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 murderers—­and call it—­sport!” she said slowly.

“No, I call it justice.”  He still spoke gently though his face had hardened again.  “That child has a sense of justice, quite elementary, but a true one.  If I could get hold of the man who killed Ermsted, I would cheerfully kill him with my own hand—­unless I could be sure that he would get his deserts from the Government who are apt to be somewhat slack in such matters.”

Stella shivered again.  “Do you know, Everard, I can’t bear to hear you talk like that?  It is the untamed, savage part of you.”

He drew her to him.  “Yes, the soldier part.  I know.  I know quite well.  But my dear, do me the justice at least to believe that I am on the side of right!  I can’t do other than talk generalities to you.  You simply wouldn’t understand.  But there are some criminals who can only be beaten with their own weapons, remember that.  Nicholson knew that—­and applied it.  I follow—­or try to follow—­in Nicholson’s steps.”

She clung to him suddenly and closely.  “Oh, don’t—­don’t!  This is another age.  We have advanced since then.”

“Have we?” he said sombrely.  “And do you think the India of to-day can be governed by weakness any more successfully than the India of Nicholson’s time?  You have no idea what you say when you talk like that.  Ermsted is not the first Englishman to be killed in this State.  The Rajah of Markestan is too wily a beast to go for the large game at the outset, though—­probably—­the large game is the only stuff he cares about.  He knows too well that there are eyes that watch perpetually, and he won’t expose himself—­if he can help it.  The trouble is he doesn’t always know where to look for the eyes that watch.”