al culprit was being dragged, cursing breathlessly, from the scene.

It was a brutal thrashing and wholly undeserved. Caesar, awaking to the
horror of it, howled his anguish; but no amount of protest on his part
made the smallest impression upon the wielder of the whip. It continued
to descend upon his writhing body with crashing force till he rolled upon
the ground in agony.

Even then the punishment would not have ceased, but for a second
interruption. It was the woman from the Vicarage garden again; but she
burst upon the scene this time with something of the effect of an
avalanche. She literally whirled between the man and his victim. She
caught his upraised arm.

"Oh, you brute!" she cried. "You brute!"

He stiffened in her hold. They stood face to face. Caesar crept whining
and shivering to the side of the road.

Slowly the man's arm fell to his side, still caught in that quivering
grasp. He spoke in a voice that struggled boyishly between resentment and
shame. "The dog's my own."

Her hold relaxed. "Even a dog has his rights," she said. "Give me that
whip, please!"

He looked at her oddly in the growing darkness. She was trembling as she
stood, but she held her ground.

"Please!" she repeated with resolution.

With an abrupt movement he put the weapon into her hand. "Are you going
to give me a taste?" he asked.

She uttered a queer little gasping laugh. "No. I--I'm not that sort.
But--it's horrible to see a man lose control of himself. And to thrash a
dog--like that!"

She turned sharply from him and went to the Dalmatian who crouched
quaking on the path. He wagged an ingratiating tail at her approach. It
was evident that in her hand the whip had no terrors for him. He crept
fawning to her feet.

She stooped over him, fondling his head. "Oh, poor boy! Poor boy!" she
said.

The dog's master came and stood beside her. "He'll be all right," he
said, in a tone of half-surly apology.

"I'm afraid Mike has bitten him," she said. "See!" displaying a long,
dark streak on Caesar's neck.

"He'll be all right," repeated Caesar's master. "I hope your dog is none
the worse."

"No, I don't think so," she said. "But don't you think we ought to
bathe this?"

"I'll take him home," he said. "They'll see to him at the stables."

She stood up, a slim, erect figure, the whip still firmly grasped in her
hand. "You won't thrash him any more, will you?" she said.

He gave a short laugh. "No, you have cooled me