My listener lay on the other side of the fire, his face half hidden by a big sombrero; sometimes he glanced up questioningly when a point needed elaboration, but he uttered no single word till I had reached the end, and his manner all through the recital was grave and attentive. Overhead, the wash of the wind in the pine branches filled in the pauses; the darkness settled down over the sea, and the stars came out in thousands, and by the time I finished the moon had risen to flood the scene with silver. Yet, by his face and eyes, I knew quite well that the doctor was listening to something he had expected to hear, even if he had not actually anticipated all the details.

“You did well to send for me,” he said very low, with a significant glance at me when I finished; “very well,”⁠—and for one swift second his eye took in Sangree⁠—“for what we have to deal with here is nothing more than a werewolf⁠—rare enough, I am glad to say, but often very sad, and sometimes very terrible.”