"Oh, I can't. I couldn't go across again—it frightened me."
"But you're a boy. You ought not to be frightened. Oswald never is."
Cyril glanced at the river and shivered, tears filling his eyes. "I can't," he said.
A whoop rang out, and Jean's contemplative face changed to one of delight.
"Oswald!" passed her lips, as a boy came rushing along the grass-grown path beside the river.
A genuine boy this time—strong and vigorous, hot and muddy, round-faced and rosy, nearly twice the size of the little baronet, though only two years or so his senior. His complexion was sunburnt, his hands were soiled, the cap was slipping off his tumbled hair, the trousers were torn at his knees.
"Hallo, Jean! Did you think I was lost? I say—what shrimp have you fished up there?"
Jean sprang to meet her brother.
"It's Cyril Devereux," she whispered energetically. "He's come home, and his father is dead, and he's afraid of the stepping-stones."
"Whew!" Oswald contented himself with this brief commentary. "Well, come along; just time for a game of bowls."