A stout, good-natured woman was Mrs. St. Leger. She conceived it to be her one duty in life to keep her husband in a good temper. And experience had proved to her that the only means of performing this was by a strict attention to his diet--no easy task, seeing that he was a peppery old Indian colonel with a liver and a temper. He had long since retired from the army after a career of frontier skirmishing in Northern India, and now passed his time between his home in Kensington and his military club. In both places he was greatly feared for his hectoring manner and flow of language, which was well-nigh irresistible. Mrs. St. Leger was always thankful when the meals passed off without direct conflict, and she spent most of her day reading cookery books for the unearthing of delicacies, and having unearthed them, in consulting the cook how to prepare them for the fastidious palate of her lord and master. The old couple were fond of Brenda--Aunt Judy because the girl was a comfort to her in some vague sort of way which she could not define, and Uncle Bill because Brenda was not in the least in awe of his temper, and gave him every bit as good as she received. To each other Colonel and Mrs. St. Leger were always Julia and William; but Brenda from her earliest childhood had known them as Aunt Judy and Uncle Bill, and to those fond appellations she still clung. Had any one else dared to address the colonel so, he would assuredly have taken an apoplectic fit on the spot, being so predisposed and of "full habit"; but Brenda he graciously permitted to be thus familiar. To sum up the worthy colonel's character, it may be stated that he hated Mr. Scarse as bitterly as he hated cold meat; and to any one who knew him the comparison would have been all sufficient. "Dear, dear child," cooed Mrs. St. Leger as Brenda sipped her cup of tea in the drawing-room, "how good it is to see you again. William----" "Very glad, very glad," rasped the colonel, who was glowering on the hearthrug. "I want to hear all about this iniquitous murder. Poor Malet! Clever chap, but always contradicting--good fellow all the same. Wrote and talked well against these damned Little Englanders. Gad! I'd forgive Judas Iscariot if he did that!" "Have they caught the murderer, dear?" asked Aunt Judy, with a beaming smile on her fat face. "No," replied Brenda. "Nor do I believe they ever will catch him." "Him!" roared Uncle Bill, chuckling. "Egad! and how d'you know it's a 'him'? Might be a 'her.' Eh, what? I suppose in these days a woman can fire a revolver as well as a man, eh?" "A woman!--why a woman?" "Eh, why? I don't know. Why should the poor devil have been killed at all?" "Yes, why should he have been killed at all, that's what William and I want to know," bleated Aunt Judy. "How does Lady Jenny take it, Brenda, dear?" "Oh, very quietly. She is much less grieved than I had expected her to be."