ls had undergone a subtle change: that the cat had become
immeasurably superior, confident, sure of itself in its own peculiar
region, whereas Flame had been weakened by an attack he could not
comprehend and knew not how to reply to. Though not yet afraid, he was
defiant--ready to act against a fear that he felt to be approaching. He
was no longer fatherly and protective towards the cat. Smoke held the
key to the situation; and both he and the cat knew it.

Thus, as the minutes passed, John Silence sat and waited, keenly on the
alert, wondering how soon the attack would be renewed, and at what point
it would be diverted from the animals and directed upon himself.

The book lay on the floor beside him, his notes were complete. With one
hand on the cat's fur, and the dog's front paws resting against his
feet, the three of them dozed comfortably before the hot fire while the
night wore on and the silence deepened towards midnight.

It was well after one o'clock in the morning when Dr. Silence turned the
lamp out and lighted the candle preparatory to going up to bed. Then
Smoke suddenly woke with a loud sharp purr and sat up. It neither
stretched, washed nor turned: it listened. And the doctor, watching it,
realised that a certain indefinable change had come about that very
moment in the room. A swift readjustment of the forces within the four
walls had taken place--a new disposition of their personal equations.
The balance was destroyed, the former harmony gone. Smoke, most
sensitive of barometers, had been the first to feel it, but the dog was
not slow to follow suit, for on looking down he noted that Flame was no
longer asleep. He was lying with eyes wide open, and that same instant
he sat up on his great haunches and began to growl.

Dr. Silence was in the act of taking the matches to re-light the lamp
when an audible movement in the room behind him made him pause. Smoke
leaped down from his knee and moved forward a few paces across the
carpet. Then it stopped and stared fixedly; and the doctor stood up on
the rug to watch.

As he rose the sound was repeated, and he discovered that it was not in
the room as he first thought, but outside, and that it came from more
directions than one. There was a rushing, sweeping noise against the
window-panes, and simultaneously a sound of something brushing against
the door--out in the hall. Smoke advanced sedately across the carpet,
twitching his tail, and sat down within a foot