Part 36 (1/2)
”Don't!” exclaimed Eustace sharply ”You don't knohat a wreck in the dark is like, or you wouldn't talk like that There isn't ti We didn't know Aunt Dorothy was left”
”I should have known,” said Herbert, with all the confidence of ignorance, ”and I would have stayed and droith her”
He broke off short, rose abruptly, and stumbled in a queer, blind way from the roorief
Brenda turned a tear-stained face froether
”He isn't thinking what he is saying,” she said chokily; ”but we are so frightfully unhappy about Aunt Dorothy--and this seeht so easily have been saved Of course you didn't really know her, so you can't understand But ever since our mother died Aunt Dorothy--”
But here Brenda's voice broke utterly, and she, too, hurriedly left the room
”Well,” exclaimed Nesta, ”I think it just horrid of them I shall never, never like them now”
Eustace turned a pair of surprised brown eyes upon her
”Won't you?” he said wonderingly ”Why, I like them better than I did, ever so much”
”What!” Nesta said, ”you like the like that? To make out it was Peter's fault! Poor little Peter, as so nearly drowned hi of,” said Eustace, ”but just how they loved her Soht of it before Sauess; and I don't knohat I should have thought ifsome one else's brother”
Nesta stared at his about Eustace lately that she did not understand She knew nothing of Bob'sat two sides of a question, so she could see no reason for the strange things he sometimes said, and he was far too reticent to have explained
”Well, all I can say is, I e had never co is nice, and it will be more hateful than ever now they feel like that about Peter We had better tell mother and father, and ask them to take us away”
”What's that I hear?” said an astonished voice at the door
The children all jurandfather They were speechless with dis
”What did you say, Nesta?” asked Mr Chase again, in a tone that ry, surprised, and very co But hoere they to repeat what they had been saying? Nesta remembered they had been warned not to speak of Aunt Dorothy before hiet Herbert into trouble behind his back But Peter had no such scruples Dropping his head into his arly,--
”Herbert says it was me drowned Aunt Dorothy”
”What!” exclaimed Mr Chase incredulously; ”he surely never said such a thing? Explain this to me, Eustace, at once”
His tone was so severe that the boy literally shook He had never seen any one really angry in his life before
”He didn't say quite that,” Eustace said with difficulty; ”he only ive me his exact words,” Mr Chase said, still in that awful voice
Eustace closed his thin lips tight, with an expression that randfather scanned his face closely, then turned to Nesta
”As Eustace seeue, I must ask you to tell lanced furtively at her twin, but she was angry with Herbert and saw no reason why he should be protected
”He said,” she replied, ”if Peter had not been at the other side of the boat, and Aunt Dorothy had not had to go and find him, she wouldn't have been drowned He said we all went away and left her--”