"Not so," he interrupted. "The reason lies in my wish to oblige you."

Peggy nodded.

"That is a reason I also have discovered," she said. "I can give the promise now which you asked me for on Christmas Eve--do you remember?...

about the smoking... because the argument I used then doesn't hold any longer. I wish," she added, "that I had given the promise at the time."

"Thank you," John Musgrave returned quietly.

It was a curious fact, in consideration of how objectionable the practice of smoking in women had once appeared to Mr Musgrave, that he should experience so little triumph in this victory. He had seen Peggy smoke on two separate occasions, and, although the sight had pleased him ill, he had reluctantly admitted that with some women the habit, if deplorable, was not unbecoming. The reason Peggy allowed for making the promise, rather than the promise itself, gave John Musgrave pleasure.

Peggy took an affectionate farewell of the wondering Diogenes, enjoining on him the necessity for behaving with the utmost propriety; and then, while Mr Musgrave held the door cautiously ajar, she slipped out after him through the narrow opening and left Diogenes, indignantly protesting, on the other side.

Peggy returned home with a heart so lightened that she found it difficult to dissemble before the Chadwicks and wear a mien becoming to the double tragedy that had robbed Mrs Chadwick of her pampered pet and herself of her daily companion.

"I am awfully sorry, Peggy," her uncle said, putting an arm through hers as they went in to lunch together, "about Diogenes. I know you will miss him a lot. But your aunt was so upset there was nothing else for it. He had to be got rid of."

"He had to be got rid of," echoed Peggy, and lifted a pair of reproachful eyes to his face. "You might have thought of a kinder way out," she said. "You could quite easily have found him a home, and have got rid of him that way. Poor Diogenes!"

"I wish I had," he said. "But Ruby worried me. There wasn't time to think... Well, his troubles are over now, poor brute!"

Whereat Peggy involuntarily smiled. Diogenes' troubles, like John Musgrave's, were, she realised, only just beginning.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

The troubles of Mr Musgrave as the owner of a bull-dog began forthwith and multiplied exceedingly. Diogenes was driven into Rushleigh that afternoon in the car, and subsequently, to his secret disgust, returned disguised as a brindle, which disguise he diligently sought to remove with so much success that the journeys to Rushleigh became periodic, and Diogenes underwent chameleon-like changes in the intervals.

A large dog-kennel and brand-new chain were purchased, and, save when Mr Musgrave took Diogenes for the daily run, and Peggy, availing herself of his permission, slipped in through the tradesmen's entrance and released her excited pet, Diogenes spent his days in complaining inactivity, with ample time in which to reflect upon his misdeeds.

The arrival of Diogenes affected some change in Mr Musgrave's household. Eliza promptly gave notice. She would, she informed the surprised master of the establishment, as soon remain in a place with an elephant. Martha, who would have suffered elephants and other undesirable pets rather than quit Mr Musgrave's service, sought to propitiate Diogenes, and, being a disciple of the famous explorer who phrased the axiom that the stomach governs the world, she carried bones and other delicacies to Diogenes' kennel, to the detriment of his figure, and so won his affections that after Peggy, whom he adored, and Mr Musgrave, to whom he became speedily attached, Martha ranked as his very good friend.

The chauffeur had his doubts about Diogenes, and he nursed darker doubts in regard to his employer. To take a white bull-dog into Rushleigh and fetch home a brindle that was constantly changing its coat occurred to King is a highly suspicious circumstance.

"There'll be a police case over that dog," he remarked to Martha. "You mark my words. I've known similar cases and they've always been found out. The governor's asking for trouble."

The weight upon Mr Musgrave's conscience attendant on the duplicity which he of necessity was called upon to practise daily was so burdensome that he was imperatively moved to confide in some one, and thereby share, if not shift, the responsibility. Some idea of confiding in Walter Errol had been with him from the first; and, meeting the vicar one morning when he was returning from an early walk with Diogenes, the desire to unburden his mind hardened to a determination upon perceiving the amazement in the vicar's eyes as they rested upon the dog he led an unwilling captive on the chain.

The vicar halted in the road and laughed.

"I heard you were starting kennels," he said; "but, upon my word! I didn't believe it. Wherever did you buy that dog?"

Mr Musgrave had not bought Diogenes and he had no intention of pretending that he had.

"It was given to me," he said.

"Oh, that explains it," the vicar answered.

But even while he spoke it occurred to Mr Musgrave that the dog had not been given to him; he had offered to take it.

"I am taking care of it for some one," he corrected himself.

The vicar looked mystified and faintly amused.

"That's doing a lot for friendship, isn't it, John?" he asked.

John Musgrave reddened.

"Is obliging a friend an excessive courtesy?" he inquired.

"Well, no. I stand rebuked."

The vicar stooped and patted Diogenes and looked him over critically.

