But I turned on my heel and left him.  That was the last.  I could stand it no longer.  The thing must end right there, I thought, curse him!  The earth should be quit of him.  And as I went over the hill, I could hear his monstrous laugh reverberating against the sky.

Now, I pride myself on doing things neatly, and when I resolved to kill John Claverhouse I had it in mind to do so in such fashion that I should not look back upon it and feel ashamed.  I hate bungling, and I hate brutality.  To me there is something repugnant in merely striking a man with one’s naked fist—­faugh! it is sickening!  So, to shoot, or stab, or club John Claverhouse (oh, that name!) did not appeal to me.  And not only was I impelled to do it neatly and artistically, but also in such manner that not the slightest possible suspicion could be directed against me.

To this end I bent my intellect, and, after a week of profound incubation, I hatched the scheme.  Then I set to work.  I bought a water spaniel bitch, five months old, and devoted my whole attention to her training.  Had any one spied upon me, they would have remarked that this training consisted entirely of one thing—­retrieving.  I taught the dog, which I called “Bellona,” to fetch sticks I threw into the water, and not only to fetch, but to fetch at once, without mouthing or playing with them.  The point was that she was to stop for nothing, but to deliver the stick in all haste.  I made a practice of running away and leaving her to chase me, with the stick in her mouth, till she caught me.  She was a bright animal, and took to the game with such eagerness that I was soon content.

After that, at the first casual opportunity, I presented Bellona to John Claverhouse.  I knew what I was about, for I was aware of a little weakness of his, and of a little private sinning of which he was regularly and inveterately guilty.

“No,” he said, when I placed the end of the rope in his hand.  “No, you don’t mean it.”  And his mouth opened wide and he grinned all over his damnable moon-face.

“I—­I kind of thought, somehow, you didn’t like me,” he explained.  “Wasn’t it funny for me to make such a mistake?” And at the thought he held his sides with laughter.

“What is her name?” he managed to ask between paroxysms.

“Bellona,” I said.

“He! he!” he tittered.  “What a funny name.”

I gritted my teeth, for his mirth put them on edge, and snapped out between them, “She was the wife of Mars, you know.”

Then the light of the full moon began to suffuse his face, until he exploded with:  “That was my other dog.  Well, I guess she’s a widow now.  Oh!  Ho! ho!  E! he! he!  Ho!” he whooped after me, and I turned and fled swiftly over the hill.

The week passed by, and on Saturday evening I said to him, “You go away Monday, don’t you?”

He nodded his head and grinned.

“Then you won’t have another chance to get a mess of those trout you just ‘dote’ on.”