"Oh, I didn't say that!" She stopped short. "Did you see that big fish jump just then? Right beyond the pond-lilies there. This place must be full of them." "Carp, most likely. It's pretty deep up at this end." She stopped to watch the circle widen and disappear, leaving the water black. "Austin ... do you suppose I ought to have spoken about Menning before?" "I don't know that it matters. They'll get him anyhow." There was no good in mere speculation, and I didn't want to enlarge on the subject of Menning. She had come into contact with sufficient ugliness this summer already. "It's more than probable that he has cleared out altogether by this time. In any case, until we know, I think it would be better that you kept near the house unless one of us is with you. There's no good running any risks." We had passed the mill and were just turning into the little path that would bring us to the road near the bungalow, when Lessing met us. "I thought you two would never turn up," he said. "I'm dying of hunger. How's the patient, Austin?" "Getting on. You can carry the pail if you want to work. Where's that dog got to?" I had released the setter some little way back, and he had kept within sight nearly all the way. Missing him now, I turned to whistle, and saw Leo, a pale shadow in the dusk, nosing eagerly about the scattered logs that lay in the clearing near the mill. Lessing called him several times by name, sharply, but he paid no attention. "Got a rabbit, most likely. Wait a minute. I'll soon fetch him out of that." He walked back the few paces to the clearing, and Mary sat down at the edge of the path with a little sigh of resignation. I offered her a cigarette, and for some minutes we smoked in silence, listening for her brother's step. Presently Mary stood up. "I'm not going to wait here all evening! We'll go on to the house and let him catch up to us." We had nearly reached the bungalow before Lessing overtook us. He was holding Leo by a handkerchief knotted through his collar. The dog came unwillingly, cringing against his master's legs, the hair along his spine bristling and his ears kid back. "Why, look at that!" Mary exclaimed. "I've never seen him act that way before. You haven't been beating him, Dick?" "I'd like to!" Lessing stooped to take a fresh grip on the dog's collar. "Be quiet, you brute! You aren't going back there now." Mary patted the setter's head. "Poor old boy! Did he get a rat, and wouldn't they let him have it! Was it a good rat, Leo?" But the dog only twisted impatiently from her touch, his head turned backwards and his nose working. "It was a darn good rat," said Lessing, "but he won't have it now. Go open the shed door, Mary, till I get him in." She threw open the door of the tool-shed, and Lessing thrust the dog inside, pushing him in with his foot, and fastened the latch. "That's that! Aren't you staying for supper, Austin?"