"Monsieur intends to visit Bois-le-Vaux again?"
"Without doubt I do. Only, next time in a different way."
"You should have slain the other. She will remember you."
"Peste, man! how could I slay her? I was on the branch--on the wall--as she reached me; my sword is not a mile long, and it would have been folly to shoot. The men were near; the report would have brought them to us--and I was saved. That was enough."
"All the same, 'tis a pity. The dog should be dead ere monsieur goes again. Of a surety she will smell him out if he is in or about the house. And, when she scents him, she will go nigh mad in her desire to reach him; will make noise enough to wake the dead."
"Humph!" said Andrew. "Perhaps 'tis a pity, too, since such is the case. Yet, 'tis too late now. There is nothing to be done."
"Ho, la, la!" exclaimed the other, "'tis not yet too late. She can be made away with. There are more ways than one of killing a dog."
For a minute or so Andrew reflected on the man's words. Reflected, because it was repugnant to him that the creature should be put out of the way--a creature who, although a brute, was a noble one. Yet, must her life stand in the way of what he had to accomplish--must he spare the hound and, thereby, fail in what he had to do, namely, to find his way to Marion Wyatt, to avenge his brother? No! If the animal stood between him and his task, better she perished a hundred times--better a hundred noble animals perished than that he should fail.
"She is certain to remember me--to discover my presence there when I return--you think?" he asked, still touched with regret at the necessity for her fate.
"I do not think. I am sure."