“He’s walked with me through four States and never whined.  He’s gone without food for days at a time, and never complained.  He’s been cold and hungry, and we’ve slept together, more than once, on the ground in the snow, with only one blanket between us.  He’s kept me from freezing to death with his warm body, he’s suffered from thirst the same as I, and never so much as whimpered.  We’ve been comrades and we’ve fared together, as only man and dog may fare.

“When every man’s face was set against you, did you never have a dog to trust you?  When there was never a man nor a woman you could call your friend, did a dog never come to you and lick your hand?  When you’ve been bent with grief you couldn’t stand up under, did a dog never come to you and put his cold nose on your face?  Did a dog never reach out a friendly paw to tell you that you were not alone—­that it was you two together?

“When you’ve come home alone late at night, tired to death with the world and its ways, was there never a dog to greet you with his bark of welcome?  Did a dog never sit where you told him to sit, and guard your property till you came back, though it might be hours?  When you could trust no man to guard your treasures, could you never trust a dog?  Man, man, the world has fair been cruel if you’ve never known the love of a dog!

“I’ve heard these things of you, but I thought folks were prattling, as folks will, but dogs never do.  I thought they were lying about you—­that such things couldn’t be true.  They said you were cutting up dogs to learn more of people, and I’m thinking, if we’re so much alike as that, ’t is murder to kill a dog.”

“You killed him,” said Anthony Dexter, speaking for the first time.  “I didn’t.”

“Yes,” answered the Piper, “I killed him, but ’t was to keep him from being hurt.  I’d do the same for a man or a woman, if there was need.  If ’t was a child you had tied down here with your blood-stained straps, cut open to see an innocent heart, your own being black past all pardon, I’d do the same for the child and all the more quickly if it was my own.  I never had a child—­I’ve never had a woman to love me, but I’ve been loved by a dog.  I’ve thought that even yet I might know the love of a woman, for a man who deserves the love of a dog is worthy of a woman, and a man who will torture a dog will torture a woman, too.

“Laddie,” said the Piper, laying his hand upon the blood-stained body, “no man ever had a truer comrade, and I’ll not insult your kind by calling this brute a cur.  Laddie, it was you and I, and now it’s I alone.  Laddie—­” here the Piper’s voice broke, and, taking up the knife again, he cut the straps.  With the tears raining down his face, he stumbled out of the laboratory, the mutilated body of his pet in his arms.

Anthony Dexter looked after him curiously.  The mask-like expression of his face was slightly changed.  In a corner of the laboratory, seeming to shrink from him, stood the phantom black figure, closely veiled.  Out of the echoing stillness came the passionate accusation:  “A man who will torture a dog will torture a woman, too.”