, softly.”  It will help you through—­through it all, whatever it is.”

For an instant Jasmine felt that she must empty out her heart; tell the inner tale of her struggle; but the instant of weakness passed as suddenly as it came, and she only said—­repeating Alice Tynemouth’s words:  “Yes, through it all, through it all, whatever it is.”  Then she added:  “I want to do something big.  I can, I can.  I want to get out of this into the open world.  I want to fight.  I want to balance things somehow—­inside myself....”

All at once she became very quiet.  “But we must do business like business people.  This money:  there must be a small committee of business men, who—­”

Alice Tynemouth finished the sentence for her.  “Who are not Climbers?”

“Yes.  But the whole organization must be done by ourselves—­all the practical, unfinancial work.  The committee will only be like careful trustees.”

There was a new light in Jasmine’s eyes.  She felt for the moment that life did not end in a cul de sac.  She knew that now she had found a way for Rudyard and herself to separate without disgrace, without humiliation to him.  She could see a few steps ahead.  When she gave Lablanche instructions to put out her clothes a little while before, she did not know what she was going to do; but now she knew.  She knew how she could make it easier for Rudyard when the inevitable hour came,—­and it was here—­which should see the end of their life together.  He need not now sacrifice himself so much for her sake.

She wanted to be alone, and, as if divining her thought, Lady Tynemouth embraced her, and a moment later there was no sound in the room save the ticking of the clock and the crackle of the fire.

How silent it was!  The world seemed very far away.  Peace seemed to have taken possession of the place, and Jasmine’s stillness as she sat by the fire staring into the embers was a part of it.  So lost was she that she was not conscious of an opening door and of a footstep.  She was roused by a low voice.

“Jasmine!”

She did not start.  It was as though there had come a call, for which she had waited long, and she appeared to respond slowly to it, as one would to a summons to the scaffold.  There was no outward agitation now, there was only a cold stillness which seemed little to belong to the dainty figure which had ever been more like a decoration than a living utility in the scheme of things.  The crisis had come which she had dreaded yet invited—­that talk which they two must have before they went their different ways.  She had never looked Rudyard in the eyes direct since the day when Adrian Fellowes died.  They had met, but never quite alone; always with some one present, either the servants or some other.  Now they were face to face.