SEVEN TIMES ROUND THE WORLD
'Have the girls gone home?' asked the invalid, about a week later. She
had made such strides towards recovery that she was to be allowed her
first visitor that day, and she could not help wondering whether Jean
Murray was going to be the privileged person. Everything had been so
strange and quiet since the morning she had woke up in Finny's bed; and
she had slept away so many hours of the days that followed, that she had
lost count of the time altogether. She seemed to have been lying in a
kind of delicious enchantment, with people doing things for her just as
though she were a princess; while Jill was always at hand to tell her
stories in her beautiful soft voice, whenever she grew tired of lying
still. For Jill was the nicest person in the world to be with, when one
was enchanted; she never bothered, and she always seemed to come to
the rescue just in time, when the pain of being strapped in one position
began to grow intolerable. Then, there was the Doctor too. No one would
have expected the Doctor to turn out such a trump. Only to-day, after
being so strict in the morning about what she was to eat, he had run
in again after lunch to bring her a packet of sweets. They were very
wholesome sweets, as he had assured Jill; but still they were sweets,
and a doctor who was a beast would never have thought of bringing them,
even if they were wholesome. So, clearly, he was not a beast. Even Jill
had been surprised at his coming twice in one day, now that she was so
much better; so that showed that he must be a particularly nice sort of
doctor. For Jill had once nursed Auntie Anna when she was ill, and she
knew a lot about doctors, so she would not have been surprised at his
coming twice in one day, if it had been a usual thing for a doctor to do.
Babs smiled happily to herself as she settled the Doctor's claims to
niceness; then she remembered that she was going to have a visitor after
tea, and she asked again if the girls had gone home.
'Yes, they went five or six days ago,' said Jill, without impatience,
though she had answered the same question once already. Babs certainly
did not need an illness to make her absent-minded.
'Then who is coming to see me after tea?' was Barbara's next inquiry.
'I said Kit might come; I thought you would like to have him best,'
answered Jill.
'Kit? Is he going to bicycle over from Crofts?' asked the child.
'Why, no,' explained Jill, smiling. 'They have all been in the house ever
since you were taken ill. Finny invited them to stay, you know, and Auntie
Anna too.'
Barbara laughed a little. 'They'll never be able to tease me again, now
that they've stopped in a girl's school themselves,' she remarked with a
chuckle.
There was a pause, which the invalid occupied in thinking over the
things she had been too lazy to consider before. She had a great many
questions to ask, but somehow it was too much exertion to ask them.
Fortunately, Jill was so clever that she always guessed what she wanted
to know without waiting to be asked first; and that saved a lot of
trouble. In this way the child had learned that the gymnastic prize was
to be divided between Jean and herself; and thinking about the gymnastic
prize produced another question from her, rather unexpectedly.
'Wasn't it Scales who moved the trapeze away?' she asked.
Jill looked up surprised. None of them knew how much Babs remembered of
what had happened on the night of her accident. 'Yes,' she replied. 'He
has been very unhappy about it, poor man! He writes every day from Hanover
to say how miserable he is. But, of course, it was an accident.'
'Of course,' said Barbara, looking distressed; and Jill was afraid she
had said too much.
'Shall I write and send him a message from you?' she suggested quickly.
Babs brightened up, and nodded.
'Tell him it's awfully jolly to be ill and to have every one doing things
for you, and bringing you sweets, and all that,' she said eagerly. 'And
say that if he wants me to pay him out, just to make us quits, don't you
know, he can think of the awful way I am sure to play my pieces next term.'
'Very well,' answered Jill, laughing; and there was silence once more.
Jill looked very pretty as she sat there by the window, working away
at her embroidery in the frame; and Babs congratulated herself, with a
glow of satisfaction, on having made her a princess in her fairy
kingdom. It was so nice of Jill, she reflected, to behave exactly like a
princess, and to sit at the window of her lonely turret making tapestry,
to while away the time until her prince should come thundering over the
drawbridge below. Jill's prince had not come yet, so of course she would
have to go on working by the window till he did; she deserved an extra
nice prince too, and Babs sighed as she remembered that she had not been
able to find her any sort of a prince so far.
