Peggy cut him short.
“I am going to take him away,” she said. “I’ll hide him... send him away from the place. But I won’t have him sacrificed for—for a silly accident like that. Both Mr and Mrs Chadwick will regret it later. He’s a very valuable dog.”
“Yes, miss,” he said. “I allow it’s a shame. But the master was very short and emphatic. What am I to say when ’e asks me if it’s done?”
“He won’t ask,” Peggy answered, as confident that her uncle would be nearly as pained at Diogenes’ death as her aunt was over the pekinese. “He will take it for granted, of course, that it is done. Go into the field and fire off your gun, and then return to the house. I’ll see to Diogenes.”
“You are quite sure, miss,” the man said doubtfully, “that you won’t let no one see that there dog? If the master thought that I’d deceived him—”
“No one shall see him,” Peggy answered, not considering at the moment the magnitude of this promise. “I take all responsibility. You leave him with me.”
“Very good, miss,” he said cheerfully, as much relieved to be free from the task appointed him as Peggy was to watch him vault the gate and disappear, gun in hand, into the field.
The next thing she and Diogenes heard was the report of the gun as this pseudo-murderer killed an imaginary dog in the field with bloodthirsty zest.