'The nurse was a strong country girl, with plenty of pluck, and as the dog came leaping and barking about in a very alarming way, she hit him as hard as she could on his head. The wonder is she did not kill him on the spot, and, as it was, the blow turned him perfectly giddy and silly for a time, and he ran round and round in a dazed sort of way--do you think you could lower that candle-shade just a little? Thanks!' she broke off suddenly, as I obeyed. 'Well, she was going to strike again, when her mistress rushed out, just in time to stop her. For, you see, she had been watching at the window, and although the poor beast was miserably thin, and rough, and neglected-looking, she knew at once that it must be Pepper, and that he was not in the least mad or dangerous, but only trying his best to make his peace with the baby. Very likely his dignity or his conscience or something wouldn't let him come back quite at once, you know; and perhaps he thought he had better get the baby on his side first. And then all at once, his mistress--I heard all this through her, of course--his mistress suddenly remembered how devoted Pepper had been to her, and how fond she had once been of him, and when she saw him standing, stupid and shivering, there, her heart softened to him, and she went to make it up with him, and tell him that he was forgiven and should come back and be her dog again, just as in the old days!----' Here she broke off for a moment. I did not venture to look at her, but I thought her voice trembled a little when she spoke again. 'I don't quite know _why_ I tell you all this. There was a time when I never could bear the end of it myself,' she said; 'but I have begun, and I will finish now. Well, Pepper's mistress went towards him, and called him; but--whether he was still too dizzy to quite understand who she was, or whether his pride came uppermost again, poor dear! I don't know--but he gave her just one look (she says she will never forget it--never; it went straight to her heart), and then he walked very slowly and deliberately away. 'She couldn't bear it; she followed; she felt she simply _must_ make him understand how very, very sorry she was for him; but the moment he heard her he began to run faster and faster, until he was out of reach and out of sight, and she had to come back. I know she was crying bitterly by that time.' 'And he never came back again?' I asked, after a silence. 'Never again!' she said softly; 'that was the very last they ever saw or heard of him. And--and I've always loved every dog since for Pepper's sake!' 'I'm almost glad he did decline to come back,' I declared; 'it served his mistress right--she didn't deserve anything else!' 'Ah, I didn't want you to say that!' she protested; 'she never meant to be so unkind--it was all for the baby's sake!' I was distinctly astonished, for all her sympathy in telling the story had seemed to lie in the other direction.