But soon the reaction came; I realised the tremendous nature of my deed, and shuddered.  I had done that which might banish me from Lilian’s side for ever!  All unwittingly I had slaughtered a kind of sacred beast, the animal around which the Currie household had wreathed their choicest affections!  How was I to break it to them?  Should I send Bingo in, with a card tied to his neck and my regrets and compliments?  That was too much like a present of game.  Ought I not to carry him in myself?  I would wreathe him in the best crape, I would put on black for him; the Curries would hardly consider a taper and a white sheet, or sack-cloth and ashes, an excessive form of atonement, but I could not grovel to quite such an abject extent.

I wondered what the colonel would say.  Simple and hearty, as a general rule, he had a hot temper on occasions, and it made me ill as I thought, would he and, worse still, would Lilian believe it was really an accident?  They knew what an interest I had in silencing the deceased poodle—­would they believe the simple truth?

I vowed that they should believe me.  My genuine remorse and the absence of all concealment on my part would speak powerfully for me.  I would choose a favourable time for my confession; that very evening I would tell all.

Still I shrank from the duty before me, and, as I knelt down sorrowfully by the dead form and respectfully composed his stiffening limbs, I thought that it was unjust of fate to place a well-meaning man, whose nerves were not of iron, in such a position.

Then, to my horror, I heard a well-known ringing tramp on the road outside, and smelled the peculiar fragrance of a Burmese cheroot.  It was the colonel himself, who had been taking out the doomed Bingo for his usual evening run.

I don’t know how it was, exactly, but a sudden panic came over me.  I held my breath, and tried to crouch down unseen behind the laurels; but he had seen me, and came over at once to speak to me across the hedge.

He stood there, not two yards from his favourite’s body!  Fortunately it was unusually dark that evening.

“Ha, there you are, eh!” he began, heartily; “don’t rise, my boy, don’t rise.”

I was trying to put myself in front of the poodle, and did not rise—­at least, only my hair did.

“You’re out late, ain’t you?” he went on; “laying out your garden, hey?”

I could not tell him that I was laying out his poodle!  My voice shook as, with a guilty confusion that was veiled by the dusk, I said it was a fine evening—­which it was not.

“Cloudy, sir,” said the colonel, “cloudy; rain before morning, I think.  By the way, have you seen anything of Bingo in here?”

This was the turning-point.  What I ought to have done was to say mournfully, “Yes, I’m sorry to say I’ve had a most unfortunate accident with him.  Here he is; the fact is, I’m afraid I’ve shot him!”