"He's yours and mine," she rejoined, with a beautiful disregard for the fact that Diogenes was in reality Mr Chadwick's property. "He's really more yours than mine, because he would have had to go to strangers if you hadn't saved him, and then I should never have seen him again. It's rather amusing being joint owners in a dog. Do you remember telling me you didn't like dogs? I knew you must be mistaken." "I am beginning to believe," he replied, "that that was only one of many mistaken ideas. It is, as a matter of fact, a mistake to express a decided opinion on any subject in which one is inexperienced." Peggy glanced at him with newly-kindled interest, a little puzzled as well as pleased at his frank admission. Then meeting his gaze fully she abruptly lowered her own, and looked delightfully shy. "I think," she said irrelevantly, "I'll take Diogenes for his walk." Mr Musgrave stooped and unfastened the chain. There was no need for a lead when Diogenes went abroad with Peggy. "Come with me," she said coaxingly, when they reached the gate, "as far as the second field. There are bulls in it." Mr Musgrave thought it very proper that Peggy should be afraid of bulls; he therefore very willingly accompanied her for her protection. And when the danger was past, having in mind that possibly the bulls would be still there when she returned from her walk, he suggested the advisability of his accompanying her all the way. "Will you?" Peggy cried. "That will be nice. You are sure you don't mind?" Mr Musgrave was very positive on this point. Indeed, he minded so little that when they met the vicar, and subsequently Miss Simpson, he experienced so little embarrassment in being seen in Miss Annersley's company that he felt rather pleased than disconcerted when these encounters sprang unexpectedly upon them. Mr John Musgrave was, in the light of Moresby tradition, "walking out." CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT. Mr Errol, seated in his pleasant drawing-room scanning a newspaper while his wife occupied herself with some sewing in the twilight hour before the lamps were lighted, suddenly lowered his paper, and looked with surprised eyes towards the window, which he faced. For a moment he doubted the evidence of his senses. Had his eyesight been less keen and his mind less evenly balanced, he might have been deceived into believing that his imagination was playing him tricks; but, after the first moment of doubt, he realised that the amazing sight of Mr Musgrave peeping surreptitiously in through the window and almost immediately withdrawing with the guilty alacrity of a person caught in some unlawful act was no optical illusion, but a very astounding actuality.