"Guess that’s so," said Capper. He remained at his post by the fire, a smile of keen satisfaction on his parchment face. "You shall see him presently; not yet, not for another hour, and then only for a few seconds. He’s got to be kept as quiet as an infant. But I’ve done just what I figured to do. In another six weeks he ought to be learning to walk."
"Bunny--walking!" Maud spoke the words as one dazed. The whole of her world seemed suddenly to have changed. It was as if she actually breathed a new atmosphere. She caught her breath, feeling half afraid. "Is it--is it true?" she said.
Capper laughed. "Seems like a miracle, does it? Never met with a miracle before? Yet there’s quite a lot of ’em to be seen in this curious old world. Maybe you’ll come across some more, now you’ve started."
He came quietly to her, bent and took her free hand into his. She felt his thin, sensitive fingers press her pulse.
"I’m quite well indeed," she said in a tone of protest. "Please tell me more about Bunny. I want to hear everything."
"My dear lady, you know practically all there is to know," he made answer. "Bunny is going to be one of my proudest successes. But there’s just one thing to be arranged, I want to have him under my own eye for a time. It’s for his own good, so I know your consent is a foregone conclusion. No, not yet of course. I will give him a month here, and then I want to fetch him up to London and keep him in a Home there belonging to my colleague Sir Kersley Whitton until I am able to discharge him as cured. Will you agree to that?"
His eyes, shrewd and kindly, looked down into hers. His hand still held her wrist. She felt the magic of his personality, and found it hard to resist.
But, "To take him away from me!" she said rather piteously. "Must you take him away?"
Jake had withdrawn a little as if he did not wish to take part in the conversation. Capper sat down beside her.
"Mrs. Bolton," he said, "I guess that young brother of yours is just one of the biggest factors of your existence. Isn’t that so? You’d do anything for him, and never count the cost. Well, here’s something you can do for him, a mighty big thing too. It’ll be a very critical time, and I want to have him under my own eye. I also want to have complete control of him. I’m not hinting that your influence isn’t good. I know it is. But, for all that, he’ll do better with comparative strangers during that critical time than he would with his own people. I want to lift him entirely out of the old ruts. I want to start him on an entirely new footing, to give him self-reliance, to get him into good, wholesome habits. It’ll make all the difference in the world to him or I shouldn’t be urging it so strongly. Say, now, you promised me your co-operation, you are not going to refuse?"