d then, all at once, she
remembered Dandy, her husband's terrier, who, after his master's tragic
death, had refused all food, and had howled so long and so dismally that,
in a fit of temper, she had herself ordered him to be destroyed.

She lay back on her pretty, frilled pillow, and covered her face with the
hand belonging to the arm that was uninjured.

"Oh," she gasped out, "I see now. What a horrible idea!"

"Then you have no painful associations with any one particular terrier
apart from Flick?" persisted Dr. O'Farrell.

He really wanted to know. According to his theory, Timmy's subconscious
self could in some utterly inexplicable way build up an image of what was
in the minds of those about him.

"Perhaps I have," she confessed in a very low voice. "My husband had a
favourite terrier called Dandy, Flick's father in fact. The poor brute
got into such a state after his master's death that he had to be sent to
one of those lethal chambers in London. The whole thing was a great
trouble, and a great pain to me."

Dr. O'Farrell felt a thrill of exultation run through him. To find his
theory thus miraculously confirmed was very gratifying.

"That's most interesting!" he exclaimed, "for Timmy, even the very first
time he saw you walking down the avenue towards the front door of Old
Place, thought you were followed by a dog uncommonly like his terrier,
Flick. His theory seemed to be that both Flick and the cat did not fly at
_you_, but at your invisible companion."

"My invisible companion?"

He saw the colour again receding from her face. "Don't for a moment
believe _I_ think there is any phantom dog there," he said soothingly.
"All I believe--and what you have told me confirmed my theory--is that
Timmy Tosswill can not only see what's in your subconscious mind, but
that he can build up a kind of image of it and produce what is called, I
believe, in the East, collective hypnotism. I should never be surprised,
for instance, if someone else thought they saw you with a dog--that is
as long as that boy was present. It's a most interesting and curious
case."

"It's a very horrible case," said Enid faintly.

She felt as if she were moving in a terrible nightmare world,
unsuspected, unrealised by her till then.

"All abnormality is unpleasant," said the doctor cheerfully, "I always
thought the boy would grow out of it, and, to a certain extent, he _has_
grown out of it. You'll hardly believe me, Mrs. Crofton, when