regarded him with wonder. "Oh, my dear," she said finally,
"are you behind me, or a very, very long way in front?"

He smiled faintly, grimly. "Probably a thousand miles behind," he said.
"But I have been given long sight, that's all."

She rose to her feet with a sigh. "And I," she said very sadly, "am
blind."

Down by the gate the blue jay laughed again, laughed and flew away.

CHAPTER III

THE BEAST OF PREY

In a darkened room Netta Ermsted lay, trembling and unnerved. As usual
in cases of adversity, Mrs. Ralston had taken charge of her; but there
was very little that she could do. It was more a matter for her
husband's skill than for hers, and he could only prescribe absolute
quiet. For Netta was utterly broken. Since the fatal moment when she had
returned from a call in her 'rickshaw to find Major Burton awaiting her
with the news that Ermsted had been shot on the jungle-road while riding
home from Khanmulla, she had been as one distraught. They had restrained
her almost forcibly from rushing forth to fling herself upon his dead
body, and now that it was all over, now that the man who had loved her
and whom she had never loved was in his grave, she lay prostrate,
refusing all comfort.

Tessa, wide-eyed and speculative, was in the care of Mrs. Burton,
alternately quarrelling vigorously with little Cedric Burton whose
intellectual leanings provoked her most ardent contempt, and teasing the
luckless Scooter out of sheer boredom till all the animal's ideas in
life centred in a desperate desire to escape.

It was Tessa to whom Stella's pitying attention was first drawn on the
day after her return to The Green Bungalow. Tommy, finding her raging in
the road like a little tiger-cat over some small _contretemps_ with Mrs.
Burton, had lifted her on to his shoulders and brought her back with
him.

"Be good to the poor imp!" he muttered to his sister. "Nobody wants
her."

Certainly Mrs, Burton did not. She passed her on to Stella with her
two-edged smile, and Tessa and Scooter forthwith cheerfully took up
their abode at The Green Bungalow with whole-hearted satisfaction.

Stella experienced little difficulty in dealing with the child. She
found herself the object of the most passionate admiration which went
far towards simplifying the problem of managing her. Tessa adored her
and followed her like her shadow whenever she was not similarly
engrossed with her beloved Tommy. Of Monck she stood in considera