Mr. Gilchrist ran out into the hall, found the front door still open from the stranger’s abrupt departure, peered out into the dark night intensified by the two staring eyes of Williamson’s gig-lamps. “Come in, Williamson!” he called. His voice was joyous with relief. As he spoke, he heard swift feet upon the gravel! The words had barely left his mouth when a violent collision knocked him breathless against the doorpost. It was the stranger, back again! “The white dog! The white dog!” he gasped in terror. Mr. Gilchrist clutched at him and fought for breath to speak. “But, my dear sir----” he began, irritably. This was absurd! Of course there was a dog--the harmless old white bull which was Williamson’s invariable companion. He tried to explain, but the stranger, tugging frantically to get free, would listen to nothing. With the strength of a madman he wrenched himself from Gilchrist’s detaining grasp and fled into the house. Williamson, preceded by his old dog, came up the gravel path. “All alone?” he asked, cheerily. Mr. Gilchrist hesitated, and then, obeying an obscure impulse, lied. “Er--yes,” he replied. “Come in.” The absurdity of the falsehood occurred to him at once. Cursing his folly, he tried to think of some plausible explanation as he led his friend to the dining-room, where, of course, the stranger’s presence would stultify his ridiculous statement. He glanced round the room as he entered. It was empty! Where, then? His eyes rested on a suspicious bulging of the window-curtain. He waved his friend to a chair. “Sit down,” he said, with an assumption of normality. “What’s the news?” “There’s news, right enough,” said Williamson, dropping into the proffered seat. “Terrible business on the seven-thirty to-night. Poor old Hepplewhite--shot dead--he and his dog. Ghastly struggle, evidently--blood over everything!” “Good God!” ejaculated Gilchrist, chilled with a sudden horror. He had given no real credence to his visitor’s fantastic story. This brutal contact with the reality paralyzed him in an awful terror at his own false position. What was to be done? He strove to think--played for time. “And the murderer?” he asked thickly. “Escaped--for the moment,” replied Williamson in a tone that suggested confidence in the police. “Here, Tiger! Come here!” He addressed the dog, which was sniffing uneasily about the room. The dog came up to him obediently, wagging his stump of tail. He carried in his mouth a piece of folded paper which he had picked up and now presented to his master. Gilchrist recognized it with a little shock as his friend opened it. “_Prepare to meet thy Judge!_” Williamson read out with mock solemnity, and smiled in superior tolerance of the evangelist enthusiasm which had printed the leaflet.