'It's a pity, isn't it, that Dr. Hurst had to be enchanted again so soon?'
she murmured aloud.
'I'm afraid I don't _quite_ understand,' said the princess, from the
window.
'You see,' continued Babs, solemnly, 'he began by being a beast; then I
disenchanted him and made him into a handsome and gallant young prince;
and after that he was so horrid to Jean and Angela in the quarantine that
I had to turn him out of my kingdom, and make him wander over the earth
once more in the shape of a beast.'
'Oh,' said Jill, bending rather closely over the embroidery frame. 'Let
me see, what kingdom was that?'
'_My_ kingdom,' answered Barbara, in an important tone. Then she realised
that Jill did not know about her kingdom. 'I've never told any one
before,' she went on doubtfully. 'If I tell you, Jill, will you promise
not to laugh?'
Jill promised, and worked on steadily at her embroidery while the small
voice from the bed painted her the fairy kingdom she had never described
to any one before.
'And so,' concluded Barbara, with a sigh, 'I can't make it come right,
because now there's a princess without a prince. Do you mind waiting until
I find you a prince, Jill?'
'Not at all,' answered Jill, turning to the light rather abruptly, and
taking quite a long time to choose between two shades of silk.
'It was so stupid of Dr. Hurst to get himself turned out like that, wasn't
it?' continued Babs.
'He--perhaps he didn't know,' said Jill, with some hesitation.
'You can't be a beast without knowing it,' answered Barbara, positively.
'Are you sure he _is_ a beast?' asked Jill, who was still looking out of
the window, though she had chosen her silk some moments ago.
'Oh, he's not a beast now. I _love_ him. Don't you?' cried the child,
enthusiastically.
Jill began putting her work away in a great hurry. 'It's time for tea,'
she remarked.
Barbara did not seem to have heard. The dreamy look had returned to her
face, and she was almost thinking aloud.
'You see,' she murmured, 'however nice he is now, he _must_ walk round
the world seven times, and kill a giant, and rescue a beautiful princess,
before he can be disenchanted a second time. You can't alter that. It's
a pity you haven't got to be rescued or anything, Jill, because then----'
'If you talk any more, child,' interrupted Jill, with decision, 'you will
be too tired to have a visitor after tea.'
Jill _was_ a nice person, Barbara settled again in her mind, as they had
tea together out of Finny's private tea-set that the Canon had given her
last Christmas. She was so nice that she even slipped away afterwards,
when Christopher came into the room, so that he and Babs could have
their talk together without feeling that somebody else was listening. For
all that, neither of them seemed to find it easy to begin, and they
remained looking at each other in silence for some moments after Jill
had closed the door upon them.
Then Christopher made a great effort and addressed her from the end of
the bed, where he had taken up his position.
'Hullo!' he said, tugging at his collar as if to remove some obstruction
to his voice.
'Hullo!' answered Babs, faintly, from among her pillows.
Then followed another pause. They both felt there were plenty of things
to be said, but somehow they could not think of them just then. Presently,
Kit remembered that she was an invalid, and that invalids always had to
be kissed. He also decided that the sooner he got it over the better; so
he marched round to the side of the bed and kissed her.
'How are you, Babe?' he asked, feeling more at his ease now that this
formality was over and he was free to climb on the edge of her bed and
sit there swinging his legs.
'Oh, I'm all right,' answered Barbara, heartily.
They both knew she was nothing of the sort, but in the Berkeley family
it was a point of honour with every one, even during a visitation of
toothache, to declare himself 'all right.'
'How are you, Kit?' asked Babs, after a little further reflection.
'I'm all right, thanks,' answered Christopher, faithfully, and he whistled
a tune to fill the next pause. 'Awfully poor lying here, isn't it?' he
resumed presently.
Barbara nodded. 'It's stale,' she said expressively.
