but with a wrench she freed
herself, and stepping back spoke wildly on:

"Yes! You can strangle me perhaps! You are strong, and I am only a
woman. But, before I die, I will frustrate your grand scheme to marry
this miserable son of yours to an aristocrat. When I tell Judge Dudley
that the boy is yours, he will hesitate to admit the son of a murderer
into his family. For though he obtained your acquittal, and though he
has been your friend for so many years, mark me, he will decline an
alliance with one who was so near the gallows!"

She paused to note the effect of her words, a slight fear entering her
heart, as she thought that perhaps she had said too much. To her
amazement, her husband, without answering a single word, turned and
left the room.

Leon lay beside his dog so long, that at last the twilight closed in,
and slowly the light of day faded until darkness surrounded him.

He heard the strokes upon the Japanese bronze which summoned him to
dinner, but he did not heed. It seemed to him that he would never care
to eat again. Through the weary hours of the night Leon was struggling
against suggestion. It will be remembered that, in his little story,
he likened the killing of a dog to murder. Therefore in his opinion
the killing of Lossy, was a murderous act; and thus the thought of
murder occupied his mind. He considered Madame a self-confessed
criminal, and, as such, justice demanded that she should be punished.
But the justice of man did not include her act within the statutes of
the criminal code. She had killed Lossy, but, were he to demand her
punishment at the hands of the law, the law's representatives would
laugh at him. But punished she should be, of that he was already
determined.

If it seem to you that Leon over-estimated the wrong which had been
done to him, then one of two things is true. Either you have never
loved and been loved by a dog, or else you forget that the love
lavished upon him by Lossy was all the affection which Leon had
enjoyed for years. To the lad, his collie was his dearest friend. In
the grief for his death he had even forgotten for the time his human
love, Agnes. Thus it was that the idea of meting out justice against
Madame himself, having once entered his mind, took a firm hold upon
him.

How should he accomplish it? What should her punishment be? What is
the usual punishment of murder? Death! A chill passed over him at the
thought. Yet was not Lossy's life as dear to h