‘D’you know what you are?’ Mrs. Godfrey turned on me with the smile I have feared for the last quarter of a century.  ’You’re the nice, kind, wise, doggy friend.  You don’t know how wise and nice you are supposed to be.  Will has sent Harvey to you to complete the poor angel’s convalescence.  You know all about dogs, or Will wouldn’t have done it.  He’s written her that.  You’re too far off for her to make daily calls on you.  P’r’aps she’ll drop in two or three times a week, and write on other days.  But it doesn’t matter what she does, because you don’t own Mittleham, don’t you see?’

I told her I saw most clearly.

‘Oh, you’ll get over that in a few days,’ Mrs. Godfrey countered.  ‘You’re the sporting, responsible, doggy friend who—­’

‘He used to look at me like that at first,’ said Attley, with a visible shudder, ’but he gave it up after a bit.  It’s only because you’re new to him.’

‘But, confound you! he’s a ghoul—­’ I began.

’And when he gets quite well, you’ll send him back to her direct with your love, and she’ll give you some pretty four-tailed goldfish,’ said Mrs. Godfrey, rising.  ’That’s all settled.  Car, please.  We’re going to Brighton to lunch together.’

They ran before I could get into my stride, so I told the dog Harvey what I thought of them and his mistress.  He never shifted his position, but stared at me, an intense, lopsided stare, eye after eye.  Malachi came along when he had seen his sister off, and from a distance counselled me to drown the brute and consort with gentlemen again.  But the dog Harvey never even cocked his cockable ear.

And so it continued as long as he was with me.  Where I sat, he sat and stared; where I walked, he walked beside, head stiffly slewed over one shoulder in single-barrelled contemplation of me.  He never gave tongue, never closed in for a caress, seldom let me stir a step alone.  And, to my amazement, Malachi, who suffered no stranger to live within our gates, saw this gaunt, growing, green-eyed devil wipe him out of my service and company without a whimper.  Indeed, one would have said the situation interested him, for he would meet us returning from grim walks together, and look alternately at Harvey and at me with the same quivering interest that he showed at the mouth of a rat-hole.  Outside these inspections, Malachi withdrew himself as only a dog or a woman can.

Miss Sichliffe came over after a few days (luckily I was out) with some elaborate story of paying calls in the neighbourhood.  She sent me a note of thanks next day.  I was reading it when Harvey and Malachi entered and disposed themselves as usual, Harvey close up to stare at me, Malachi half under the sofa, watching us both.  Out of curiosity I returned Harvey’s stare, then pulled his lopsided head on to my knee, and took his eye for several minutes.  Now, in Malachi’s eye I can see at any hour all that there is of the normal decent dog, flecked here and there with that strained half-soul which man’s love and association have added to his nature.  But with Harvey the eye was perplexed, as a tortured man’s.  Only by looking far into its deeps could one make out the spirit of the proper animal, beclouded and cowering beneath some unfair burden.