“Probably he’s come home,” said Mrs. Andrews comfortably. “He never was much of a gadabout. I’m sure we’re just as grateful to you, Miss Strickland, for coming in to tell us what you knew. You couldn’t have been kinder if you’d been a parent yourself.” “Thank God I’m not!” Miss Strickland energetically and rather shockingly declared (though in a sense it would have been more shocking had she wished to be a parent). “If I _were_ I should hardly take my responsibilities as lightly as you do.” “I shall write to my sister to-morrow,” said Mr. Andrews with dignity, “and my wife will write to Elsie.” Miss Strickland walked to the door. Her last hope had flickered out with the mention of Aunt Anne at Clapham. A situation occupied by Aunt Anne was impregnable. Onoria knew herself outwitted by the ponderous stupidity of facts. It was a cold, foggy evening, the streets of Little Ticklington were badly lighted and empty. It seemed a long way home. A curious stifling sense of dread overtook Onoria. She told herself sharply that when a thing has already happened it is silly to be afraid of its happening again. Nevertheless she hurried, as if she might by hurrying escape what was to overtake her. Bridget had lit the gas in the hall, and the fire in the drawing room burnt brightly. Prendergast lay a little on one side in his basket. He was not snoring as he usually did. Miss Strickland leaned over him anxiously. He did not open his eyes or turn his head to look at her, and then she saw that he never would again. He had made up his mind what he wanted. A wild impulse to rush across and tell Peter Gubbins shook Miss Strickland. Nobody else loved Prendergast, but Peter had loved him. He had loved him nearly as much as he loved Samson. Miss Strickland looked down with quivering lips at the obese form of the dead pug. He was all she had in the world, and he had taken this opportunity to slip out of it. Miss Strickland was a fighter. She was a very fine fighter and up till this moment no wave of disaster had ever been beyond her power to surmount. But you cannot fight the memory of a dead dog. Prendergast overwhelmed Miss Strickland. She sank on the floor beside his basket sobbing as if her heart, which was already broken, could break again. “They might have left me this!” she said between her sobs. She spoke as if Elsie and Peter between them had killed Prendergast, although she knew that this was nonsense. CHAPTER IX Peter Gubbins had the type of mind which invariably sees danger in the most unlikely places. He apprehended it from every wayside flower. Nothing was too trivial or too transitory for Peter to snatch from it in passing a whiff of disaster. He never mounted a tram without expecting to break his leg, and he never ate a meal in a strange place without anticipating typhoid. And yet the mere sound of Onoria’s voice had driven him helter skelter towards the abyss of matrimony.