think I'm going to tell a
scaramouch like you?" he said.

"Everard!" Stella rose and came to the window. "Do--please--make her
understand that people don't murder each other just whenever they feel
like it--even in India!"

He raised his eyes to hers, and an odd sense of shock went through her.
It was as if in some fashion he had deliberately made her aware of that
secret chamber which she might not enter. "I think you would probably be
more convincing on that point than I should," he said.

She gave a little shudder; she could not restrain it. That look in his
eyes reminded her of something, something dreadful. What was it? Ah yes,
she remembered now. He had had that look on that night of terror when he
had first called her his wife, when he had barred the window behind her
and sworn to slay any man who should come between them.

She turned aside and went in without another word. India again! India
the savage, the implacable, the ruthless! She felt as a prisoner who
battered fruitlessly against an iron door.

Tessa's inquisitive eyes followed her. "She's going to cry," she said to
Monck.

Tommy turned sharply upon his friend with accusation in his glance, but
the next instant he summoned Tessa as if she had been a terrier and
walked off into the compound with the child capering at his side.

Monck sat for a moment or two looking straight before him; then he
packed together the papers in his hand and stepped through the open
window into the room behind. It was empty.

He went through it without a pause, and turned along the passage to the
door of his wife's room. It stood half-open. He pushed it wider and
entered.

She was standing by her dressing-table, but she turned at his coming,
turned and faced him.

He came straight to her and took her by the shoulders. "What is the
matter?" he said.

She met his direct look, but there was shrinking in her eyes. "Everard,"
she said, "there are times when you make me afraid."

"Why?" he said.

She could not put it into words. She made a piteous gesture with her
clasped hands.

His expression changed, subtly softening. "I can't always wear kid
gloves, my Stella," he said. "When there is rough work to be done, we
have to strip to the waist sometimes to get to it. It's the only way to
get a sane grip on things."

Her lips were quivering. "But you--you like it!" she said.

He smiled a little. "I plead guilty to a sporting instinct," he said.

"You hunt down mur