"Keep that kid out of his room," advised Kenny hotly. "I can't. He moons around up there like a ghost. Brian admits that he's so sorry for him at times that it makes him feel sick."
"Hum!" said Frank and went in search of Don.
"I suppose you think I'm too much of a kid to have an opinion," Don told him, his face white and fierce, "but I--I did it. And I watch him more than anybody else--" He choked and blinked back boyish tears of indignation.
"Keep Mr. O'Neill out of Brian's room," he snorted. "He'd excite anybody!"
"I intend to keep you all out," was Frank's verdict in the end. "All but the nurse and Joan. Joan's not temperamental and she has nothing on her conscience. She has moreover a sedative convincing type of cheer that's a mighty good influence. The rest of you are simply on a sentimental spree of penance. You, Kenny, are so anxious to square yourself that you make him nervous and he fumes and blames himself. And Don can't look at him without remorse in his eyes. You're both too flighty and penitential for Brian's good."
Frank departed and Joan compassionately set herself to sentinel the sickroom. There were trying hours when her voice alone had power to soothe the querulous young savage whose tired eyes begged them all to forgive him.
Nurses came and nurses hopelessly departed. Brian hated and hounded them all with savage and impartial persistence. He was jarring even the little doctor out of his normal weary calm.
"I've seen him flat on the back of him before," Kenny confided to Joan in some distress, "a lamb for sense! But now he's tiring you out."
"You mustn't blame him," urged Joan. "He never asks me to come. I go always of my own accord and oftener now since Frank scolded. He's lonely without you and Donald and he hates the nurse--"
"No matter how nervous he is, I can read him to sleep."
"Ah, colleen!" There was a flash of reverence in Kenny's eyes. It mutely thanked her.
"I can't forget what he did for Don. Nor can I forget that Don's impulse--"
"He worries me, Kenny--Don, I mean. Sometimes I think he sees in my help the one atonement he can make: he fumes and reproaches so when Brian is nervous or lonely. He even dreams of the boulder."
"Don needs me," she said. "He would be frantic here alone. I cannot desert him."