Garde heard and comprehended. Rust heard and was careless.
“Oh, go, Ad—Mr. Rust, please go at once,” pleaded the girl already closing down the window.
“Garde! Garde!—not forever?” cried the man in a last despair.
“Forever,” she answered, so faintly that he barely heard, and then the window came down to its place.
Limping back into the shadow, at the rear of the garden, Adam lay out full length on the ground, as two tiptoeing figures entered the gate and came sneaking silently about the somber house. He saw them make a circuit of the garden. One of them walked to within a rod of where he lay—therefore within a rod of death,—and then turned uncertainly away and retired from the place with his fellow-hound.
The rover heard them go on up the street, hurriedly making toward the woods. He came back to the place by the window, at last, and whistled softly once again, unable to believe that what he had heard could be so. There must be some explanation, if only he could get it.
There was no response, partially for the reason that Garde had sunk down upon the floor, on the other side of the window, in a dead faint.
His lameness fully upon him again, Adam hobbled a few steps away, halted to look back, yearningly, and then once more dragged himself off, to join the faithful beef-eaters, waiting in patience with the boat.