"Bunny!" There was passionate protest in the exclamation; but he passed it by.
"What's the good of arguing?" he said irritably. "We can't help ourselves. If the mother would rather marry that bawling beast Sheppard than starve on a doorstep with us, who's to blame her? I suppose we're included in the bargain for good, are we?"
Maud nodded mutely, her fingers locked and straining against each other.
Bunny screwed his face up for a moment. Then: "There's that filthy gramophone again!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Go and stop it, I say! I can't bear the noise! I won't bear it! It's--it's--it's infernal! That's what it is!" He flung his arms up frenziedly above his head, and then suddenly uttered an anguished cry of pain.
Maud was on her feet on the instant. She caught the arms, drew them firmly down again. "Oh, don't, dear, don't!" she said. "You know you can't!"
The boy's face was convulsed. "I didn't know! I can sometimes! Oh, Maud, I hate life! I hate it! I hate it!"
His voice choked, became a gasping moan, ceased altogether.
Maud stooped over him. His eyes were shut, his face white as death. "Bunny, Bunny darling!" she whispered passionately. "I would give--all the world--to make it better for you!"
There fell a silence, while gradually the awful paroxysm began to pass.
Then very abruptly Bunny opened his eyes. "No, you wouldn't!" he said unexpectedly.
"Indeed I would!" she said very earnestly.
"You wouldn't!" he reiterated, with the paralysing conviction that refuses to hear any reasoning. "If you would, you'd have married Lord Saltash years ago, and been rich enough to pay one of the big men to put me right."
She winced sharply. "Bunny! You're not to talk to me of Lord Saltash. It isn't kind. He is the one man in the world I--couldn't marry."
"Rot!" said Bunny. "You know you're in love with him."
"I know I couldn't marry him," she said, a piteous quiver in her voice. "It is cruel to--to--" She broke off.
"All right," said Bunny waiving the point. "Find some other rich man then! I don't care who it is. You'll have to pretty soon. We shall neither of us stand this Sheppard person for long."
"If I could only--somehow--make a living for the two of us!" the girl said.
"You can't!" Again deadly conviction swept aside argument. "You're not clever enough, and you haven't time--unless you propose to leave me to the tender mercies of the Sheppard. It would be a quick way out of the difficulty so far as I am concerned anyway."
"Of course I could never leave you!" Maud said quickly.
"All right then. Marry--and be quick about it!" said Bunny.
He turned his drawn, white face to the window--a face of unconscious pathos that often stirred his sister to the depths. Youth--and the gladness of youth--had never existed for Bunny Brian. Life for so long as he could remember had always been a long, dreary round of pain and disappointment, of restless nights and dragging, futile days. Only Maud, who shared them all, knew to the uttermost the woeful bitterness of the lad's existence. It hurt her cruelly, that bitterness, moving her to a perpetual self-sacrifice, of the extent of which even Bunny had small conception.
She identified herself completely with him, and had so done since the tenth year of her life when he had come--a puny, wailing baby--into the world to fill the void of her childish heart. She had, as it were, grown up in his service, worn and sallow and thin, with the sharp edges of nerves that were always strung up to too high a pitch--the nerves of one who scarcely ever knew a whole night of undisturbed rest. They had told upon her, those years of anxiety and service; they had shorn away her youth also. Only once--and that for how short a time!--had life ever seemed desirable in her eyes. A brief and splendid dream had been hers, spreading like a golden sunrise over her whole horizon. But the dream had faded, the sunrise had been extinguished in heavy clouds that had never again parted. She knew life now for a grey, grey dreariness on which no light could ever shine again. She was tired--tired to the soul of her; and she was only twenty-five.
"Maud!" Bunny's voice half-irritable, half-eager, broke in upon her. "See that fellow down there trying to make his nag go into the sea? It's going to be a big job. Let's go down and see it done!"
Bunny's long chair was in a corner of the room. It was no light task to get it in and out of the house; but Maud was used to the management of it. The weight of it went in with the other burdens of life. She was used also to lifting Bunny's poor little wasted body, and no wish of his that she could gratify was ever left neglected. Moreover, the offensive clamour of the gramophone overhead added to her alacrity to obey his behests. And the day was bright and warm, with a south wind blowing over a sparkling sea.
It would do Bunny good to go out, especially if he desired to go. It was not always that he would consent to do so after a sleepless night. But there was an extraordinary vitality in the meagre frame, a fevered, driving force that never seemed to be wholly exhausted. There were times when inaction was absolute torture to him, and Maud was ready to go until she dropped if only she could in some measure alleviate that chafing restlessness. She counted it luck indeed if these moods of fret and turmoil raged during the day. She was better able to cope with them then, and it gave the night a better chance. Poor lad! He could fight his own way through the days, but the long-drawn-out misery of nights of incessant pain broke him down--how completely only Maud ever knew.
So, gladly she wheeled him forth on that afternoon of late October, down the hill to the sun-bathed shore.
That hill taxed her physical powers to the uttermost. Secretly she dreaded the ascent, but not for worlds would she have had Bunny know it--Bunny who depended solely upon her for the very few pleasures that ever came his way. To the last ounce of her strength she was dedicated to the service of her idol.
CHAPTER III
THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE
They reached the sunny stretch of parade in time to see the young chestnut that had excited Bunny's interest being coaxed along the edge of the water by his rider. The animal was covered with froth, and evidently in a ferment of nervous excitement. The man who rode him sat loosely in the saddle as if the tussle in progress were of very minor importance in his estimation. He kept the fretting creature's head turned towards the water, however, and at intervals he patted the streaming neck and spoke a few words of encouragement.
At Bunny's request his chair was drawn to the edge of the parade, and from here he and Maud watched the progress of the battle. A battle of wills it undoubtedly was, though there was nothing in the man's attitude to indicate any strain. He was obviously one who knew how to bide his time, thick-set, bull-necked, somewhat bullet-headed, with a face of even redness and a short, blunt nose that looked aggressively confident.
"Wonder if he'll do it," said Bunny.
Maud wondered too, realizing that the task would be no easy one. The horse was plainly on edge with apprehension, and her sympathies went out to him. Somehow she did not want to see him conquered. In fact, not greatly admiring the physiognomy of his rider, she hoped the horse would win.
Stepping with extreme daintiness, as if he expected the ground to open and swallow him, the animal sidled past, and she caught the gleam of a wicked eye as he went. There was mischief mingled with his fear. He evidently was not feeling particularly kindly disposed towards the man who rode him. The loose seat of the latter made her wonder if he were wholly aware of this.
"He'll be thrown if he isn't careful," she said, half to herself and half to Bunny, who was watching with the keenest interest.
"Hope he'll tumble into the water," said Bunny, who enjoyed dramatic situations.
The