“He had hurt me more than any other—­than my husband or her.  I did it.  I would do it again....  I had been good to him....  I had suffered, I wanted something for all I had lost, and he was . . .”

Her voice trailed away into nothing, then rose again presently.  “I am not sorry.  Perhaps you wonder at that.  But no, I do not hate myself for it—­only for all that went before it.  I will pay, if I have to pay, in my own way....  Thousands of women die who are killed by hands that carry no weapon.  They die of misery and shame and regret....  This one man died because ...”

He did not hear, or if he heard he did not realize what she was saying now.  One thought was ringing through his mind like bells pealing.  The gulf of horrible suspicion between Rudyard and Jasmine was closed.  So long as it yawned, so long as there was between them the accounting for Adrian Fellowes’ death, they might have come together, but there would always have been a black shadow between—­the shadow that hangs over the scaffold.

“They should know the truth,” he said almost peremptorily.

“They both know,” she rejoined calmly.  “I told him this evening.  On the day I saw you at the hospital, I told her.”

There was silence for a moment, and then he said:  “She must come here before he joins his regiment.”

“I saw her last night at the hospital,” Al’mah answered.  “She was better.  She was preparing to go to Durban.  I did not ask her if she was coming, but I was sure she was not.  So, just now, before you came, I sent a message to her.  It will bring her....  It does not matter what a woman like me does.”

“What did you say to her?”

“I wrote, ‘If you wish to see him before the end, come quickly.’  She will think he is dying.”

“If she resents the subterfuge?”

“Risks must be taken.  If he goes without their meeting—­who can tell!  Now is the time—­now.  I want to see it.  It must be.”

He reached out both hands and took hers, while she grew pale.  Her eyes had a strange childishly frightened look.

“You are a good woman, Al’mah,” he said.

A quivering, ironical laugh burst from her lips.  Then, suddenly, her eyes were suffused.

“The world would call it the New Goodness then,” she replied in a voice which told how deep was the well of misery in her being.

“It is as old as Allah,” he replied.

“Or as old as Cain?” she responded, then added quickly, “Hush!  He is coming.”

An instant afterwards she was outside among the peach trees, and Rudyard and Stafford faced each other in the room she had just left.

As Al’mah stood looking into the quivering light upon the veld, her fingers thrust among the blossoms of a tree which bent over her, she heard horses’ hoofs, and presently there came round the corner of the house two mounted soldiers who had brought Krool to Brinkwort’s Farm.  Their prisoner was secured to a stirrup-leather, and the neckcloth was still binding his mouth.