nation was the bait. She can annihilate that black past in the
light of Carol's smile; but when he is absent, and night is on the
earth and in her heart, then the spectre rises, points his deadly
finger at her quivering soul, and she realises the hideous dropping off
of the veil. Her mind is a chaos of ruins. She calls to Carol in
vain; only the shrill cry of some night bird through the air, and the
beating of her pulses, answer that he will not come!

The gaunt form of a four-footed beast steals across the shadows she has
watched so long, that she almost doubts her senses. Can it be a tiger
perchance come forth from the jungle to prowl around her home?

She looks again, a thrill of horror darting through her trembling body.

The beast creeps with a soft and stealthy tread up the verandah
steps--it is long and yellow.

Eleanor stares in mesmeric terror at its fiery eyes.

Then she sees it is a dog--a huge sandy mastiff, with hanging jaws, wet
with foam, a great square head, and broad noiseless feet. It shambles
nearer, appearing so suddenly out of the gloom that it seems to
materialise before her vision. It watches her as if about to spring;
she cannot remember it is not a tiger after all.

Eleanor sickens with fear, a dizzy faintness numbs her nerves, the room
swims round. Her breath comes in quick gasps from a throat parched,
and dry as with desert sand.

She stares dumbly into its glistening eyes that look like coals of fire
in the dark.

Those moments seem to be long hours; they are spells of invisible woe;
this dog is perhaps a phantom, come to warn her of some ghastly peril
into which Carol has fallen. Its fangs look ripe for human gore; it
pants, and its breath is as the rush of a storm.

"Help!" says a low voice, calling the dog by name.

The animal turns at the sound of that word. "Help! come back." He
crouches away disappointed; he would have liked to seize Eleanor by the
throat if he dared.

At the sound of the man's call Eleanor does not move, nor even start,
only the blood seems to dry up in her veins, her fingers twitch
convulsively, her eyes roll back in her head. She can hear the heavy
footfalls mounting the steps to the verandah one by one; she dares not
look, for she _knows_, she _understands_!

Then a sudden idea seizes her. They are not yet face to face. If her
paralysed limbs will let her she may yet escape through the room, and
out behind. She can hide in the thick under