Mr Musgrave, although slightly embarrassed, was not indisposed to become an object for Miss Annersley's lasting gratitude; he liked the eager impulsiveness of her speech; it made him feel that he was rendering her an inestimable service; and to render valuable service with so slight personal inconvenience was agreeable; it conveyed a comfortable sense of being useful. "Certainly I will do that," he said. "It is a small service. I wish I could help you more effectively." Mr Musgrave was quite sincere in the expression of this wish. He was well aware of Peggy's affection for the ugly brute which was her constant companion, and he knew what a wrench it would be for her to part with Diogenes; but Diogenes' banishment was inevitable. That point was very clear. "If you think he will come with me I will take him now," he said. Diogenes appeared so very reluctant to accompany Mr Musgrave and so very determined to follow Peggy that Peggy finally suggested taking him herself, and leaving him secure under lock and key in Mr Musgrave's garage. If this arrangement occurred to Mr Musgrave as somewhat unconventional he lost sight of its inadvisability on that account in view of the greater inadvisability of attempting to drag an unwilling bull-dog, whose unfailing gentleness he had reason to question, away from the only person who appeared to have any sort of control over him. Mr Musgrave therefore relinquished the lead and prepared to accompany Peggy and the bull-dog back to his orderly home. A good deed may carry its own reward; but in the days that were to follow, in the weeks and months that followed, Mr Musgrave was moved to doubt the infallibility of providential recognition of unselfish deeds. It is fortunate for the persistence in the instinct for obeying a generous impulse that the future is mercifully shrouded in the obscurity of unseen things. Arrived at the house, Mr Musgrave and Peggy and Diogenes behaved very much after the manner of three conspirators. In a sense they were conspirators, and the third was a criminal conspirator. Diogenes, with agreeable recollections of former sport connected with Mr Musgrave's back entrance, plucked up his spirit on passing through the gate and looked expectantly round for Mr Musgrave's cat; Peggy, with less pleasant memories of that former occasion, tightened her hold on the lead and kept an attentive eye on her charge; Mr Musgrave, conscious of nothing save the undesirability of being seen by the servants under existing circumstances, walked with a sheepish and cautious air past the back of his dwelling, and on reaching the stables threw open the door with guilty haste and drew it after him as he followed close upon Peggy's heels. Once inside, safe from observation, with the door shut against intrusion, he assumed his normal manner, and ceased to look like a middle-aged Guy Fawkes, or a gentlemanly dog-stealer. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.