Somewhere a dog was howling. On a sudden I felt cold. The sunshine was gone, and the chamber had become grey and dismal. Misery was in the air. A stifled exclamation made me look round. My lady had backed shrinking into a corner, one little hand pressed to her heart, and in her hunted eyes sat Fear dominant. The sweet face was drawn and colourless, and her breath came quickly, so that it was grievous to mark the flutter of her smooth white chest. Mechanically I turned to seek the cause of her terror. I saw a powerfully-built man standing square in the closet's doorway. His face was coarse and red and brutal, and his small black eyes glowed with an ugly twinkle as he surveyed his quarry. Upon the thick lips there was a sinister smile, which broadened hideously as he glanced at the nosegay held betwixt his finger and thumb--the little nosegay that she had gathered so lightly from the painted plate. A wide-skirted coat of red fell nearly to his knees and hid his breeches. His short black periwig was bobbed, and a black silk tie was knotted about his neck. Stockings were rolled above his knees, and a huge tongue thrust out from each of his buckled shoes. And in his left hand was a heavy riding-whip whose handle was wrought about with gold. This he kept clapping against his leg with a smack and a ghastly relish that there was no mistaking. Again that phantom chorus rose up and rang in my ears-- "_A woman, a spaniel, and a walnut tree, The more you beat them, the better they be._" But the jubilant note was gone, and, though the tune was the same, the voices were harsh, and there was a dreadful mockery of woe in the stave that made me shudder. My lady heard it too. "No, no, Ralph. You do me wrong. I plucked them myself. Who is there now to send me posies? And I am sick--you know it. The last time----" The hurrying voice faltered and stumbled piteously over a sob. "The last time I was near spent, Ralph. So near. And now----You do not know your strength. Indeed----Oh, Ralph, Ralph, what have I done that you should use me so?" The bitter cry sank into a dull moan, and, setting a frail white arm across her eyes, she bowed her head upon it, as do weeping children, and fell to sobbing with that subdued despair that spells a broken spirit. My lord's withers were unwrung. For a moment he stood still, leering like some foul thing that feasts on Anguish. Then he let fall the nosegay and took the whip in his right hand.... And I stood there frozen and paralysed and dumb.