She lifted a protesting hand.
“No, don't urge me, please. I can't come here. But—I believe I won't close the house till Billy gets home, after all,” she declared. The next moment she was gone, and William, dazedly, from the doorway, was watching John help her into Billy's automobile, called by Billy and half her friends, “Peggy,” short for “Pegasus.”
Still dazedly William turned back into the house and dropped himself into the nearest chair.
What a curious call it had been! Aunt Hannah had not acted like herself at all. Not once had she said “Oh, my grief and conscience!” while the things she had said—! Someway, he had never thought of Aunt Hannah as being young, and a bride. Still, of course she must have been—once. And the reason she gave for not coming there to live—the pitiful story of that outsider in her home! But she was no outsider! She was no interfering brother of Billy's—
William caught his breath suddenly, and held it suspended. Then he gave a low ejaculation and half sprang from his chair.
Spunkie, disturbed from her doze by the fire, uttered a purring “me-o-ow,” and looked up inquiringly.
For a long minute William gazed dumbly into the cat's yellow, sleepily contented eyes; then he said with tragic distinctness:
“Spunkie, it's true: Aunt Hannah isn't Billy's husband's brother, but—I am! Do you hear? I am!”
“Pur-r-me-ow!” commented Spunkie; and curled herself for another nap.
There was no peace for William after that. In vain he told himself that he was no “interfering” brother, and that this was his home and had been all his life; in vain did he declare emphatically that he could not go, he would not go; that Billy would not wish him to go: always before his eyes was the vision of that little bride of years long gone; always in his ears was the echo of Aunt Hannah's “I shall never forget the utter freedom and happiness of those months for us, with the whole house to ourselves.” Nor, turn which way he would, could he find anything to comfort him. Simply because he was so fearfully looking for it, he found it—the thing that had for its theme the wretchedness that might be expected from the presence of a third person in the new home.