"You little fool! Who is afraid to face a danger that he does not understand? If ever you dare to try me as far as that again, I'll—— Good God, Janet!" he broke off, with irritable tenderness, "you mustn't cry. Can't you see that a man who wants to be—unselfish, you know, and nonsense of that kind—has to behave like a fiend incarnate. It's easy to be soft when you have not to keep the fight hot in you."
"Leo," said she, "if you don't kiss me at once, I shall hate you for ever.—Have you stopped to think," she went on, as if in apology for obtaining her demand, "to think what the life here means to me? I loathe the moors; they frighten me; it is all so dreary. And the people father brings to make things livelier for me, they only aggravate the loneliness. Leo, if I were one little bit more of a fool, I should either cry myself blind or—well, the lake is deep enough, and the cold would only be for the first minute or two."
Roddick's voice was in rags when he spoke.
"I'm a brute, child; why didn't you learn it in time?"
He took her to him, and petted her with a helpless mixture of the father and the lover that was infinitely pitiable.
"Leo," she whispered, looking up and smiling through her sobs, "is this our happy Christmas?"
Before Roddick could reply, the dog began to whine in a way that called for attention. He had his nose to the ground, and evidently scented something not to his liking. Then he was off like a rocket, and a dismal shriek came from a clump of heather just above them. The night was clear, with stars enough to show things in a sort of gloaming light. In the middle of the clump was a writhing mass of rags and dishevelled hair.
"My wife, by——! Janet, call off the dog and run back home. It is no place for you!" cried Roddick.
But Tramp was too excited to hear the girl's call. He was running round and round the figure, a stifled bark cutting into his growls now and then. Janet ran forward and gripped him by the collar—none too soon, for every moment he was on the point of making a spring. The figure got up out of the heather. Roddick cursed the light, because it was enough to show Janet the hideous contortions of the creature's face.