The Night Horseman by Max Brand

In the living-room below they heard it, Dan and Kate Cumberland. All day she had sat by the fire which still blazed on the hearth, replenished from time to time by the care of Wung Lu. She had taken up some sewing, and she worked at it steadily. Some of that time Dan Barry was in the room, sitting through long intervals, watching her with lynx-eyed attention. Very rarely did he speak -- almost never, and she could have numbered upon her two hands the words he had spoken -- ay, and she could have repeated them one by one. Now and again he rose and went out, and the wolf-dog went with him each time. But towards the last Black Bart preferred to stay in the room, crouched in front of her and blinking at the fire, as if he knew that each time his master would return to the fire. Then, why leave the pleasant warmth for the chilly greyness of the day outside?

There he remained, stirring only now and then to lift a clumsy paw and brush it across his eyes in an oddly human gesture. Once or twice, also, he lifted that great, scarred head and laid it on her knees, looking curiously from her busy hands to her face, and from her face back again to her work, until, having apparently assured himself that all was well, he dropped his head again and lay once more motionless. She could see him open a listless eye when the master entered the room again. And with each coming of Dan Barry she felt again surrounded as if by invisible arms. Something was prying at her, striving to win a secret from her.