ous manner, that he
moved, but whether towards her or towards the door she could not dream.
But he stepped suddenly and noiselessly into the range of her vision and
sat down on a low bench at one side of the hearth. If the strain had
been tense before, it now became terrible; for there he sat almost
facing her, and looking intently at her, yet she must keep all awareness
of him out of her eyes. In the excitement a strong pulse began to beat
in the hollow of her throat, as if her heart were rising. She had won,
she had kept him in the room, she had brought him to a keen thought of
her. A Pyrrhic victory, for she was poised on the very edge of a cliff
of hysteria. She began to feel a tremor of the hand which supported her
cheek. If that should become visible to him he would instantly know that
all her apparent unconsciousness was a sham, and then she would have
lost him truly!

Something sounded at one of the doors--and then the door opened softly.
She was almost glad of the interruption, for another instant might have
swept away the last reserve of her strength. So this, then, was the end.

But the footfall which sounded in the apartment was a soft, padding
step, with a little scratching sound, light as a finger running on a
frosty window pane. And then a long, shaggy head slipped close to
Whistling Dan. It was Black Bart!

A wave of terror swept through her. She remembered another scene, not
many months before, when Black Bart had drawn his master away from her
and led him south, south, after the wild geese. The wolf-dog had come
again like a demoniac spirit to undo her plans!

Only an instant--the crisis of a battle--then the great beast turned
slowly, faced her, slunk with his long stride closer, and then a cold
nose touched the hand which gripped the arm of her chair. It gave her a
welcome excuse for action of some sort; she reached out her hand,
slowly, and touched the forehead of Black Bart. He winced back, and the
long fangs flashed; her hand remained tremulously poised in air, and
then the long head approached again, cautiously, and once more she
touched it, and since it did not stir, she trailed the tips of her
fingers backwards towards the ears. Black Bart snarled again, but it was
a sound so subdued as to be almost like the purring of a great cat. He
sank down, and the weight of his head came upon her feet. Victory!

In the full tide of conscious power she was able to drop her hand from
her face, raise he