Kit looked sympathetic. 'It would make _me_ sick,' he observed.
'Oh, it's all right,' Barbara hastened to assure him; and he whistled a
little more.
'Jill's all right too, isn't she?' he continued after a while.
'Oh, Jill's all right--_rather_,' said the child, warmly. 'How are the
other boys, Kit?'
'They're all right,' answered Kit.
'And Auntie Anna?'
'She's _all_ right,' answered Kit.
Conversation again languished slightly. Barbara's eyes, wandering round
the room in search of inspiration, fell on the little bag of sweets that
the Doctor had brought her.
'Have a sweet,' she suggested, pointing to the table by the window.
Christopher slipped off the bed with alacrity. 'It's awfully decent of
you,' he observed. 'Sure you don't want them all?'
'Oh, no; take the whole jolly lot,' begged his sister.
Kit's countenance fell slightly when he peered into the bag. 'Acid drops,'
he commented briefly, and put a couple critically into his mouth. 'Who
brought them?'
'Dr. Hurst. He said they were wholesome,' replied Babs, by way of
explanation. She did not want Kit to think she had been such a muff as to
choose acid drops in preference to chocolate.
'That's just about what he would say,' remarked the boy, putting several
more of them into his mouth.
'I--I think he's all right, Kit,' said Barbara, timidly.
Christopher shook his head vigorously. It was the only form of reply
possible to him at the moment.
'He's a rotter,' he said, as soon as he could speak; 'and so slack, too!'
He peered again into the paper bag. 'Is it worth while?' he murmured to
himself, and decided that it was not. 'Pity it wasn't some one else who
got them for you,' he added with a sigh, as he returned to the bed.
'He isn't bad, _really_, Kit,' persisted the child, looking troubled.
'Not bad? Why, he's an awful old soft, Babe,' answered Kit,
contemptuously. 'If you were a boy, you'd know.'
'He isn't old, anyhow. He's only twenty-eight; I asked him,' said Babs,
eagerly.
'Oh, rats!' laughed Kit, who had quite got over his awkwardness by this
time, and was rapidly forgetting that she was an invalid and that he had
been told not to tease her. 'He may be twenty-eight perhaps, if you just
count his birthdays, but he's as old as the hills for all that. He was
born grown-up; that sort of chap always is.'
'He's been awfully kind to me, Kit,' persisted the child, her troubled
look returning.
'You always think people are nicer than they are, don't you?' observed
her brother, with gentle scorn. 'When we had that beast of a housekeeper
who used to smack you and Robin, you always said her Sunday bonnet was
beautiful, or something like that.'
'Oh, Kit!' was all Barbara felt capable of replying, and the boy rattled
on heedlessly.
'That Doctor is the rottenest of rotters,' he declared in a cheerful tone.
'He only pretends to like you because you're what he calls a "case." If
you'd got asthma, now, he'd treat you as if you were putting it all on,
and make you feel a jolly humbug. _I_ know him!'
'Of course, you're always right, Kit,' said Babs, growing more unhappy
every minute, 'but--but----'
'He treated us all like kids the first day you were ill,' said
Christopher, scowling at the recollection; 'and once, when Jill was
blubbing because you weren't so well, we got in a funk and went off on
our own, Peter and I, to fetch him; and he wouldn't come. He said no one
could do anything for you by just coming and looking at you, and we
weren't to disturb him for nothing at all--or some such rot. Then we
found that he'd cooked up an arrangement with Finny not to come unless
_she_ sent for him. Just like him!'
Barbara was struggling feebly to keep back her tears. She could not think
what was making her want to cry so much.
The boy had stopped scowling, and was chuckling softly to himself. Barbara
held her breath, and thought that if he would only talk about something
else, she might be able to keep from crying. Perhaps the table by the
window might stop swimming about, too.
'We've scored one against him at last, though,' her brother was saying,
in a voice that seemed suddenly to have gone a long way off. 'He must
be quite at the other end of the gallery,' Babs thought. Yet some one
was certainly sitting on the edge of her bed, because she could feel the
mattress jumping up and down.
