a huge dog dragging a chain, rushing along the avenue towards them,
while louder shouts came from the opposite direction.

"We must run," he said very quietly, "there's something wrong with it;"
and two men, still calling and waving their arms, appeared at the end
nearest the house. Edmund took Molly by the arm, and they ran to meet
the men.

"Get the lady over the kitchen-garden wall!" shouted one who held a gun,
and as they came to the end of the hedge on their left they saw a wall
at right angles to it about five feet high. Molly looked for any sort of
footing in the bricks for one second, and then she felt Grosse lift her
in his arms, and deposit her on the top of the wall. She rolled over on
the other side into a strawberry bed in blossom. She heard a gun fired
as she jumped to her feet, and a second shot followed.

"He's dead, sir," she heard a voice say. "I'll open the gate for the
lady."

And then a garden gate a few yards off was opened inward, and Molly
walked to meet the man whom she supposed to be a head gardener. She
thanked him and went through the gate, to find Edmund, with a very white
face, leaning back on a stone bench built into the wall.

"The gentleman strained himself a bit," said the gardener, in a tone of
apology to Molly. "I can't think how he come to break his chain"--he
meant the dog this time. "I've said he ought to be shot long ago; now
they'll believe me. Why, he bit off the porter's ear at the station when
he first come, and he was half mad with rage to-day."