The Hundredth Chance. Ethel M. Dell

sat down by Bunny's side, and took the little thin hand back into his. "Do you know, I've been thinking a lot about you," he said.

      Bunny was vastly flattered. He liked the grasp of the strong fingers also, though he would not probably have tolerated such a thing from any but this stranger.

      "Yes," pursued Jake, in his soft, level voice. "I reckon I've taken a fancy to you, little chap--I beg your pardon--Sir Bernard. How have you been to-day?"

      "Don't call me that!" said Bunny, turning suddenly red.

      "What?" Jake smiled upon him, his magic, kindly smile. "Am I to call you Bunny--like your sister--then?"

      "Yes. And you can call her Maud," said Bunny autocratically. "Can't he, Maud?"

      Jake turned his head and looked at her. She was standing before the fire, the red glow all about her, very slim, very graceful, very stately. She did not so much as glance at Jake, only bent a little towards the blaze so that he could not see her face.

      "I don't think I dare," said Jake.

      "Maud!" Peremptorily Bunny's voice accosted her. "Come over here! Come and sit on my bed!"

      It was more of a command than an invitation. Maud straightened herself and turned.

      But as she did so, their visitor intervened. "No, don't!" he said. "Sit down right there, Miss Brian, in that easy-chair, and have a rest!"

      His voice was peremptory too, but in a different way. Bunny stared at him wide-eyed.

      Jake met the stare with an admonitory shake of the head. "Guess Bunny's not wanting you," he said. "Don't listen to anything he says!"

      Bunny's mouth opened to protest, remained open for about five seconds, and finally he said, "All right, Maud. You can stay by the fire while we talk."

      And Maud, much to her own surprise, sat down in the low chair on the hearth and leaned her aching head back upon the cushion.

      She had her back to Bunny and his companion, and the soft murmur of the latter's voice held nought disturbing. It seemed in fact to possess something of a soothing quality, for very soon her heavy eyelids began to droop and the voice to recede into ever growing distance. For a space she still heard it, dim and remote as the splash of the waves on the shore; then very softly it was blotted out. Her cares and her troubles all fell away from her. She sank into soundless billows of sleep.

      It was a perfectly dreamless repose, serene as a child's and it seemed to last indefinitely. She lay in complete content, unconscious of all the world, lapped in peace and blissfully free from the goading anxiety that usually disturbed her rest. It was the calmest slumber she had known for many years.

      From it she awoke at length with a guilty start. The fall of a piece of coal had broken the happy spell. She sat up, to find herself in firelight only.

      Her first thought was for Bunny, and she turned in her chair and looked across the unfamiliar room. He was lying very still in the shadows. Softly she rose and stepped across to him.

      Yes, he was asleep also, lying among his pillows. The chair by his side was empty, the visitor vanished.

      Very cautiously she bent over him. He had been lying dressed outside the bed. Now--with a thrill of amazement she realized it--he was undressed and lying between the sheets. He was breathing very quietly, and his attitude was one of easy rest. Surely some magic had been at work!

      On a chest of drawers near stood a glass that had contained milk. He always had some hot milk last thing, but she had not procured it for him. She had in fact been wondering how she would obtain it to-night.

      Another coal fell, and she crept back to replace it. Stooping she caught sight of another glass in the fender, full of milk. It must have been there a long time, for it was barely warm. Clearly it had been intended for her. She put it to her lips and drank.

      Who could have put it there? Her mother? No; she was sure that her mother would have roused her from her sleep if she had entered. She was moreover quite incapable of getting Bunny to bed now that he had grown out of childhood.

      The house was very quiet. She wondered if the guests had all gone. The room was situated at the end of a long passage, so that the noise of the party had scarcely reached it. But the utter silence without as well as within made her think that it was very late.

      She dared not switch on the light, but as the fire burned up again she held her watch to the blaze. Half-past two!

      In utter amazement she began to undress.

      There was no second bed in the room; only a horse-hair sofa that was far less comfortable than the chair by the fire. She lay down upon it, however, pulling over her an ancient fur travelling-rug belonging to her mother, and here she lay dozing and waking, turning over the mystery in her mind, while another quiet hour slipped away.

      Then there came a movement from Bunny, and she sat up.

      "Are you awake, Maud?" asked his voice out of the shadows. "Has Jake gone?"

      "Yes, darling," she made answer. "Are you wanting anything?"

      She was by his side with the words; she bent over him. He wanted his pillows rearranged, and when she had done it he said, "I say, when did you wake up?"

      "About an hour ago," she said.

      He chuckled a little. "Weren't you surprised to find me in bed?"

      "Yes, I was," she said. "How did you get there?"

      Bunny seemed to regard the matter as a joke. "That fellow Jake--he went over and looked at you, came back and said you were fast asleep, asked what I generally had done, and if he couldn't do it for me. He managed very well and was jolly quick about it too. I thought you would be sure to wake, but you didn't. And when I was settled, he asked if I didn't want anything, and I said, 'Yes, hot milk', and he crept off and got it. He brought a glass for you too. He stuck it in the fender. Have you had it?"

      "Yes," Maud said. "But Bunny, didn't he hurt you at all? You nearly always cry out when you're lifted."

      "I didn't that time," said Bunny proudly. "I told him I should probably squeal, and he said if I so much as squeaked he'd throttle me. He's a brick, do you know, Maud. And he seemed to know how to get hold of me without being told."

      Maud's amazement was growing. The man must be a genius indeed to manage Bunny in that fashion.

      "After that," said Bunny, "he sat down by me and got hold of my hand and said, 'Now I'm going to send you to sleep.' I told him I never slept the first part of the night, and he grinned and said, 'You'll be asleep in five minutes from now if you let yourself go.' And I said, 'Rats!' And he said, 'Shut up!' So I did. And he held my hand tight and sat staring across the room like a mute till somehow he got all blurred up and then I suppose I went to sleep. I never knew when he went. Did you?"

      "No," said Maud. She had an uncanny feeling that Jake had somehow left his influence behind him in the atmosphere. His personality seemed to dominate it still. She was sure he had meant to be kind, but a queer sense of antagonism made her resent his kindness. She did not like Bunny's whole-hearted admiration.

      "He's a brick," the boy said again, "and do you know he's done almost everything under the sun? He's been a sailor, and he's dug for gold, and he's kept a Californian store, and he's been a cow-boy on a ranch. He says the last suited him best because he's so keen on the wilds and horses. It was out in the wilds somewhere that Lord Saltash came on him and brought him home to be his trainer. But he's British-born all the same. I knew he was that the first time I saw him."

      He was evidently a paragon of all the virtues in Bunny's estimation, and Maud did not attempt to express her own feelings, which were, in fact, somewhat complex.

      Very deep down in her woman's soul a warning voice had begun to make itself heard, but she could not tell Bunny that. Scarcely even to herself dared she admit that the straight, free gaze of those red-brown eyes possessed the power to set her heart a-fluttering in wild rebellion like the wings of a captive bird.