But since last evening, in the glimmer of the stars, when Rudyard went from her with bitter anger on his lips, and a contempt which threw her far behind him,—­since that hour, when, in her helplessness, she had sunk to the ground with an appeal to Something outside herself, her heart had greatly softened.  Once before she had appealed to the Invisible—­that night before her catastrophe, when she wound her wonderful hair round her throat and drew it tighter and tighter, and had cried out to the beloved mother she had never known.  But her inborn, her cultivated, her almost invincible egoism, had not even then been scattered by the bitter helplessness of her life.

That cry last night was a cry to the Something behind all.  Only in the last few hours—­why, she knew not—­her heart had found a new sense.  She felt her soul’s eyes looking beyond herself.  The Something that made her raise her eyes to the stars, which seemed a pervading power, a brooding tenderness and solicitude, had drawn her mind away into the mind of humanity.  Her own misery now at last enabled her to see, however dimly, the woes of others; and it did not matter whether the woes were penalties or undeserved chastisement; the new-born pity of her soul made no choice and sought no difference.

As the singing-woman’s hands lay in hers, a flush slowly spread over Al’mah’s face, and behind the direct power of her eyes there came a light which made them aglow with understanding.

“I always thought you selfish—­almost meanly selfish,” Al’mah said presently.  “I thought you didn’t know any real life, any real suffering—­only the surface, only disappointment at not having your own happiness; but now I see that was all a mask.  You understand why I did what I did?”

“I understand.”

“I suppose there would be thousands who would gladly see me in prison and on the scaffold—­if they knew—­”

Pain travelled across Jasmine’s face.  She looked Al’mah in the eyes with a look of reproof and command.  “Never, never again speak of that to me or to any living soul,” she said.  “I will try to forget it; you must put it behind you.” . . .  Suddenly she pointed to the other room where Al’mah’s husband lay dead.  “When is he to be buried?” she asked.

“In an hour.”  A change came over Al’mah’s face again, and she stood looking dazedly at the door of the room, behind which the dead man lay.  “I cannot realize it.  It does not seem real,” she said.  “It was all so many centuries ago, when I was young and glad.”

Jasmine admonished her gently and drew her away.

A few moments later an officer approached them from one of the wards.  At that moment the footsteps of the three were arrested by the booming of artillery.  It seemed as though all the guns of both armies were at work.

The officer’s eyes blazed, and he turned to the two women with an impassioned gesture.

“Byng and the S.A.’s have done their trick,” he said.  “If they hadn’t, that wouldn’t be going on.  It was to follow—­a general assault—­if Byng pulled it off.  Old Blunderbuss has done it this time.  His combination’s working all right—­thanks to Byng’s lot.”