'We struck that little kid in the yard just now--the one who nearly gave
you scarlet fever,' Christopher went on gaily. 'He came to know how you
were, or something. Bobby Hearne, I think he called himself. Well, we
got him to go to the doctor's house with a message from his aunt, who
lives five miles t'other side of Crofts, to say that she had just fallen
downstairs and nearly killed herself, and would he go to her at once!
Thirty miles there and back, all for nothing! Rather a score, eh? It was
my idea, too, not Peter's!'
He turned to Barbara for approval, and found her sobbing bitterly. She had
heard every word he said, with horrible distinctness, though his voice had
come from such a long way off. She had tried to stop him, but she could
not make a sound till she began to cry.
'Babe! I say, don't! What's up, old girl?' exclaimed Kit, staring at her
in consternation. At any time it was an event, to make the Babe cry, but
now that she was so ill, he felt nothing short of a brute.
Jill had slipped into the room and was bending over the excited child.
'Kit doesn't understand--he doesn't know he's not really a beast--he
isn't a beast, is he?' gasped Barbara, between her sobs. 'He's played a
horrible trick on him--he's sent him seven times round the world; and I
never meant him really to walk seven times round the world--you know I
didn't, Jill. It's all my fault for turning him out of my kingdom--if
I hadn't turned him out of my kingdom, he wouldn't be wandering seven
times round----'
'Hush!' whispered Jill, and she gave Christopher a look that sent him
stumbling out of the room in a mixture of bewilderment and remorse. Up
and down the landing he paced, feeling desperately wicked and desperately
foolish by turns, until Jill opened the door of the bedroom and beckoned
to him. She held a thermometer in her hand, and she paid no attention
whatever to the shamefaced inquiry he stammered out.
'Send Miss Finlayson here at once, and say I want the Doctor,' she
commanded, and went hurriedly back into the room.
Clearly, she was very angry with him, and it had never seemed possible
before that Jill could be angry with any one. But it was not this that
suddenly made Kit turn cold and funny all over as he started along the
gallery with Jill's message. He pulled up short with a jerk, and gave a
little cry of dismay.
'What shall I do?' he exclaimed in a despairing tone. 'I've sent the
Doctor fifteen miles in the opposite direction.'
* * * * *
It was nearing seven o'clock and growing dusk when Kit at last struck
the high road between four and five miles below Crofts. It was a full
ten-mile drive by the road from Wootton Beeches, but Kit had saved over
two miles by taking the short cut across the fields. He stopped for the
first time since he had started on his mad chase after the Doctor, and
looked panting up and down the deserted road.
'I can't have been much more than three-quarters of an hour, and I bet
it's four miles,' he muttered. The mud with which he was splashed up
to the collar showed the kind of ground over which he had been travelling,
and the way his breath was coming and going told how much of the four
miles had been covered at a run. Now that he had exhausted his first
impulse to rush after the Doctor and bring him back at any cost, he began
to realise what an absurd thing he had set himself to do. Dr. Hurst had
had an hour's start of him at least, and even the short cut across the
fields would not make up for that. With a quick-trotting cob like his, he
would have reached his destination easily by this time and discovered the
trick that had been played upon him, and no effort on Kit's part would
bring him back a moment sooner than he would be coming of his own accord.
Besides, if it was any good going after him, Finny would have sent her man
on horseback long before this, and he would have outdistanced Kit in any
case.
'If only our bicycles had been there instead of at Crofts, I might have
caught him up then,' cried the boy, as the hopelessness of the position
dawned upon him.
