“My God!—the fiend who did that ought to be—hanged!”
There was a silence that the kitten tried to break. She essayed to mew, almost as if she had something to tell; but no sound came from the broken jaws gummed together with matter and dried blood. One blue eye gazed dully round, the other was battered into her head like a crushed turquoise. Every paw but one was broken; they trailed behind her, and her body waggled strangely from an injured spine. I was afraid to take the little mangled body to my breast for fear of what fresh pain I might cause it. I thought I heard it moaning like a woman: yet its mouth did not move.
“Hanging would be too good for the brute—brandy, Stair—your wife is fainting.”
“No—no; milk—bring warm milk for my baby—it has Anthony’s eyes—my poor little white baby—all broken—”
The moaning that did not come from Snowie filled the room.
“No use giving the poor little beggar milk, Mrs Stair—it is dying—better to put it out of its misery at once—drink this brandy, will you—got any poison in the house, Stair?”
“Yes.”
The man took the kitten from me and went from the room, and I followed; but as I passed Maurice Stair I whispered three words at him, with terrible eyes:
“Take it then!”
I had suffered too much.