“’Dolph!  ’Dolph!” called Tilda.

“Belongs to you, does he?  Then fetch him out at once!  You, and your dogs!”

“I’m fetchin’ him fast as I can.”

Tilda pushed past her, and advanced sternly to the front doorstep.  “’Dolph, come here!” she commanded.  ’Dolph barked once again defiantly, then laid himself down on the step in abject contrition, rolling over on his back and lifting all four legs skyward.

Tilda rolled him sideways with a slap, caught him by the scruff of the neck, and began to rate him soundly.  But a moment later her grasp relaxed as a door opened within the passage, and at the sound of a footstep she looked up, to see a tall man in black standing over her and towering in the doorway.

“What is the meaning of this noise?” demanded the man in black.  He was elderly and bald, with small pig-eyes, grey side-whiskers, and for mouth a hard square slit much like that of the collecting-box by the gate.  A long pendulous nose came down over it and almost met an upthrust lower jaw.  He wore a clerical suit, with a dingy white neck-tie; the skin about his throat hung in deep folds, and the folds were filled with an unpleasing grey stubble.

“If—­if you please, sir, I was comin’ with a message, an’ he started after a cat.  I can’t break ’im of it.”

“Turn him out,” said the man in black.  He walked to the gate and held it open while Tilda ejected Godolphus into the street.  “I never allow dogs on my premises.”

“No, sir.”

“Now tell me your message.”

“It’s about a—­a boy, sir,” stammered Tilda, and felt a horrible fear creeping over her now that she approached the crisis.  “That is, if you’re the Reverend Doctor Glasson.”

“I am Doctor Glasson.  Well?”

“It’s about a boy,” harked back poor Tilda.  “He’s called Arthur Miles Surname Chandon—­an’ he was born at a place called Kingsand, if that’s any ‘elp—­an’ there’s somebody wants to see ’im most particular.”

“Come indoors.”

Doctor Glasson said it sharply, at the same time turning right about and leading the way towards the house.  Tilda followed, while behind her the excluded ’Dolph yapped and flung himself against the gate.  But the gate was lined on the inside with wire-netting, and the garden wall was neither to be leapt nor scaled.

In the porch Dr. Glasson stood aside to let the servant precede them into the house, looked after her until she vanished down the length of a dark passage that smelt potently of soapsuds and cabbage-water, and motioned the child to step within.  She obeyed, while her terror and the odours of the house together caught her by the throat.  But worse was her dismay when, having closed the front door, the Doctor bolted it and slipped a chain on the bolt.