"Don't you do it, Adam," Bobby said. "Think how you would feel if you came out and found only my mangled remains. And I am doing no harm—only wandering about."
So he was but wandering about. He should have been in bed. And we stood there and talked for a few minutes, and Bobby wandered off to my steep path and down to the shore, and I heard the sound of great pebbles rolling, and I heard him whistling softly some mournful air. I went in and to bed. Elizabeth sleeps in the room down the hall, and her windows are around the corner. I heard a little noise from her room as I turned into mine.
X
One morning—it was the first of August, the middle of that hot week—I was sitting on the seat under my great pine, and Eve sat beside me. I was waiting for Elizabeth, for the time had come again for the Arcadia to be about her mysterious business on the sea, and this time I was to go. It was what Elizabeth called "transferring" something or somebody. What it was and where it was I was to find out. I wished that Eve was going—and Pukkie. I said as much.
"Elizabeth has not asked us," she replied. "I could not go if I were asked, for I promised to go to mother's. She has one of her bad turns. But Pukkie would love it."
I murmured my regret at Mrs. Goodwin's illness. Her illnesses are not serious and do not last long, and the cause of them is not far to seek. She eats most heartily and takes no exercise, and that practice ever bred illness. I would have her mowing for remedy.
Eve slipped her hand within my arm and clasped the other over it.