I waited for you to come back for an age. What was the matter? I am very sorry about your dog. The fact is I am not very well and in a nervous condition, and it startled me to come suddenly upon it in the dimly lighted hall. Let me know when we can meet. P. D. That was the note. I read it several times before I threw it into the waste-paper basket. But I did not answer it. I felt that I did not want to meet Deeming again for some time. I felt that. Fate willed it that I should never look upon him again as mortal man. Within two days from that time I was called to the North of England by the serious illness of my dear mother, who lived in Cumberland. And there I remained until she died. Her death took place on the twenty-seventh of June. Her funeral was three days later. After it was over I returned to the house where I had been born, where I was now quite alone with the servants. I had to wind up many affairs, to put many things in order, to sort and examine papers and pay off some of the household. Despite my grief I was obliged to be busy, to be practical. For several days I was so much occupied that I did not look at a newspaper. I even set aside the letters that came by the post—letters of condolence, I felt sure they were, most of them—wishing to read them and answer them all together when I had leisure, and felt less miserable and deserted, and more able to take an interest in such affairs as were not actually forced upon me. At last one evening I had got through everything. I had dined, and was sitting alone in the drawing-room, where my mother had always sat, feeling really almost as if I dwelt in a world unpeopled, or peopled only by the spectres of those who once had lived, when a servant came in with the last post. There were no letters, only two or three papers from London. Without interest, merely to do something, I tore the paper covering from one and unfolded it. My eyes fell at once upon the following paragraph— As so many rumours have been put into circulation with regard to the lamented decease of Dr. Peter Deeming, which took place on the 30th of June, we are glad to be able to state authoritatively that the actual cause of death was blood-poisoning, which was, it seems, set up by the bite of a dog. Doctor Deeming, like many other eminent medical men, while solicitous for the health of others, was singularly careless about his own. The bite was severe, but he took little heed of it, although he had the dog, which was a pet, destroyed. He has now paid the penalty of his regrettable carelessness, and society is the poorer. For no West End physician was more trusted and esteemed by his patients than Dr. Deeming. The paper dropped from my hand. So Deeming and the black spaniel were dead! And each had destroyed the other! PART II—THE RESURRECTION VI