Nothing answered him, and the road looked more dreary than ever. A
good deal of rain had fallen that week, and the drip drip of the trees
overhead added a kind of melancholy to everything. Christopher's quick
imagination called up all the details of the scene he had left behind him:
the unwonted anger of his cousin, the anxiety of Finny and Auntie Anna
when he had rushed into the drawing-room with her message, and then
their eagerness to ring the bell and send some one for the Doctor,
whom he knew to be far away on a wild-goose chase of his own making. He
pictured with vividness too the consternation that would be caused in
the house when Finny's messenger returned from his fruitless errand,
and the look that would come on Auntie Anna's face when Peter came in
from his tramp with the other boys and explained the trick that had been
played on the Doctor. No wonder he had hurried straight out of the house
and struck blindly across the fields, without stopping to reflect whether
it would be any good or not! Even now, though he knew how little he
could do, he felt unable to remain inactive; and turning his face in
the direction of Crofts, he once more broke into a run and hurried
wildly along the muddy, desolate road.
He had been running about thirty-five minutes, only falling into a walk
now and then to recover his breath, when the sound of wheels, coming
from behind made him draw to the side of the road. He still trudged on,
however, with his head down and his hands clenched, and he did not even
trouble to look round when the vehicle caught him up and passed him. The
light from the lamp flashed across his face as it rolled swiftly by; and
immediately afterwards, the trap pulled up just ahead of him.
'Hullo! Is that Christopher Berkeley?' said a voice from above.
Kit staggered, and stood speechless. It was the Doctor's voice; there was
no doubt about that. But how came he to be driving towards Crofts instead
of away from it? His sudden appearance was so remarkable that the boy's
head felt in a whirl.
'I--I thought----' he faltered.
The Doctor gave a quiet laugh, and climbed down from his seat.
'You thought I was green enough for anything, didn't you?' he observed.
'Just stand by the animal, will you, while I get out of my coat?'
Kit obeyed mechanically. Everything had turned so topsy-turvy all at once,
that it seemed no more extraordinary for him to be doing meekly what the
Doctor told him than it was for the Doctor to be struggling out of his
greatcoat just as the rain was beginning to come on again.
'Then--then you didn't go to Bobby Hearne's aunt, after all?' he inquired
stupidly.
'Not much!' answered the Doctor, with another short laugh. He had got his
coat off by this time, and he held it out to Christopher peremptorily.
'Put this on, and look sharp!' he commanded.
'But----' stammered the boy, hanging back.
'Do you want to keep me here all night?' cried Dr. Hurst, impatiently;
and as Kit still hesitated, he wrapped the coat quickly round him and
lifted him bodily into the gig. Then he mounted beside him, and turned the
animal's head. The next instant, they were bowling along towards home,
at the rate of ten miles an hour.
For the first five minutes they did not speak. Then the Doctor jerked out
a sharp inquiry.
'Aren't you going to ask after your sister?' he demanded.
Kit started. 'I was afraid you'd rag me for it,' he muttered awkwardly.
The Doctor flicked the horse with his whip. 'Sorry you think me such a
brute,' he said shortly. He flicked the horse again, and played it a
moment or two, as it tossed its head and jumped about. 'I don't think
it's anything serious,' he went on. 'I gave her a soothing draught, and
everything depends on the state in which she wakes up. But I think she'll
be all right.'
The relief at Kit's heart nearly choked him. 'Did Jill tell you it was
my fault?' he asked after a while.
'I gathered as much,' said Dr. Hurst. 'You mustn't excite her any more,
you know, or I won't answer for the consequences. What was it all about,
eh?'
He was evidently making a gigantic effort to be amiable, and Christopher
felt he owed him something in return. Besides, it was a kind of relief to
put the blame on himself.
'I said you were a rotter, and she said you weren't,' he jerked out; 'and
I said you were only decent to her because she was an interesting case,
and she said----'
'All right,' said the Doctor, hastily. He supposed truthfulness was an
excellent thing in theory, but it added another terror to boys.
As they neared the village Christopher summoned up courage to ask one more
question.
'Did you come out on purpose to bring me back?' he inquired with an effort.
'Yes,' said Dr. Hurst, briefly.
Christopher puzzled over this. 'But--but how did you know I'd gone after
you?' he asked curiously.
'Jill told me you'd disappeared, and I guessed,' said Dr. Hurst. If it had
not been so dark, Kit might have seen a smile flicker across the serious
face of his companion.
