"Wake up! I don't want to hear any more of your dismal stuff! I'm going," she cried imperiously. Mrs. Warwick shuddered, gasped, and seemed to come out of a deep sleep. Her guest was already going through the doorway into the hall. Just then Kay broke from Ethel's grasp, and bounded up the rickety stairs to the narrow passageway above. They heard him, reared up on his hind feet, beating with his fore-paws on a door, and barking furiously. "Call your dog down, or I will kill him!" shrieked the woman. "You will not dare to do it. Papa brought him from Europe for my sister, and he cost several hundred dollars," answered Ethel quickly, but she stood at the foot of the stairway and called the mastiff repeatedly, first persuasively, then authoritatively. But one tone had no more effect than the other. Kay continued his vociferous barking, and the sound of his huge body as he hurled it against the resisting door echoed through the house. "The brute is devilish! If I had a pistol I'd shoot him, even if he cost ten thousand dollars!" vowed the irate fortune-teller. "I will go and bring him down," cried Ethel, but the woman pushed her away. "No, no! you must not go up there! He is only after my big cat! I will go myself, and drive him down!" "But you must not strike him. Precious never allowed any one to strike him," Ethel called anxiously. The woman did not answer; she rushed on, and caught up a stick in the hall. Furious with anger she brought it down on Kay's back. There was a savage howl of pain and fury. The petted mastiff that had never felt the weight of a blow in his life, turned glaring red eyes on his assailant, and sprang at her ferociously. In a minute she was down under the huge paws. Ethel heard the blow, the savage howl of the startled dog, the fall of the woman's body on the floor, borne down by Kay's strong paws, then strangling shrieks: "Help! Help! He will kill me!" The girl bounded up the stairs and saw the infuriated Kay at the throat of the prostrate woman. With a cry of horror Ethel caught his collar in both hands, trying to drag him off. But Kay resisted all the efforts of her puny strength, and the contest must have ended in a tragedy but for a sudden happening. From within the closed and locked door where Kay had been struggling to effect an entrance sounded a low, clear, eager voice: "Kay! Kay! come to Precious!" The woman on the floor was kicking, struggling, shrieking, and the dog, with his paws on her breast had his fangs at her throat, but at that sweet, clear voice everything changed on the instant. The dog, with his jaws wide open, emitted a howl of savage joy, and leaped upward to the height of a man, then turned from the woman and back to the door. His victim scrambled to her feet, her garments hanging in tatters, her face ashy pale and absolutely fiendish, but before she could utter a word she saw Ethel come up to her with blazing eyes. The girl cried sternly: