Her voice choking up, Vera tells Framton that her aunt can't accept that they're gone and keeps expecting them to return and step in through the window like they always did when coming home. She insists that the window be kept open from morning to night every day. Vera says Mrs. Sappleton constantly talks as if the three men just left that day, her husband in his white coat and her youngest brother singing "Bertie, Why do you bound?" to tease her. Just then, Mrs. Sappleton enters the room, apologizing for keeping Framton waiting. She also tells him that she hopes he doesn't mind the open window; her husband and brothers will be coming home from hunting soon and always come in that way, making- she says with exasperated affection- a mess of her carpets. She chatters on about the hunting trip, which Framton finds rather ghastly. He tries to change the subject to his nervous condition without much success. As they talk, Mrs. Sappleton's eyes keep straying to the open window, and suddenly she says, "Here they are at last!" Feeling both creeped-out by and sympathetic to Mrs. Sappleton's delusions, Framton glances over at Vera and is startled to catch a look of incredulous horror on her face as she gazes out the window and across the lawn. He automatically turns to look out the window himself.
Meanwhile in Mrs. Sappleton's parlor, Mr. Sappleton steps in through the window and greets his wife, asking who they just saw running away from the house. She says it was a strange man names Mr. Nuttel; he only wanted to talk about his illnesses and then he got up and ran out the door, looking as though he'd seen a ghost. Vera speaks up and says that she expects he fled because of the spaniel: he told her before her aunt came down that he was terrified of dogs. This was because once, while by the Ganges river, he was set upon by pariah dogs and forced to flee into a nearby cemetery. He spent the night in a newly dug grave, with the dogs pacing, snarling, and foaming above him. It would be enough, Vera concludes, to give anyone a fear of dogs... "Romance at short notice was her specialty."