'Did Jill think about me, then?' cried the boy, eagerly. 'Perhaps she
isn't so wild with me after all!'
'Not so wild with you as you deserve, I dare say,' remarked Dr. Hurst.
'Indeed, it was because Miss Urquhart was making such an unnecessary fuss
about you, that I promised to come and look for you.'
He thought that the boy, although a boy, would not notice the slip he
had made just before in calling his pretty cousin by her first name;
but Kit noticed fast enough. He had not much time, however, to think about
it before they pulled up with a jerk at the back entrance to Wootton
Beeches. He began to mumble out his thanks, while the Doctor helped him
out of the overcoat and then put it on himself; but the young man cut
him short.
'Do you suppose I drove all those miles in the rain, at the end of a hard
day's work, for the sake of a scamp like you?' he growled; and Christopher
was left staring after him in the darkness.
In the holidays supper was not before nine o'clock at Wootton Beeches, so
the boy had plenty of time to make himself presentable before the bell
rang. He looked eagerly round the drawing-room when he went into it, but
only the three elder boys were there.
'Where's Jill?' he asked.
'Oh, it's you, is it?' observed Egbert, without answering him. As the
eldest of the family, he felt that he ought to administer some sort of
rebuke to Kit for the commotion he had caused in the household. Indeed,
he had said as much to the others before the boy came in; but there was
something about Kit that would make any one fight shy of rebuking him,
when it came to the point. So Egbert was rather relieved than otherwise
when Wilfred interrupted him.
'Jill's upstairs,' he said, looking over his book at Kit. 'She wants to
be with the Babe when she wakes up, in case she's excited or anything.'
Kit flung himself into an arm-chair and whistled carelessly. Whatever his
feelings were in the matter, he was not going to let the family see them.
There was rather an awkward silence, which Peter broke by remarking that
it was ten minutes to nine, upon which Egbert said something about a clean
collar and went out of the room. There was a feeling of relief when he
had gone, Egbert having reached the age when it was never quite possible
to say whether he was going to side with the enemy or not.
'Egbert's awfully wild with you,' observed Peter, with smiling frankness.
'He says you ought to be kicked.'
'Let him do it,' grunted Kit, indifferently. Having given the Doctor a
glimpse of his real feelings not so many minutes ago, he did not intend
to betray himself again yet awhile.
Wilfred, who had been watching him closely, began slowly to understand.
'It's all right, Kit,' he said good-naturedly. 'Egbert never counts! He
only does it because he's the eldest and thinks we've got to be reminded
of it. Peter and I are with you!'
'Awfully kind of you, I'm sure,' answered Christopher, sarcastically. All
the same, he stopped whistling and seemed inclined to come round; and
Peter hastened to put in a conciliating word.
'Of course, we know you didn't mean to make the Babe excited,' he said.
'Jill says so herself.'
'Oh, shut up!' said Kit, ungraciously.
'As for the Doctor,' continued Wilfred, 'anybody is justified in ragging
_him_.'
'Rather,' chimed in Peter. 'What do you think Egbert says about him?'
'Don't know and don't care,' rejoined Kit. Somehow, he felt it was rather
mean to join in abusing the man who had gone out after him, all in the
rain and the darkness. Still, he was sure he hated the fellow more than
ever now, for had he not outwitted him and put him under an obligation
to him at the same time? The boys did not notice his diffidence.
'Egbert says----' began Peter, and paused to give his words more effect;
'Egbert says--that--the Doctor is in love with Jill.'
Christopher sat up and gazed at him. For once his quick wit had not been
quite so quick as Egbert's. So that was why Dr. Hurst had called her
'Jill'; and that was what he had meant just now by his parting words
at the gate!
'Egbert's hit it,' he said morosely. 'The chap _is_ in love with Jill.
Poor Jill!'
'That's what Wilfred says,' cried Peter, all ready as usual for mischief.
