It had all been a problem which Krool's furtive mind failed to master. If he went to the Baas with his suspicions, the chance was that he would be flayed with a sjambok and turned into the streets; if he warned Jasmine, the same thing might happen, or worse. But fate had at last played into his hands, on the very day that Oom Paul had challenged destiny, when all things were ready for the ruin of the hated English.
Fate had sent him through the hallway between Jasmine's and Rudyard's rooms in the moment when Jasmine had dropped Fellowes' letter; and he had seen it fall. He knew not what it was, but it might be of importance, for he had seen Fellowes' handwriting on an envelope among those waiting for Jasmine's return home. In a far dark corner he had waited till he saw Lablanche enter her mistress' room hurriedly, without observing the letter. Then he caught it up and stole away to the library, where he read it with malevolent eyes.
He had left this fateful letter where Rudyard would see it when he rose in the morning. All had worked out as he had planned, and now, with his ear against the door which led from the music-room, he strained to hear what passed between Stafford and Fellowes.
"Well, what is it?" asked Fellowes, with an attempt to be casual, though there was that in Stafford's face which gave him anxiety, he knew not why. He had expected Jasmine, and, instead, here was Stafford, who had been so much with her of late; who, with Mennaval, had occupied so much of her time that she had scarcely spoken to him, and, when she did so, it was with a detachment which excluded him from intimate consideration.
His face wore a mechanical smile, as his pale blue eyes met the dark intensity of Stafford's. But slowly the peach-bloom of his cheeks faded and his long, tapering fingers played nervously with the leather-trimming of the piano-stool.
"Anything I can do for you, Stafford?" he added, with attempted nonchalance.
"There is nothing you can do for me," was the meaning reply, "but there is something you can do advantageously for yourself, if you will think it worth while."
"Most of us are ready to do ourselves good turns. What am I to do?"
"You will wish to avoid it, and yet you will do yourself a good turn in not avoiding it."
"Is that the way you talk in diplomatic circles—cryptic, they call it, don't they?"