Peggy’s bright face clouded.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, thinking of her plans for the resurrection of Diogenes. “Then you will want to keep him?”
He shook his head.
“I quite appreciate the fact that he is only a trust. When you are ready for him he will be more than glad to return.”
“But,” she protested, “that wouldn’t be fair—to you.”
Unwittingly Mr Musgrave had roused her sympathy by that reference to his solitary fireside. It seemed rather selfish to claim Diogenes when he had grown attached to the dog.
“It wouldn’t be fair to you,” he returned, “or to Diogenes, if I kept him. That was not a part of the contract.”
“Was there any contract?” she asked, smiling. “I understood that you sacrificed your personal inclination in order to get Diogenes and me out of a hole. It was a hole, wasn’t it?”
She laughed. It was easy to laugh now over the miseries of that morning, but it had been no laughing matter at the time. John Musgrave had rendered her an unforgettable service in rescuing her from that dilemma.
“It was a hole—yes,” he admitted. He looked at her fixedly. “If, as you say, I sacrificed my inclination on that occasion, I have been adequately rewarded since; and so, you see, I can’t look on the matter as one requiring thanks. I will keep Diogenes until you are quite ready for him; then you can come in and fetch him, as you do now—and not bring him back again.”