"Why," she returned, flustered afresh by the quick change in her interlocutor's manner. "Ever since those French windows are left open for the night--same as they always are when the hot weather starts in, you know, sir. Since then, Laddie don't wait for me to let him out. When he wakes up he just goes out himself. He used to do that last year, too, sir. He----" "Thanks," muttered the Master, dizzily. "That's all. Thanks." Left alone, he sat slumped low in his chair, trying to think. He was as calmly convinced as ever of his dog's innocence, but he had staked everything on Marie's court testimony. And, now, that testimony was rendered worse than worthless. Crankily he cursed his own fresh-air mania which had decreed that the long windows on the ground floor be left open on summer nights. With Lad on duty, the house was as safe from successful burglary in spite of these open windows, as if guarded by a squad of special policemen. And the night-air, sweeping through, kept it pleasantly cool against the next day's heat. For this same coolness, a heavy price was now due. Presently the daze of disappointment passed leaving the Master pulsing with a wholesome fighting-anger. Rapidly he revised his defense and, with the Mistress' far cleverer aid, made ready for the afternoon's ordeal. He scouted Maclay's suggestion of hiring counsel and vowed to handle the defense himself. Carefully he and his wife went over their proposed line of action. Peace Justice Maclay's court was held daily in a rambling room on an upper floor of the village's Odd Fellows' Hall. The proceedings there were generally marked by shrewd sanity rather than by any effort at formalism. Maclay, himself, sat at a battered little desk at the room's far end; his clerk using a corner of the same desk for the scribbling of his sketchy notes. In front of the desk was a rather long deal table with kitchen chairs around it. Here, plaintiffs and defendants and prisoners and witnesses and lawyers were wont to sit, with no order of precedent or of other formality. Several other chairs were ranged irregularly along the wall to accommodate any overflow of the table's occupants. Promptly at three o'clock that afternoon, the Mistress and the Master entered the courtroom. Close at the Mistress' side--though held by no leash--paced Lad. Maclay and Romaine and Schwartz were already on hand. So were the clerk and the constable and one or two idle spectators. At a corner of the room, wrapped in burlap, were huddled the bodies of the two slain sheep. Lad caught the scent of the victims the instant he set foot in the room, and he sniffed vibrantly once or twice. Titus Romaine, his eyes fixed scowlingly on the dog, noted this, and he nudged Schwartz in the ribs to call the German's attention to it.