that on this night the beast might speak.

The cow-house stood at the junction of the garden with a small paddock,
an isolated survival, in a suburban neighbourhood; of what had once been
a small farm. Luke Steffink was complacently proud of his cow-house and
his two cows; he felt that they gave him a stamp of solidity which no
number of Wyandottes or Orpingtons could impart. They even seemed to
link him in a sort of inconsequent way with those patriarchs who derived
importance from their floating capital of flocks and herbs, he-asses and
she-asses. It had been an anxious and momentous occasion when he had had
to decide definitely between "the Byre" and "the Ranch" for the naming of
his villa residence. A December midnight was hardly the moment he would
have chosen for showing his farm-building to visitors, but since it was a
fine night, and the young people were anxious for an excuse for a mild
frolic, Luke consented to chaperon the expedition. The servants had long
since gone to bed, so the house was left in charge of Bertie, who
scornfully declined to stir out on the pretext of listening to bovine
conversation.

"We must go quietly," said Luke, as he headed the procession of giggling
young folk, brought up in the rear by the shawled and hooded figure of
Mrs. Steffink; "I've always laid stress on keeping this a quiet and
orderly neighbourhood."

It was a few minutes to midnight when the party reached the cow-house and
made its way in by the light of Luke's stable lantern. For a moment
every one stood in silence, almost with a feeling of being in church.

"Daisy--the one lying down--is by a shorthorn bull out of a Guernsey
cow," announced Luke in a hushed voice, which was in keeping with the
foregoing impression.

"Is she?" said Bordenby, rather as if he had expected her to be by
Rembrandt.

"Myrtle is--"

Myrtle's family history was cut short by a little scream from the women
of the party.

The cow-house door had closed noiselessly behind them and the key had
turned gratingly in the lock; then they heard Bertie's voice pleasantly
wishing them good-night and his footsteps retreating along the garden
path.

Luke Steffink strode to the window; it was a small square opening of the
old-fashioned sort, with iron bars let into the stonework.

"Unlock the door this instant," he shouted, with as much air of menacing
authority as a hen might assume when screaming through the bars of a coop
at a marauding hawk