Gilles de Retz wrote rapidly, rising only at intervals to throw a fresh log of wood across the vast iron dogs on either side of the wide fireplace, as the rain from the northwest beat more and more fiercely upon the small glazed panes of the window and howled among the innumerable gargoyles and twisted roof-stacks of the Hotel de Pornic.
Within the chamber itself, in the intervals of the storm, a low continuous growling made itself evident.

At first it was disregarded by the writer, but presently, by its sheer pertinacity, the sound so irritated him that he rose from his seat, and, striding to a narrow door covered with a heavy curtain, he threw it wide open to the wall.
Then through the black oblong so made, a huge and shaggy she-wolf slouched slowly into the room.
The marshal kicked the brute impatiently with his slippered foot as she entered, and, strange to relate, the wolf slunk past him with the cowed air of a dog conscious of having deserved punishment.
"Astarte, vilest beast," he cried, "have I not a thousand times warned you to be silent and wait outside when I am at work within my chamber ?" The she-wolf eyed her master as he went back towards his table.

Then, seeing him lift his pen, with a sigh of content she dropped down upon the warm hearthstone, lying with her haunches towards the blazing logs and her bristling head couched upon her paws.

Her yellow shining eyes blinked sleepily and approvingly at him, while with her tongue she rasped the soft pads of her feet one by one, biting away the fur from between the toes with her long and gleaming teeth.

Presently Astarte appeared to doze off.