masses of flowers, the creepers over the Grange were not allowed to riot
too extravagantly. And yet the strange haunting sense of fear was there.
Now and again a huge black head would uplift from the coppice growth, and
a long, rumbling growl come from between a double row of white teeth. For
the dogs were no fiction, they lived and bred in the fifteen or twenty
acres of coppice round the house, where they were fed regularly and
regularly thrashed without mercy if they showed in the garden. Perhaps
they looked more fierce and truculent than they really were, being Cuban
bloodhounds, but they gave a weird colour to the place and lent it new
terror to the simple folk around.

The bell was swinging dolefully over the stable-turret; it rang out its
passing note till the clock struck eight and then mercifully ceased. At
the same moment precisely as she had done any time the last seven years
the lady of the house descended the broad, black oak staircase to the
hall. A butler of the old-fashioned type bowed to her and announced that
dinner was ready. He might have been the butler of an archbishop from
his mien and deportment, yet his evening dress was seedy and shiny to
the last degree, his patent leather boots had long lost their lustre,
his linen was terribly frayed and yellow. Two footmen in livery stood in
the hall. They might have been supers playing on the boards of a
travelling theatre, their once smartly cut and trimmed coats hung
raggedly upon them.

As to the lady, who was tall and handsome, with dark eyes and features
contrasting strangely with hair as white as the frost on a winter's
landscape, there was a far-away, strained look in the dark eyes, as if
they were ever night and day looking for something, something that would
never be found. In herself the lady was clean and wholesome enough, but
her evening dress of black silk and lace was dropping into fragments, the