“Then I heard a dog’s feet patter down the passage, and afterwards a lonely sobbing. And I found Storm in the cupboard under the stair, crying his big heart out. I was lonely, too, and he knew it.”
“You know much of dogs,” said the Master, with grudging praise.
“I should like to know more—and less of my own kind.”
“You’re young, to be so hard.”
A faint smile crossed her face. “And you?”
“Oh, I’m old as the hills. A man needs to be hard, or what’s the use of him?”
As he turned to pile fresh logs on the fire, a lull came in the tempest, and Storm lifted his head sharply from his lazy, stretched-out paws. Some sound had stolen from the snow outside that only he could hear. He got up, whining and growling by turns as he laid his nose to a crack in the door. Then he yapped, and after that he howled; and Hardcastle, who had thought of opening the door to learn who came, thought better of it. He knew what the wolf-cry meant.
“Shame on you, lad,” he said.
The fire went out of Storm. His tail drooped. He cringed about this new master of his choice; and, when no blow came, he settled himself by the hearth again and slept. But now he had muddled dreams for company.