Shall I give you briefly the harrowing details of this ruffianly act of cowardice? I think I told you in my last how the baron had left the house, filled with vindictive rage at my refusal to demand of my father large sums of money for his gambling losses. In about an hour he returned and renewed his proposition with increased violence, at the same time seizing a pen and writing a cablegram, which he commanded me to sign. Remembering that I had given him considerable sums of money from time to time, amounting to many thousands of dollars, I entreated him to wait for a day, while he should make me understand the condition of his financial affairs. This proposition he received with the most frightful oaths. He declared that he would take my life, and would begin by killing my pet dog. No sooner said than done. He rushed to the veranda, where poor little Boston lay stretched upon his cushion asleep in the sun, and, seizing him by the neck, he dashed him violently to the ground below. A few minutes later my little friend was brought to me still feebly conscious, but mangled, bleeding, dying. How can I ever forget, who ever did who has ever witnessed it forget that last questioning, beseeching look of affection and dumb fright which a dying animal turns upon the face of someone he has loved? Is it less than human or more? Not till the mists gathered across his pretty brown eyes was that last eloquent appeal swept away. “What have I done?” “What have I done?” was the question he was asking of me. Who shall say whether he received his answer in some later and easier translatable speech than mine, in some new and disenthralled state of being? Who shall say that he did not carry away with him a love which was all love, with no taint of selfishness or ulterior thought, quickened by no new speculation, or tradition, or sanction, or human edict? Who shall say that the attributes of faith, and self-surrender, and charity, and forgiveness, and loyalty are lost because in one incarnation they were tongue-tied? For myself I want to see my dogs again. They were my loved companions, as are my books or my works of art. And if the fire destroy them, are their contents naught or worthless because an unlettered man could not read them? At best an after life is a problem, but let us put the problems together and one may help to solve the other, for half a truth is oftenest a lie. I have sought distraction in these comments, but my sorrow returns to me, dear mother, and my eyes are too full of tears to be able to see the lines. _Vale_, poor Boston, and a grateful throb of gladness that I have a dear mother to whom I can tell my grief. Your loving but unhappy ELLEN. CHAPTER X. “Lo! the poor Indian.”