John Flint stood stock-still, looking from her to the dog, and back again.  Kerry, sensing that something was wrong with his little mistress, pawed her skirts and whined.

“Now I come to think of it,” said John Flint slowly, “I never had anything—­anything alive, I mean—­belong to me before.”

Mary Virginia glanced up at him shrewdly, and smiled through her tears.  Her smile makes a funny delicious red V of her lower lip, and is altogether adorable and seductive.

“That’s just exactly why you thought nobody was worth anything,” she said.  Then she bent over her dog and kissed him between his beautiful hazel eyes.

“Kerry, dear,” said she, “Kerry, dear Kerry, you don’t belong to me any more.  I—­I’ve got to go away to school—­and you know you wouldn’t be happy at home without me.  You belong to Mr. Flint now, and I’m sure he needs you, and I know he’ll love you almost as much as I do, and he’ll be very, very good to you.  So you’re to stay with him, and—­stand by him and be his dog, like you were mine.  You’ll remember, Kerry?  Good-by, my dear, dear, darling dog!” She kissed him again, patted him, and thrust his collar into his new owner’s hand.

“Go—­good-by, everybody!” said she, in a muffled voice, and ran.  I think she would have cried childishly in another moment; and she was trying hard to remember that she was growing up!

John Flint stood staring after her, his hand on the dog’s collar, holding him in.  His face was still without a vestige of color, and his eyes glittered.  Then his other hand crept out to touch the dog’s head.

“It’s wet—­where she dropped tears on it!  Parson ... she’s given me her dog ... that she loves enough to cry over!”

“He’s a very fine dog, and she has had him and loved him from his puppyhood,” I reminded him.  And I added, with a wily tongue:  “You can always turn him over to me, you know—­if you decide to take to the road and wish to get rid of a troublesome companion.  A dog is bad company for a man who wishes to dodge the police.”

But he only shook his head.  His eyes were troubled, and his forehead wrinkled.

“Parson,” said he, hesitatingly, “did you ever feel like you’d been caught by—­by Something reaching down out of the dark?  Something big that you couldn’t see and couldn’t ever hope to get away from, because it’s always on the job?  Ain’t it a hell of a feeling?”

“Yes,” I agreed.  “I’ve felt—­caught by that Something, too.  And it is at first a terrifying sensation.  Until—­you learn to be glad.”

“You’re caught—­and you know under your hat you’re never going to be able to get away any more.  It’ll hold you till you die!” said he, a little wildly.  “My God!  I’m caught!  First It bit off a leg on me, so I couldn’t run.  Then It wished you and your bugs on me.  And now—­Yes, sir; I’m done for.  That kid got my goat this morning.  My God, who’d believe it?  But it’s true:  I’m done for.  She gave me her dog and she got my goat!”