went over the door-sill. I did not know whether to be glad that the
water was going down and I could live like a Christian again, or to be
sorry, for fear of what we might find in the mud that was always left.

Peter was lying where I had put him, on a folded blanket laid in a
clothes-basket. I went back to him, and sat down beside the basket.

"Peter!" I said. "Poor old Peter! Who did this to you? Who hurt you?"
He looked at me and whined, as if he wanted to tell me, if only he
could.

"Was it Mr. Ladley?" I asked, and the poor thing cowered close to his
bed and shivered. I wondered if it had been he, and, if it had, why he
had come back. Perhaps he had remembered the towel. Perhaps he would
come again and spend the night there. I was like Peter: I cowered and
shivered at the very thought.

At nine o'clock I heard a boat at the door. It had stuck there, and
its occupant was scolding furiously at the boatman. Soon after I heard
splashing, and I knew that whoever it was was wading back to the
stairs through the foot and a half or so of water still in the hall. I
ran back to my room and locked myself in, and then stood, armed with
the stove-lid-lifter, in case it should be Ladley and he should break
the door in.

The steps came up the stairs, and Peter barked furiously. It seemed to
me that this was to be my end, killed like a rat in a trap and thrown
out the window, to float, like my kitchen chair, into Mollie Maguire's
kitchen, or to be found lying in the ooze of the yard after the river
had gone down.