As he stood at the window the room grew cold.  The hearth fire had died down.  He knew that the furnace needed attention, but he dared not quit his post and his argument.  He became sure that the maid would not return that night.  He knew that Aaron was sitting with his human obstinacy behind the obstinate brute, somewhere on the road.  He knew that James and Clemency might at any moment drive in, and he might rush out too late to prevent murder and the kidnapping of the girl.  He knew what the man was there for.  And he knew the one way to thwart him, but it was so horrible a way that it needed all this argument, all this delay and nearing of danger, before he adopted it.

The increasing cold of the room seemed to act as a sort of physical goad toward action.  “By God, it is right!” he muttered.  Then he looked at the dog crouching still with that wiry intentness before the door.  The dog came of a good breed of fighters.  He was in himself both weapon and wielder of weapon.  He was a concentrated force.  His white body was knotted with nerves and muscles.  The chances were good if—­Gordon pictured it to himself—­and again the horror and doubt were over him.  He himself had acquired a certain stiffness and lassitude from years, and long drives in one position.  He would stand no chance unarmed against a bullet.  But the dog—­that was another matter.  The dog would make a spring like the spring of death itself, and that white leap of attack might easily cause the aim to go wrong.  It would be like aiming at lightning.  He knew how the dog would gather himself together, all ready for that terrible leap, the second he opened the door.  He knew that he might be able to open the door for the leap without attracting the man’s attention, faced as he was the other way, if he could keep the dog quiet.  He knew how it would be.  He could see that tall dark figure rolled on the drive, struggling as one struggles with death, for breath, under the vise-like grip on his throat.  Gordon knew that the dog’s unerring spring would be for the throat; that was the instinct of his race, a noble race in its way, to seize vice and danger by the throat, and attack the very threshold of life.

Gordon returned to the window.  It seemed to him again that he heard a horse’s trot.  He felt sure that it was not the trot of the gray, who had a slight lameness.  He knew the trot of the gray.  He became sure that James and Clemency would the next moment enter the drive.  He set his mouth hard, crept toward the dog, and patted him.  As he patted him he felt the rage-crest rise higher on his back.  Gordon bade him be quiet, and slipped his leash from the staple.  Then he took it from the collar.  He listened again.  It seemed to him that his ears could not deceive him.  It seemed to him that James and Clemency were coming.  He was almost delirious.  He fancied he heard their voices and the girl’s laugh ring out.  Holding the dog firmly by the collar, he rose and very carefully and noiselessly slipped the bolt of the door back.  Then he waited a second.  Then as slowly and carefully, still holding the dog by the collar, and whispering commands to hush his growls, he turned the door knob.