“Why?” asked Tommy.

’"Cos he was jealous, I expect,” said Tessa wisely.  “I thought he was going to give her a whipping.  And I hid in his dressing-room to see.  Mother was awful frightened.  She went down on her knees to him.  And he was just going to do it.  I know he was.  And then he came into the dressing-room and found me.  And so he whipped me instead.”  Tessa ended on a note of resentment.

“Served you jolly well right,” said Tommy.

“No, it didn’t,” said Tessa.  “He only did it ’cos Mother had made him angry.  It wasn’t a child’s whipping at all.  It was a grown-up’s whipping.  And he used a switch.  And it hurt—­worse than anything ever hurt before.  That’s why I didn’t mind when he went to Heaven the other day.  I hope I shan’t go there for a long time yet.  It isn’t nice to be whipped like that.  And I wasn’t going to say I was sorry either.  I knew that would make him crosser than anything.”

“Poor chap!” said Tommy suddenly.

Tessa came a step nearer to him. “Ayah says the man who did it will be hanged if they catch him,” she said.  “If it is the Rajah, will you manage so as I can go and see?  I should like to.”

“Tessa!” exclaimed Stella.

Tessa turned flushed cheeks and shining eyes upon her.  “I would!” she declared stoutly.  “I would!  There’s nothing wrong in that.  He’s a horrid man.  It isn’t wrong, is it, Captain Monck?  But if he shot my Daddy?” She went swiftly to Monck with the words and leaned ingratiatingly against him.  “You’d kill a man yourself that did a thing like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Very likely,” said Monck.

She gazed at him admiringly.  “I expect you’ve killed lots and lots of men, haven’t you?” she said.

He smiled with a touch of grimness.  “Do you 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.