e men I
ought to trust and the ones to keep an eye on. Won't you, Fantine?"

The puppy put a fat paw on Warren's breast and wagged its whole body
with its tail.

"And, Fantine, you'll never forget me as some people do, or think me
ugly because I've got red hair? You have red hair yourself, you
minx!--See those tiny flecks through your black coat? Tan, you say?
Well, you'll have beauty enough for both of us some day. I'll teach you
how to hunt too--Is that a yawn? I make you tired, do I, Mademoiselle?
Well, I dare say you do know more about hunting than I ever shall. I
apologise. But we'll be great friends anyway--inseparables--worse than
your master and this great oaf who's stolen in upon our confidential
chat,--eh, Fantine?"

The puppy gave a sleepy sigh, nestling under Godfrey's coat and, as he
stooped to peer at her, lifted a baby head and licked his face.

From that hour I was to a certain extent supplanted. But Fantine
approved of me which was all I could hope. Of extraordinary intelligence
she seemed to interpret every mood of her master and sometimes almost to
anticipate his orders. The man and the dog were indeed inseparables. If
he left a room where she was sleeping it was as though the very air she
breathed had been exhausted, and she would wake with a start and follow
him instantly. The first time Warren sent her to his country place, some
fifty miles from town, he forwarded her in a crate by express, and, the
morning after she arrived he returned to town, leaving her with the
gardener. Before nightfall she was at his office door whining for
admittance. How she had found her way back no one ever knew.

It was more than instinct. The animal seemed to feel the man as the
Martian felt the north. No mere instinct could make a dog growl in
sympathetic response to a man's moods, and yet Fantine, as I have said,
would do this very thing. Yes, and sometimes the hair on her back would
rise in silent warning against some stranger--a warning Warren never
disregarded. This devotion was no one-sided affair, for Godfrey was a
man--

--There! I am lapsing into the past tense again. God grant there is no
evil omen in my pen!--

--It all happened so suddenly. I have not yet lived down the shock of
it, and am nervous as any woman. Just now there was a noise in the rear
of the room and I leaped to my feet barely repressing a cry. I thought
the Jury were entering. But they are still talking.--About what I dare
not think