s horrid, savage dog with him--after what had happened the
other night!

Timmy shot out of the room and so through the front door, and Radmore got
up too. "I'm afraid we ought to be going," he said.

His white-clad hostess came up close to him:--"It's so good of you to
have come to see me so soon," she murmured. "Though I do like Beechfield,
and the people here are awfully kind, I feel very forlorn, Mr. Radmore.
Seeing you has cheered me up very much. I hope you'll come again soon."

There fell on the still air the voice of Timmy talking to his dog
outside. Mrs. Crofton went quickly past Radmore into the tiny hall; she
shut the front door, which had been left ajar; and then she came back.

"It's quite true that I don't like dogs!" she exclaimed. "Poor Cecil's
terriers got thoroughly on my nerves last winter. I sometimes dream of
them even now."

He looked at her, surprised, and rather concerned. Poor little woman!
There were actually tears in her eyes.

"Yes," she went on, as if she could not help the words coming out,
"that's the real reason I sold Boo-boo. I even felt as if my poor little
Boo-boo had turned against me." There was a touch of excitement, almost
of defiance, in her low voice, and Radmore felt exceedingly taken aback
and puzzled. This was an Enid Crofton he had never met. "Come, come--you
mustn't feel like that"--he took her hand in his and held it closely.

She looked up at him and her eyes filled with tears, and then, suddenly,
her heart began beating deliciously. She saw flash into his dark face a
look she had seen flash into many men's faces, but never in his, till
now--the excited, tender look that she had longed to see there. She
swayed a little towards him; dropping her hand, he put out his arms--in
another moment, what she felt sure such a man as Radmore would have
regarded as irreparable would have happened, had not the door just behind
them burst open.

They fell apart quickly, and Radmore, with a sudden revulsion of
feeling--a sensation that he had been saved from doing a very foolish
thing--turned to see his godson, Timmy Tosswill.

Enid Crofton looked at Timmy, too, and if evil thoughts could kill, the
child would have fallen dead. But evil thoughts do not kill, and so all
that happened was that Timmy had a sudden, instinctive feeling that he
must account for his presence.

Looking up into his godfather's face, he said breathlessly:--"The front
door was shut, so I came in, through