He met them as they stepped on board, and in a moment they were the centre of observation.  The buzz of talk died down as the general attention focussed upon them.  Maud was aware of Jake standing squarely behind her, and she put out a hand to him which he grasped and held.

Saltash was laughing, but they could not hear what he said.  Only in a moment he had taken a hand of Bunny’s and a hand of Toby’s and joined them together.  Toby’s eyes were lifted to his face.  She was smiling with lips that trembled, and Maud’s heart gave a great throb of pity, she could not have said wherefore.  She had a deep longing to go and gather the child into her arms and comfort her.

Then Toby too was laughing, and she heard Saltash’s voice.  “These things only happen properly once in a blue moon, ma chere.  I give you both my blessing for the second time to-day.  I wish you better luck than has ever come my way.”

He threw a gay malicious glance towards the bridge, where Larpent stood like a grim Viking looking down upon the scene.

“Come!” he said.  “We had better go and tell your daddy next!”

He led them lightly forward, and the crowd opened out with jests and laughter to let them pass.

Toby walked between the two men, very pale but still smiling—­a smile that was curiously like the smile of a child that is trying not to cry.

“Oh, poor little thing!” Maud whispered suddenly and drew back beside Jake as if she could not bear to look.

“She’ll be all right,” said Jake stoutly.  “Don’t you fret any!  Bunny’s sound.”

“Oh, yes, I know—­I know!  But she’s so young.”  All the yearning of motherhood was in Maud’s voice.  “Does she love him?  Does she?”

Jake’s hand gripped hers more closely.  He looked into her face with a smile in his red-brown eyes.  “Maybe not as we know love,” he said.  “It doesn’t come all at once—­that sort.”

She smiled back at him, for she could not help it, even as she shook her head in misgiving.  “Sometimes—­it doesn’t come at all!” she said.

CHAPTER IX

THE WARNING

It seemed to Maud that in the days that followed her engagement Toby developed with the swiftness of an opening flower.  There was no talk of her leaving them.  She fitted into the establishment as though she had always been a part of it, and she took upon herself responsibilities which Maud would never have laid upon her.

Watching her anxiously, it seemed to her that Toby was becoming more settled, more at rest, than she had ever been before.  The look of fear was dormant in her eyes now, and her sudden flares of anger had wholly ceased.  She made no attempt to probe below the surface, realizing the inadvisability of such a course, realizing that the first days of an engagement are seldom days of expansion, being full of emotions too varied for analysis.  That Toby should turn to her or to Jake if she needed a confident she did not for a moment doubt, but unless the need arose she resolved to leave the girl undisturbed.  She had, moreover, great faith in Bunny’s powers.  As Jake had said, Bunny was sound, and she knew him well enough to be convinced that he would find a means of calming any misgivings that might exist in Toby’s mind.