Now Enid Crofton did not believe that what she heard so clearly were real howls, proceeding from a flesh-and-blood dog.  She thought that her nerves were betraying her, as they had a way of doing since her husband’s death.  Often when she fell asleep, there would come to her a strange and horrible nightmare.  It was such a queer, uncanny kind of dream for a grown-up woman to have!  She used to dream that she was a rat—­and that Colonel Crofton’s own terrier, a fierce brute called Dandy, was after her.

“That’s Flick!  Perhaps I’d better go and let him out?” Timmy jumped up as he spoke.  “I thought you didn’t like dogs, Mrs. Crofton, and so I shut Flick up in your stable-yard.  I expect he’s got bored, being in there all by himself, in the dark!”

The boy’s words brought delicious relief, and then, all at once, she felt unreasonably angry.  How stupid of this odious little fellow to have brought his horrid, savage dog with him—­after what had happened the other night!

Timmy shot out of the room and so through the front door, and Radmore got up too.  “I’m afraid we ought to be going,” he said.

His white-clad hostess came up close to him:—­“It’s so good of you to have come to see me so soon,” she murmured.  “Though I do like Beechfield, and the people here are awfully kind, I feel very forlorn, Mr. Radmore.  Seeing you has cheered me up very much.  I hope you’ll come again soon.”

There fell on the still air the voice of Timmy talking to his dog outside.  Mrs. Crofton went quickly past Radmore into the tiny hall; she shut the front door, which had been left ajar; and then she came back.

“It’s quite true that I don’t like dogs!” she exclaimed.  “Poor Cecil’s terriers got thoroughly on my nerves last winter.  I sometimes dream of them even now.”

He looked at her, surprised, and rather concerned.  Poor little woman!  There were actually tears in her eyes.

“Yes,” she went on, as if she could not help the words coming out, “that’s the real reason I sold Boo-boo.  I even felt as if my poor little Boo-boo had turned against me.”  There was a touch of excitement, almost of defiance, in her low voice, and Radmore felt exceedingly taken aback and puzzled.  This was an Enid Crofton he had never met.  “Come, come—­you mustn’t feel like that”—­he took her hand in his and held it closely.

She looked up at him and her eyes filled with tears, and then, suddenly, her heart began beating deliciously.  She saw flash into his dark face a look she had seen flash into many men’s faces, but never in his, till now—­the excited, tender look that she had longed to see there.  She swayed a little towards him; dropping her hand, he put out his arms—­in another moment, what she felt sure such a man as Radmore would have regarded as irreparable would have happened, had not the door just behind them burst open.

They fell apart quickly, and Radmore, with a sudden revulsion of feeling—­a sensation that he had been saved from doing a very foolish thing—­turned to see his godson, Timmy Tosswill.