confided my trouble to Malachi on the way home, but Bettina
had bitten him in four places, and he was busy.

Weeks later, Attley came over to see me, and before his car stopped
Malachi let me know that Bettina was sitting beside the chauffeur. He
greeted her by the scruff of the neck as she hopped down; and I greeted
Mrs. Godfrey, Attley, and a big basket.

'You've got to help me,' said Attley tiredly. We took the basket into
the garden, and there staggered out the angular shadow of a sandy-pied,
broken-haired terrier, with one imbecile and one delirious ear, and two
most hideous squints. Bettina and Malachi, already at grips on the lawn,
saw him, let go, and fled in opposite directions.

'Why have you brought that fetid hound here?' I demanded.

'Harvey? For you to take care of,' said Attley. 'He's had distemper, but
_I_'m going abroad.'

'Take him with you. I won't have him. He's mentally afflicted.'

'Look here,' Attley almost shouted, 'do I strike you as a fool?'

'Always,' said I.

'Well, then, if you say so, and Ella says so, that proves I ought to go
abroad.'

'Will's wrong, quite wrong,' Mrs. Godfrey interrupted; 'but you must
take the pup.'

'My dear boy, my dear boy, don't you ever give anything to a woman,'
Attley snorted.

Bit by bit I got the story out of them in the quiet garden (never a sign
from Bettina and Malachi), while Harvey stared me out of countenance,
first with one cuttlefish eye and then with the other.

It appeared that, a month after Miss Sichliffe took him, the dog Harvey
developed distemper. Miss Sichliffe had nursed him herself for some
time; then she carried him in her arms the two miles to Mittleham, and
wept--actually wept--at Attley's feet, saying that Harvey was all she
had or expected to have in this world, and Attley must cure him. Attley,
being by wealth, position, and temperament guardian to all lame dogs,
had put everything aside for this unsavoury job, and, he asserted, Miss
Sichliffe had virtually lived with him ever since.

'She went home at night, of course,' he exploded, 'but the rest of the
time she simply infested the premises. Goodness knows, I'm not
particular, but it was a scandal. Even the servants!... Three and four
times a day, and notes in between, to know how the beast was. Hang it
all, don't laugh! And wanting to send me flowers and goldfish. Do I look
as if I wanted goldfish? Can't you two stop for a minute?' (Mrs. Godfrey
and I were clinging to