ctivities of grownups, or devoted but jealous dogs watch them.

"Don't leave me," she said. "You're sweet to me." Then she gave a sharp,
startled little cry.

"Neil," she begged, "don't touch him. I don't want you to touch him.
What are you going to do?"

The light had not had time to dim or shift perceptibly in Colonel
Everard's big room while so much was settling itself for Neil and
Judith. The Colonel still lay with the pale shaft of afternoon light on
his unconscious face. Now the boy was kneeling beside him. He slipped a
strong, careful arm under his shoulders, and bent over him, touching him
with quick, sure hands. He ignored Mr. Brady, who stood crying out
incoherent protests beside him, and finally put a shaking hand on his
shoulder.

Neil shook it off, and rose and stood facing his cousin.

"I thought so," he said, with a short laugh. "You had me going at first,
Charlie, when I came in here and saw what a pretty picture you made. I
believed you. I thought you had killed him. I might have known things
like that don't happen in Green River."

Neil put both hands on his cousin's shoulders and looked at him. Mr.
Brady was not an attractive sight at that moment. The excitement that
had held and swayed him was leaving him now, and he looked shaken and
weak. An unhealthy colour purpled his cheeks, and his sullen eyes glared
vindictively, but could not meet Neil's eyes.

"Don't laugh at me," he muttered. "Don't you dare to laugh at me."

"Going to beat me up, too?" his cousin inquired. "Poor old Charlie!
Let's hope your friend there will laugh at you when he talks this over
with you. He'll come out of this all right, but he'll be in a better
temper if he has a doctor here. I'll 'phone for one."

"What do you mean? I've killed him. I'm glad I killed him."

His cousin laughed again. "Killed him? The man's no more dead than you
are. You've knocked him out, that's all. But you didn't kill him. Is
that the 'phone over there?"

A desk telephone on a big Louis Quinze table at one end of the room, the
instrument masked by the frilly skirts of a French mannequin, perhaps
the only lady who had ever been permitted to be insipid in that room and
to stay there long, answered Neil's question by ringing faintly, once
and again. Neil started toward it, but did not reach it. Mr. Brady had
flung himself suddenly upon him in a last burst of feverish strength,
which he dissipated recklessly by shrieking out incoherent things,