“And—and—your strange suspicions”—I was almost stammering, conscious, painfully conscious of my own—“your strange suspicions—did you ever find out whether they were justified?” “They were justified, fully justified. But the dog took its own part in the end and killed its persecutor.” I felt a sensation of horror take hold upon me. “Do you really mean that Deeming was treating his spaniel cruelly?” I asked. “I do. He had the mania for persecution that I suspected. He was venting it upon his dog. The servants had some inkling of the truth, especially his butler. He knew, I believe, all that was going on. But—he was well paid, very well paid.” I remembered my Sunday morning call, and the butler’s exclamation when the fox-terrier ran into the house. “This is horrible, Vernon,” I said. “Are you sure of what you say?” “Quite sure. I heard—well, I heard things at night, and at last I saw the dog.” “How?” [Illustration: “WHILE I WAS THERE DEEMING CAME BACK UNEXPECTEDLY.”] “I got into the house when Deeming was out. I bribed his butler, paid him more than Deeming did, I suppose. Anyhow, I got in. I think the man was sympathetic; was anxious really that an end should be put to the disgusting business. I burst open the door of the room in which the spaniel was confined, and then I saw—no matter what. It was quite enough. While I was there Deeming came back unexpectedly.” “Good God!” I exclaimed. “What a ghastly situation!” “It was not exactly pleasant. I saw the man’s soul naked that night—stark naked. It was on that occasion the dog bit him.” “Ouf!” I said. Again nausea seized me. Vernon looked at me steadily. “Don’t you think Deeming deserved anything he got?” he asked. “Anything he could ever get?” “But he was mad—he must have been mad!” “I suppose that sort of thing is what might be called a form of madness. Unfortunately a good many sane people have it—people as sane as you or I in all other respects.” When he said the words “or I” a flush, I think, came to my cheek. It seemed to me that he spoke with significance—as if he knew what Gernham and I had spoken of the day before. “As sane as you or I,” he repeated. “This work I’ve been doing with Gernham has opened my eyes to a good deal in human nature that they were shut to before. I once said to you in Rome, to you and Deeming, that man’s cruelty sprang often from a lack of imagination. Sometimes it springs from just the opposite, from a diseased imagination that lusts for gratification in ways we won’t discuss.” “But Deeming—that he should be such a man, he whose profession it was to make whole!” “Yes, that made the thing more strange and, to him, more enticing.” “Enticing!” I exclaimed. My voice was full of the bitterness of disgust mingled with incredulity that I was feeling.