'He says Jill has got to be saved from him, or else----'
'Jill saved?' echoed Kit, scornfully. 'As if she needed any saving from
_that_ idiot!'
'Well, I don't know,' objected Wilfred, shaking his head. 'Girls are so
rum. Look at Merton major's aunt----'
'She isn't a girl, she's an _aunt_!' interrupted Christopher.
'Well, it's all the same, really,' declared Wilfred. 'Merton major says
she only married that Indian chap because he bothered so, and because she
wanted to be obliging.'
'And Jill is _awfully_ obliging, you know she is,' added Peter. 'You can't
tell what may happen, if that Doctor goes on bothering her.'
'Well, what are we to do, then?' Kit condescended to ask. 'We can't lock
him up, can we?'
'No,' admitted Wilfred, 'we can't lock him up. But there's lots of other
things we can do. We can see that she's never left alone with him, for
instance. Babs is always with them in the sickroom, that's one thing.
But what happens when he comes out of the sickroom, and Jill walks along
the gallery with him and sometimes even down to the front door? That's
dangerous, anyhow.'
'In future,' said Peter, solemnly, 'one of us will always be on the
look-out to join them the moment they come out of the sickroom. What
else, Will?'
Wilfred reflected a moment. 'Sometimes,' he said at last, 'I've known her
to be taking a walk in the garden, just as he happens to drive up; and
then they stay talking ever so long before they go into the house. Once,
he even made her take him round the conservatory. That must never happen
again.'
'Never,' agreed Peter. '_I'll_ see to that.'
'Look here,' said Christopher, doubtfully; 'perhaps Jill won't like our
hanging round her like that.'
'She may not like it _at the time_,' began Wilfred, impressively.
'But she'll thank us for it all her life afterwards,' concluded Peter,
with great solemnity.
Jill's voice at the door made them start like guilty conspirators. She
was much too preoccupied to notice their confusion, however.
'Has Kit come back?' she asked anxiously. Christopher sprang out of the
arm-chair, and her face cleared. 'I'm so glad; I was afraid you were
lost,' she said, taking his hand gently. 'Babs has just woke up,' she
explained, as they went upstairs together, 'and she is still rather upset
about something. I think you can calm her, if you will.'
Kit muttered something indistinctly, and she went on talking in her soft
voice. 'The child has got into her head that you have done something to
the Doctor, so I want you to assure her that it is all right. Will you,
Kit dear?'
'I'm the biggest brute,' burst out the boy, 'that ever----'
'Nonsense!' said Jill, putting her hand over his mouth. Then she opened
the door of Barbara's room and they went in.
Auntie Anna was sitting by the child, trying to soothe her.
'Bless your little heart!' she was saying as they entered. 'There's
nothing the matter with the Doctor, my dear. What makes you think such
a thing, eh?'
'You don't understand,' said the little fretful voice from the bed. 'Kit
said--Kit said----'
Christopher pushed Jill on one side, and suddenly knew what he had got
to do.
'That's all right, Babe; I was only rotting,' he said bluntly, and patted
the hot little hand that lay on the counterpane.
The bright, wistful eyes were fixed searchingly on his face. 'But you've
sent him wandering seven times round the world,' she murmured wearily.
'You said you had, Kit.'
'It's all right, Babe,' said Kit, again. 'He's come back now. I've just
seen him.'
He only partly understood what she was talking about, but he seemed to
know how to satisfy her, and the others drew back and left him to do it
alone.
'You've seen him?' asked Babs, wonderingly. 'But----'
'You see,' said Kit, desperately, 'it doesn't take long to get round the
world seven times, when--when you've got a smart little cob like his!'
The worried look faded out of the child's face, and she smiled for the
first time. 'That isn't the reason, Kit,' she told him. 'It is because he
was once a fairy prince.'
'Oh, is it?' remarked Kit.
The bright little eyes were closing sleepily, and the aching bandaged head
fell sideways on the pillow.
'He has only got to kill the giant and rescue the princess now,' she
whispered contentedly. And Kit went on stroking her hand till she was
sound asleep.