"By Jove, a curly-haired spaniel.

Poor Mortimer will never see his pet again.

Well, I do not know that this place contains any secret which we have not already fathomed.

He could hide his hound, but he could not hush its voice, and hence came those cries which even in daylight were not pleasant to hear.

On an emergency he could keep the hound in the out-house at Merripit, but it was always a risk, and it was only on the supreme day, which he regarded as the end of all his efforts, that he dared do it.