and they became great friends.

It was a curious relation, for though it must have been simple on his
side, on hers it was full of complication. To begin with his society
was a great relief from her loneliness. Again, she had already, for
want of another enthusiasm, conceived an acute interest in his curious
temperament, and her eagerness to get to the bottom of it, and, if
possible, to find a cure, was now fanned by something that resembled a
maternal passion. They spent the greater part of his spare time
together, and often, at hours when he would normally have been working
with Considine, she would ask for him to take her driving into Totnes
or Dartmouth, their two market towns. In the evenings they would walk
out together in search of air along the lip of the basin in which
Lapton Manor lay.

On one of these evening walks a strange thing happened. They had
climbed the hills and had sat for a few minutes on the summit watching
the sun go down behind the level ridges that lead inward from the
Start. While they were sitting there in silence, Arthur suddenly
slipped away over the brim of a little hollow full of bracken on the
edge of the wood. A moment later Gabrielle heard him laughing, and
walked over quietly to see what he was doing. She saw him crouched,
quite unconscious of her presence, among the ferns at the bottom of the
hollow. He had caught a baby rabbit, and now he was torturing the
small terrified creature, its beady eyes set with fear, just as a cat
plays with a mouse. He was watching it intently: letting it escape to
the verge of freedom and then catching it and throwing it violently
back. For a second it would lie motionless with terror and then make
another feeble attempt at escape. She watched this display of animal
cruelty with horror, and yet she could not speak, for she wanted to see
what he would do next. At last the rabbit refused to keep up the
heartless game any longer. It simply lay and trembled. Arthur prodded
it with his foot, but it would not move. This appeared to incense him.
He took a flying kick at the poor beast and killed it. It lay for a
moment twitching, its muzzle covered in blood. A little thing no
bigger than a kitten two months old----

Gabrielle ran to him flaming with anger. She picked up the mutilated
rabbit and hugged it to her breast.

"Why did you do that? You beast, you devil!" she cried.

She could have flown at him in her anger. Arthur only laug