d never seen the boy looking as he was looking now; he
seemed utterly spent with misery.

"I'll tell you what I'll do, my dear. I'll speak to Dr. O'Farrell myself
in the morning, and I'll ask him whether something can't be done in the
way of a reprieve. I'll tell him we don't mind paying for Josephine to be
sent away for a bit to a vet."

Hope, ecstatic hope, flashed into Timmy's tear-stained face. "You mean to
a man like Trotman?"

"Yes, that's what I do mean. But I mustn't raise false hopes. I fear Dr.
O'Farrell has made up his mind; he promised Mrs. Crofton the cat should
be shot. Still, I'll do my _very_ best."

Timmy put his skinny arms round his mother's neck.

"I'm glad you're my mother, Mum," he muttered, "and not my step-mother."

She smiled for the first time. "That's rather a double-edged compliment,
if I may say so! But I suppose it's true that I would do a good deal more
for you than I would for any of the others."

"I didn't mean _that_," exclaimed Timmy, shocked. "I only meant that I
wouldn't love you as well. I don't mean ever to be a step-father--I shall
start a lot of boys and girls of my own."

"All right," she said soothingly, "I'm sure you will. Lie down now, and
try to go to sleep." She hoped with all her heart that the boy would
sleep late the next morning, as he very often did when tired out, and
that the execution, if execution there must be, would be over by the time
he woke.

She bent down, tucked him up, kissed him, blew out the candle, and then
went quickly out of the room.

* * * * *

As soon as his mother had shut the door, Timmy sat up in bed, and then
he gave a smothered cry. It was as if he had seen flash out into the
darkness his beloved cat's wistful face, her beautiful, big, china-blue
eyes, gazing confidently at him, as if to say, "You'll save me, Master,
won't you?"

He listened intently for a few minutes, then he slipped down and felt his
way to the door. He opened it; but there came no sound from the sleeping
house. Closing the door very, very softly, he lit his candle and rapidly
dressed himself in his day clothes, finally putting on a thick pair of
walking shoes, and over them goloshes. Timmy hated goloshes, and never
wore them if he could help it, but he had read in some detective story
that they deadened sound.

Then he blew his candle out, and again he went across to the door and
listened. Opening it at last, he slithered along