Bunty was standing staring out, his hands thrust in his pockets; the setting sun was on the stained window-panes, and his face looked ghastly in the red light.
“Was it very bad?” said the little, tender voice at his elbow.
He turned round, and looked at his young sister for a minute in silence.
“Look here, Poppet,” he said, and his voice sounded strange and strangled; “I know I tell lies [54] ]and do mean things—I can’t help it sometimes, I think I was made so; but I haven’t done this new thing they say I have—Poppet, I swear I haven’t.”
“I know you haven’t,” the loving voice said; “what is it, Bunty?”
He gave her a fleeting, grateful glance. “I can’t tell you, old girl—you’ll know soon enough,—every one thinks I have; it’s no good me saying anything—nothing’s any good in the world.” He leaned his forehead on the cold window-pane and choked something down in his throat. “To-morrow, Poppet, they’ll say all sorts of things about me; but don’t you believe them, old girl—will you?—whatever they say, Poppet—promise me.”
“I pwomise you, Bunty, faithf’lly,” the little girl said, an almost solemn light in her eyes. She could never remember Bunty quite like this before. There was a despairing note in his voice, and really the red sunset light made his face look dreadful.
“Give us a kiss, Poppet,” he whispered, and put his face down on her little, rough, curly head.
The child burst into tears of excitement and fright—everything seemed so strange and unreal. Bunty had never asked her for a kiss before in his life. She clung to him sobbing, with her small, thin arms around his neck and her cheek against his. Both his arms were round her, he had lifted her [55] ]up to him right off the ground, and his cheeks were almost as wet as hers.
There was a step, and he set her down again and turned away.