"It's a funny thing," he said, "but he's extraordinarily like the bull they had up at the Hall--except, of course, for his colour."

"He is," Mr Musgrave said, firing off his bomb as calmly as though he were making a very ordinary statement, "the same dog."

"Oh!" said the vicar, and straightened himself and looked John Musgrave squarely in the eyes. "I understood," he said, "that Diogenes was shot."

"Diogenes ought to have been shot," replied Mr Musgrave, and it ran through his mind at the moment to wish that Diogenes had been shot, but he checked the ungenerous thought, and added: "Miss Annersley rescued him and smuggled him away. He is, as a matter of fact, in hiding from the authorities."

"Which accounts," remarked the vicar, "for his colour." He stooped to pat Diogenes again in order to conceal from his friend's eyes the smile in his own. "And Miss Annersley brought him to you?" he said, with the mental addition, "Little baggage?"

"No," said Mr Musgrave, and proceeded with great care to outline the facts of the case, omitting details as far as possible. "She was so very upset," he finished. "And really it seemed regrettable to sacrifice a valuable dog after the mischief was done. The only uneasiness I feel in the matter is in regard to the Chadwicks. I should not like to annoy them."

"I think you may put that fear out of your thoughts at least," Mr Errol replied. "Only yesterday Mr Chadwick was telling me how vexed he was to have been obliged to destroy the dog. He expressed the wish that he had sent him away instead."

Reassured on this head, Mr Musgrave looked relieved.

"I'm glad to know that," he said. "Quite possibly Diogenes will be received back into the family later on, when time has softened Mrs Chadwick's chagrin."

"In the meanwhile," Walter Errol said, laughing, "I foresee your attachment for the--dog having grown to the extent of refusing to part with him."

John Musgrave was by nature literal, nor did he on this occasion depart from his habit of interpreting his friend's speech to the letter rather than the spirit.

"My affection for Diogenes," he returned, "will be tempered always with anxiety. And in any case the motive which led to my adoption of him will qualify any distress I may feel in parting with him. It will give me immense pleasure to restore her pet to Miss Annersley."

"Yes," agreed the vicar decidedly, "Miss Annersley, of course, must have Diogenes back."

He returned to the vicarage for breakfast in a highly amused frame of mind, but, having been sworn by John Musgrave to secrecy, was denied the pleasure of relating this amazing tale of Mr Musgrave's benevolence for the benefit of his wife. The story of Diogenes must for the present remain a secret.

But as a secret shared by an increasing number of persons it stood in considerable danger of ultimate disclosure. The risk of discovery in the quarter in which discovery was most to be avoided was minimised by the departure, of the Chadwicks for the Continent a month earlier than had been intended. The responsibility for hastening the departure rested with Mr Chadwick, who, worried with his wife's constant bewailing her pet's untimely end, and equally harassed by his niece's uncomplaining but very obvious regret for her faithful four-footed companion, decided that change of scene might help them to forget these small troubles which depressed the atmosphere of his hitherto genial home.

Peggy, from motives quite apart from the distress she successfully feigned, encouraged him in this belief, and once away from Moresby brightened so suddenly and became so surprisingly cheerful that her uncle was puzzled to understand why his wife did not show a corresponding gaiety, but continued to bemoan her loss as she had done at home.

Because the murder of Diogenes had lain heavily on his conscience in consideration of the girl's affection for the dog, the reaction of Peggy's spirits occasioned Mr Chadwick immense relief. She could not, he decided, have been so devoted to the brute as he had supposed. But in any case he felt grateful to her for her generosity in sparing him reproach. The only reproach he received in respect of Diogenes' end came from a quarter whence he least expected it, and from whence it was least deserved. So little prepared was he to hear his wife denounce the execution of Diogenes as mistaken and absurd, and to complain of this ill-advised act as vexatious to herself, that he found no words in which to answer her. It was significant of the unreasonableness of human nature, he reflected, that she could hurl such a charge at him, and feel herself ill-used by a prompt obedience to her expressed wish. Also it pointed to the unwisdom of carrying out a death sentence within twenty-four hours of its delivery. The road was already in the making along which Diogenes would eventually return.

Peggy decided that when they got home she would bring Diogenes to life by degrees. She was not specially desirous of bringing him to life in a hurry, her reasons for a gradual resuscitation being governed by considerations of so complex and feminine a character that Mr Musgrave would have failed to follow them. The vicar, on the other hand, would have apprehended her motives very readily; he had a surer grasp than John Musgrave on the complexities of the human mind.

To one person in Moresby the addition of Diogenes to Mr Musgrave's establishment afforded entire satisfaction; that person was Miss Simpson. For the bull-dog at the Hall she had confessed to absolute terror; but Mr Musgrave's brindle was a dear, so much handsomer and more gentle.