m stood another figure, broad, powerful, not overtall. At sight
of it, Tessa uttered a hard sob and scrambled to her feet. She still
clasped poor Scooter's dead body to her breast, and his blood was on her
face and on the white frock she wore.

"Uncle St. Bernard! Look! Look!" she said. "She's killed my Scooter!"

Netta also arose at this juncture. "Oh, do take that horrible thing
away!" she said. "If it's dead, so much the better. It was no more than
a weasel after all. I hate such pets."

Major Ralston found himself abruptly though not roughly pushed aside.
Bernard Monck swooped down with the action of a practised footballer and
took the furry thing out of Tessa's hold. His eyes were very bright and
intensely alert, but he did not seem aware of Tessa's mother.

"Come with me, darling!" he said to the child. "P'raps I can help."

He trod upon the carved bronze that had slain Scooter as he turned, and
he left the mark of his heel upon it--the deep impress of an angry
giant.

The door closed with decision upon himself and the child, and Major
Ralston was left alone with Netta.

She looked at him with a flushed face ready to defy remonstance, but he
stooped without speaking and picked up the thing that Bernard had tried
to grind to powder, surveyed it with a lifted brow and set it back in
its place.

Netta promptly collapsed upon the sofa. "Oh, it is too bad!" she sobbed.
"It really is too bad! Now I suppose you too--are going to be brutal."

Major Ralston cleared his throat. There was certainly no sympathy in his
aspect, but his manner was wholly lacking in brutality. He was never
brutal to women, and Netta Ermsted was his guest as well as his patient.

After a moment he sat down beside her, and there was nothing in the
action to mark it as heroic, or to betray the fact that he yearned to
stamp out of the room after Bernard and leave her severely to her
hysterics.

"No good in being upset now," he remarked. "The thing's done, and crying
won't undo it."

"I don't want to undo it!" declared Netta. "I always did detest the
horrible ferrety thing. Tessa couldn't have taken it Home with her
either, so it's just as well it's gone." She dried her eyes with a
vindictive gesture, and reached for the cigarettes. Hysterics were
impossible in this man's presence. He was like a shower of cold water.

"I shouldn't if I were you," remarked Major Ralston with the air of a
man performing a laborious duty. "You smoke too ma