"Where you please outside the United Kingdom."
Fellowes passed heavily out through the other room, where his letter had been read by Stafford, where his fate had been decided. He put on his overcoat nervously and went to the outer door.
Stafford came up to him again. "You understand, there must be no attempt to communicate here.... You will observe this?"
Fellowes nodded. "Yes, I will.... Good-night," he added, absently.
"Good-day," answered Stafford, mechanically.
The outer door shut, and Stafford turned again to the little room where so much had happened which must change so many lives, bring so many tears, divert so many streams of life.
How still the house seemed now! It had lost all its charm and homelikeness. He felt stifled. Yet there was the warm sun streaming through the doorway of the music-room, making the beaded curtains shine like gold.
As he stood in the doorway of the little morning-room, looking in with bitter reflection and dreading beyond words what now must come—his meeting with Jasmine, the story he must tell her, and the exposure of a truth so naked that his nature revolted from it, he heard a footstep behind him. It was Krool.
Stafford looked at the saturnine face and wondered how much he knew; but there was no glimmer of revelation in Krool's impassive look. The eyes were always painful in their deep animal-like glow, and they seemed more than usually intense this morning; that was all.
"Will you present my compliments to Mrs. Byng, and say—"