on left for Netta. "That is so," he said, in
his heavy fashion. "I have already pointed out that you would be
well-advised on your own account to go--not to mention the child's
safety."

"Oh, the child!" There was keenness about the exclamation which almost
amounted to actual dislike. "I'm tired to death of having Tessa's
welfare and Tessa's morals rammed down my throat. Why should I make a
fetish of the child? What is good enough for me is surely good enough
for her."

"I am afraid I don't agree with you," said Major Ralston.

"You wouldn't," she rejoined. "You and Mary are quite antediluvian in
your idea. But that doesn't influence me. I am glad to say I am more up
to date. If I can't stay here, I shall go to Udalkhand. There's a hotel
there as well as here."

"Of sorts," said Major Ralston. "Also Udalkhand is nearer to the seat of
disturbance."

"Well, I don't care." Netta spoke recklessly. "I'm not going to be
dictated to. What a mighty scare you're all in! What can you think will
happen even if a few natives do get out of hand?"

"Plenty of things might happen," he rejoined, getting up. "But that by
the way. If you won't listen to reason I am wasting my time. But--" he
spoke with abrupt emphasis--"you will not take Tessa to Udalkhand."

Netta's eyes gleamed. "I shall take her to Kamtchatka if I choose," she
said.

For the first time a smile crossed Major Ralston's face. He turned to
the door. "And if she chooses," he said, with malicious satisfaction.

The door closed upon him, and Netta was left alone.

She remained motionless for a few moments showing her teeth a little in
an answering smile; then with a swift, lissom movement, that would have
made Tommy compare her to a lizard, she rose.

With a white, determined face she bent over the writing-table and
scribbled a hasty note. Her hand shook, but she controlled it
resolutely.

Words flicked rapidly into being under her pen: "I shall be behind the
tamarisks to-night."

CHAPTER IV

THE BROAD ROAD

Bernard Monck never forgot the day of Scooter's death. It was as
indelibly fixed in his memory as in that of Tessa.

The child's wild agony of grief was of so utterly abandoned a nature as
to be almost Oriental in its violence. The passionate force of her
resentment against her mother also was not easy to cope with though he
quelled it eventually. But when that was over, when she had wept herself
exhausted in his arms at last, there followed