here,
Muriel, and he is dead. I do not know what is the secret of that room,
but I shall never enter it again." He turned from us, and lead the way
down the hall.

"Dead!" said Muriel, turning to me. "Is it really true?"

I assured her that it was.

She glanced at me with a scared sort of a look. "Do you think," she
said, slowly, "that Li Min's story of the vengeance of Buddha could
really be true, after all?"

"No, I do not," I said, though I was not so absolutely sure as I
pretended to be. "It is hardly likely that Buddha would turn his
vengeance upon an inoffensive dog, who had certainly done nothing to
incur it. It is a curious and unfortunate coincidence, that is all. The
dog has no doubt died of fright, caused by his unusual situation,
coupled perhaps with lack of food, water and air. Or he may have dashed
himself against the door in his struggles and died of apoplexy. I've
frequently heard of dogs dying from some such cause, especially old
ones. How old was Boris?"

"About four years," said Muriel, and I knew from the way in which she
spoke that she did not believe my explanation of the affair in the
least.

When we reached the floor below, the Major directed Gibson and one of
the other servants to remove the dog's body from the room, and we all
retired to the library, where we discussed the matter for a long time.
Major Temple, on sober thought, was inclined to agree with my view of
the matter, but in spite of our attempts to regard the event in a
common-sense light, we could not shake off a mysterious feeling of dread
at the thought of these two creatures, a man and a dog having so
inexplicably come to their ends in this room. In Ashton's case, at
least, there was a tangible enough evidence of the cause of death, but
in the case of Boris there was none. Major Temple stepped out and
examined the dog's body when the men brought it down from above, and
upon his return reported that there was no wound or mark of any sort
upon the animal that could account for its death.

Miss Temple essayed a few airs upon the piano, but our thoughts were not
attuned to music, and presently, as it was close to eleven o'clock, she
said good-night to us both and left us. As she passed me on her way from
the room, she leaned over and kissed me upon the forehead, and I turned
to find the Major staring at me in perplexity. Poor man, so many strange
things had happened during the course of this eventful day that I fear
he would