“He’s just pleased to be out of the house,” Emily replied in equally low tones. “Give him a moment, and then he shall be our loyal protector, as silent as the grave and as deadly as a wolf.”

Her assertion was somewhat undermined, however, by Keeper’s joyful salvo of barks as he shook himself free of the snow, immediately racing off into the dark, chasing down an intoxicating scent.

“You can’t hold it against him,” Emily said as she watched him vanish into the dark. “Who wouldn’t want to run through the pristine snow under the bright moon, given half the chance?”

Anne smiled; despite the grave circumstances, it was uplifting to see the simple pleasure the dog took in life. It gladdened her heart to remember that for every dark corner and unjust hurt in the world, there was a place of light, hope and goodness. Ensuring the latter outweighed the former was surely every person’s greatest task on this earth.

Tucked under her arm she had all the equipment she deemed necessary for their examination: her drawing box and writing slope. They carried a lamp each and a can of hot, strong tea that Emily had prepared to help steel their nerves. Anne had fetched the spare schoolhouse key from Papa’s bureau, feeling a terrible thrill as she concealed it in her sleeve. Surely God would forgive a little sin if it led to the greater good?

But just as Anne was about to turn the key in the lock, she heard a sound to strike dread into her heart: the voice of one Arthur Bell Nicholls.

“Ladies,” he questioned them with an air of authority he did not wear with a great deal of comfort, “may I ask what you are about at such an hour?”

“You may not,” Emily said. “Good night to you, sir.”

“If I may be so bold . . .”

Emily sighed heavily, and Anne bit back a smile. She would never be as openly contemptuous of Mr. Nicholls as her sister was, but it was true that his laborious effort at gentlemanly conduct was surely one of his least appealing characteristics. Much as had Papa, he had worked diligently to free himself from a life of poverty in Ireland, but unlike Papa, though undoubtedly a good and well-intentioned man, he had all the gravitas and moral authority of one of Tabby’s jellied calf’s feet.

“It is close to midnight,” Mr. Nicholls said. “I feel duty bound to say, as your father’s second, and your voluntary protector, that it is rather dangerous for three young women to be abroad unaccompanied. I am afraid that I must insist—”