"She hasn't come up-stairs," thought Anne, who had left Judy reading in the library when she went to bed.
There was no light in the room, and as little Anne lay there, trembling and listening, her breath came quickly, for she was a timid little soul, and the talk of burglars that day had upset her; and without the wind howled, and within the house was very, very still.
At last she heard a sound. "She's coming," she thought, thankfully, but all at once she became conscious that the sound was not in the upper hall, but down-stairs on the porch.
There was the quick patter of little feet, and then an appealing whine.
"Why, it's a dog," said Anne, sitting up straight, "It's a dog."
She got up and looked out of the window. A little short-eared, stubby-tailed Boston terrier was running back and forth on the sand, anxiously.
Anne was a tender-hearted lover of animals, and his apparent distress appealed to her.
"I'll go down and see what's the matter with him," she decided, thrusting her feet into her slippers and tying the ribbons of her pink dressing-gown.
She flew down the long dark hall to the top of the steps that led below, and there she stopped still, with her hand on her heart.
The fire in the hall was still burning, and the flames wavered fitfully over the great picture above the mantel, and on the jar of red roses in front of it. The rest of the hall was in the shadow, and darker than the shadows, Anne had made out the figure of a man standing on the threshold.