"They're only making a short cut through the place from the bog; I'm
delighted they've found it!" screamed back Mrs. Alexander.

The "Bollée" was at the hall door in another minute, and the mistress of
the house pulled the bell with numbed fingers. There was no response.

"Better go round to the kitchen," suggested her brother. "You'll find
they're talking too hard to hear the bell."

His sister took the advice, and a few minutes afterwards she opened the
hall door with an extremely perturbed countenance.

"I can't find a creature anywhere," she said, "either upstairs or
down--I can't understand Barnet leaving the house empty--"

"Listen!" interrupted Sir George, "isn't that the hounds?"

They listened.

"They're hunting down by the back avenue! come on, Janet!"

The motor-car took to flight again; it sped, soft-footed, through the
twilight gloom of the back avenue, while a disjointed, travelling
clamour of hounds came nearer and nearer through the woods. The
motor-car was within a hundred yards of the back lodge, when out of the
rhododendron-bush burst a spectral black-and-white dog, with floating
fringes of ragged wool and hideous bald patches on its back.

"Fennessy's dog!" ejaculated Mrs. Alexander, falling back in her seat.