"Big words from you, Faber!" said the youth with a sneer, struggling hard to keep the advantage he had in temper. "Every body knows you don't believe there is any God." "Then there ought to be, so long as such as you 'ain't got your deserts. _You_ set up for a doctor! I would sooner lose all the practice I ever made than send _you_ to visit woman or child, you heartless miscreant!" The epithet the doctor really used here was stronger and more contemptuous, but it is better to take the liberty of substituting this. "What have I done then to let loose all this Billingsgate?" cried the young man indignantly. "I have done nothing the most distinguished in the profession haven't done twenty times over." "I don't care a damn. What's the profession to humanity! For a wonder the public is in the right on this question, and I side with the public. The profession may go to--Turkey!"--Probably Turkey was not the place he had intended to specify, but at the moment he caught sight of Juliet and her companion.--"There!" he concluded, pointing to the door behind him, "you go in and put your things up--_and be off_." Without another word, the young man ascended the steps, and entered the house. Juliet stood staring, motionless and white. Again and again Dorothy would have turned back, but Juliet grasped her by the arm, stood as if frozen to the spot, and would not let her move. She _must_ know what it meant. And all the time a little crowd had been gathering, as it well might, even in a town no bigger than Glaston, at such uproar in its usually so quiet streets. At first it was all women, who showed their interest by a fixed regard of each speaker in the quarrel in turn, and a confused staring from one to the other of themselves. No handle was yet visible by which to lay hold of the affair. But the moment the young man re-entered the surgery, and just as Faber was turning to go after him, out, like a bolt, shot from the open door a long-legged, gaunt mongrel dog, in such a pitiful state as I will not horrify my readers by attempting to describe. It is enough to say that the knife had been used upon him with a ghastly freedom. In an agony of soundless terror the poor animal, who could never recover the usage he had had, and seemed likely to tear from himself a part of his body at every bound, rushed through the spectators, who scattered horror-stricken from his path. Ah, what a wild waste look the creature had!--as if his spirit within him were wan with dismay at the lawless invasion of his humble house of life. A cry, almost a shriek, rose from the little crowd, to which a few men had now added themselves. The doctor came dashing down the steps in pursuit of him. The same instant, having just escaped collision with the dog, up came Mr. Drew. His round face flamed like the sun in a fog with anger and pity and indignation. He rushed straight at the doctor, and would have collared him. Faber flung him from him without a word, and ran on.