When he had come round to the entrance again he went over the stripe on the path and drive a second time. Then he straightened up and handed the brush to Rastus. “Just enough,” he remarked. “I calculated nicely.” I had so far held my tongue. But his air of self-approval, as if in some feat of logic led me to blurt out: “What is it for?” “The Chinese,” said Case, “esteem dogs’ blood a defense against sorcery. I doubt its efficacy, but I know of no better fortification.” No reply seemed expected and I made none. That evening I was at Case’s, with some six or seven others. We sat indoors, for the cloudy day had led up to a rainy evening. Nothing unusual occurred. Next day the town was plastered with posters of the circus company offering five hundred dollars reward for the capture of an escaped leopard. Cato came to my office just as I was going out to lunch. “Mahs’r Cash done gone cunjuhin’ agin,” he announced. I found out that a second batch of dogs had been brought in by uncle Rastus in his covered wagon behind his unfailing mules, had been butchered like the former convoy and the band of blood gone over a second time. Case had not gone outside that line since he first made it, no drive to Shelby Manor that morning. The day was perfect after the rain of the day before, and the bright sunlight dried everything. The evening was clear and windless with a nearly full moon intensely bright and very high. Practically the whole population went to the circus. Beverly and I dined at Case’s. He had no other guests, but such was his skill as a host that our dinner was delightfully genial. After dinner the three of us sat on the veranda. The brilliance of the moonlight on and through the unstirred trees made a glorious spectacle and the mild, cool atmosphere put us in just the humor to enjoy it and each other. Case talked quietly, mostly of art galleries in Europe, and his talk was quite as charming and entertaining as usual. He seemed a man entirely sane and altogether at his ease. We had been on the veranda about half an hour and in that time neither team nor pedestrian had passed. Then we saw the figure of a woman approaching down the middle of the roadway from the direction of the country. Beverly and I caught sight of her at about the same instant and I saw him watching her as I did, for she had the carriage and bearing of a lady and it seemed strange that she should be walking, stranger that she should be alone, and strangest that she should choose the road instead of the footpath which was broad and good for half a mile. Case, who had been describing a carved set of ivory chessmen he had seen in Egypt, stopped speaking and stared as we did. I began to feel as if I ought to recognize the advancing figure, it seemed unfamiliar and yet familiar too in outline and carriage, when Beverly exclaimed: “By Jove, that is Mary Kenton.”