ing and falling,
low but full, with a horror indescribable in its echo--the sound which no
man who has heard it ever forgets--the baying of a bloodhound on the
track of a man.

The squire turned deadly pale, but he shouted with all his might, as he
would have shouted to a man on the topsail yard in a gale at sea.

"Stamboul! Stamboul! Stamboul!" Again and again he yelled the dog's name.

Stamboul had not gone far. The quickset hedge had baffled the scent for a
moment and he was not a dozen yards beyond it in the park when his
master's cry stopped him. Instantly he turned, cleared the six-foot hedge
and double ditch at a bound and came leaping back across the road. The
squire breathed hard, for it had been a terrible moment. If he had not
succeeded in calling the beast back, it might have been all over with
Walter Goddard, wherever he was hidden.

"It is only his play," said Mr. Juxon, still very white and holding
Stamboul by the collar. "Please tell Mrs. Goddard, Martha, that I am very
sorry indeed to hear that she is ill, and that I will inquire this
evening."

"Yes, sir," said Martha, who eyed the panting beast timidly and showed an
evident desire to shut the door as soon as possible.

The squire felt more nervous than ever as he walked slowly along the road
in the direction of the village, his hand still on the bloodhound's
collar. He felt what a narrow escape Goddard had probably had, and the
terrible sound of Stamboul's baying had brought back to him once again
and very vividly the scene in the woods by the Bosphorus. He felt that
for a few minutes at least he would rather not enter the park with the
dog by him, and he naturally turned towards the vicarage, not with any
intention of going in, but from sheer force of custom, as people under
the influence of strong emotions often do things unconsciously which they
are in the habit of doing. He walked slowly along, and had almost reached
Mr. Ambrose's pretty old red brick house, when he found himself face to
face with the vicar's wife. She presented an imposing appearance, as
usual; her grey skirt, drawn up a little from the mud, revealed a bright
red petticoat and those stout shoes which she regarded as so essential
to health; she wore moreover a capacious sealskin jacket and a dark
bonnet with certain jet flowers, which for many years had been regarded
by the inhabitants of Billingsfield as the distinctive badge of a
gentlewoman. Mrs. Ambrose was wont to smile