"No. I felt that I had been treated badly and--why, Jed, the man used to urge me to dress better than I could afford, to belong to the most expensive club and all that sort of thing. He knew I was in with a set sporting ten times the money I could muster, and spending it, too, but he seemed to like to have me a.s.sociate with them. Said it was good for the business."

"Sartin! More crackers for Polly. Go on."

"I intended that he should never have that money, but after I came here, after I had been here for a time, I changed my mind. I saw things in a different light. I wrote him a letter, told him I meant to pay back every cent of the two thousand I had taken and enclosed my check for the seven hundred and fifty I had put by.

Since then I have paid him two hundred and fifty more, goodness knows how. I have squeezed every penny from my salary that I could spare. I have paid him half of the two thousand and, if everything had gone on well, some day or other I would have paid the other half."

Jed laid a hand on his companion's knee. "Good boy, Charlie," he said. "And how did the--er--professin' poll parrot act about your payin' it back?"

Charles smiled faintly. "Just before I talked with you that day, Jed," he said, "I received a letter from him stating that he did not feel I was paying as rapidly as I could and that, if he did not receive another five hundred shortly he should feel it his duty to communicate with my present employers. Do you wonder I said I would do almost anything to get the money?"

Jed's hand patted the knee sympathetically.

"Sho, sho, sho!" he exclaimed. "Have you heard from him since?"

"No, I wrote him that I was paying as fast as I could and that if he communicated with my employers that would end any chances of his ever getting more. He hasn't written since; afraid of stopping the golden egg supply, I presume. . . . But there," he added, "that's enough of that. Jed, how could you do it--just for me? Of course I had come to realize that your heart was as big as a bushel basket, and that you and I were friends. But when a fellow gives up four hundred dollars of his own money, and, not only does that, but deliberately confesses himself a thief--when he does that to save some one else who, as he knew, had really been a thief and who he was pretty sure must have stolen again--why, Jed, it is unbelievable. Why did you do it? What can I say to you?"

Jed held up a protesting hand.

"Don't say anything," he stammered. "Don't! It's--it's all foolishness, anyhow."

"Foolishness! It's--oh, I don't know what it is! And to sacrifice your reputation and your character and your friendship with Captain Hunniwell, all for me! I can't understand it."

"Now--now--now, Charlie, don't try to. If I can't understand myself more'n half the time, what's the use of your strainin' your brains? I--I just took a notion, that's all. I--"

"But, Jed, why did you do it--for me? I have heard of men doing such things for--for women, sacrificing themselves to save a woman they were in love with. You read of that in books and--yes, I think I can understand that. But for you to do it--for ME!"

Jed waved both hands this time. "Sshh! sshh!" he cried, in frantic protest. His face was a brilliant crimson and his embarra.s.sment and confusion were so acute as to be laughable, although Phillips was far from laughing. "Sshh, sshh, Charlie," pleaded Jed. "You-- you don't know what you're talkin' about. You're makin' an awful fuss about nothin'. Sshh! Yes, you are, too. I didn't have any notion of tellin' Sam I stole that four hundred when I first gave it to him. I was goin' to tell him I found it, that's all. That would keep him bottled up, I figgered, and satisfied and then--then you and I'd have a talk and I'd tell you what I'd done and--well, some day maybe you could pay me back the money; don't you see? I do hope," he added anxiously, "you won't hold it against me, for thinkin' maybe you had taken it. Course I'd ought to have known better. I would have known better if I'd been anybody but Shavin's Winslow. HE ain't responsible."

"Hush, Jed, hush! But why did you say you had--kept it?"

"Eh? Oh, that was Sam's doin's. He commenced to ask questions, and, the first thing I knew, he had me on the spider fryin' over a hot fire. The more I sizzled and sputtered and tried to get out of that spider, the more he poked up the fire. I declare, I never knew lyin' was such a job! When I see how easy and natural it comes to some folks I feel kind of ashamed to think what a poor show I made at it. Well, Sam kept pokin' the fire and heatin' me up till I got desperate and swore I stole the money instead of findin' it. And that was hoppin' out of the fryin' pan INTO the fire," he drawled reflectively.

Charles smiled. "Captain Sam said you told him you took the money to buy a suit of clothes with," he suggested.

"Eh? Did I? Sho! That was a real bright idea of mine, wasn't it?

A suit of clothes. Humph! Wonder I didn't say I bought shoe laces or collar b.u.t.tons or somethin'. . . . Sho! . . . Dear, dear!

Well, they say George Washin'ton couldn't tell a lie and I've proved I can't either; only I've tried to tell one and I don't recollect that he ever did that. . . . Humph! . . . A suit of clothes. . . . Four hundred dollars. . . . Solomon in all his glory would have looked like a calico shirt and a pair of overalls alongside of me, eh? . . . Humph!"

Phillips shook his head. "Nevertheless, Jed," he declared, "I can't understand why you did it and I never--never shall forget it.

Neither will Ruth. She will tell you so to-morrow."

Jed was frightened. "No, no, no, she mustn't," he cried, quickly.

"I--I don't want her to talk about it. I--I don't want anybody to talk about it. Please tell her not to, Charlie! Please! It's-- it's all such foolishness anyhow. Let's forget it."

"It isn't the sort of thing one forgets easily. But we won't talk of it any more just now, if that pleases you better. I have some other things to talk about and I must talk about them with some one. I MUST--I've got to."

Jed looked at him. The words reminded him forcibly of Ruth's on that day when she had come to the windmill shop to tell him her brother's story and to discuss the question of his coming to Orham.

She, too, had said that she must talk with some one--she MUST.

"Have--you talked 'em over with--with your sister?" he asked.

"Yes. But she and I don't agree completely in the matter. You see, Ruth thinks the world of me, she always did, a great deal more than I deserve, ever have deserved or ever will. And in this matter she thinks first of all of me--what will become of me provided--well, provided things don't go as I should like to have them. That isn't the way I want to face the question. I want to know what is best for every one, for her, for me and--and for some one else--most of all for some one else, I guess," he added.

Jed nodded slowly. "For Maud," he said.

Charles looked at him. "How on earth--?" he demanded. "What in blazes are you--a clairvoyant?"

"No-o. No. But it don't need a spirit medium to see through a window pane, Charlie; that is, the average window pane," he added, with a glance at his own, which were in need of washing just then.

"You want to know," he continued, "what you'd ought to do now that will be the right thing, or the nighest to the right thing, for your sister and Babbie and yourself--and Maud."

"Yes, I do. It isn't any new question for me. I've been putting it up to myself for a long time, for months; by, George, it seems years."

"I know. I know. Well, Charlie, I've been puttin' it up to myself, too. Have you got any answer?"

"No, none that exactly suits me. Have you?"

"I don't know's I have--exactly."

"Exactly? Well, have you any, exact or otherwise?"

"Um. . . . Well, I've got one, but . . . but perhaps it ain't an answer. Perhaps it wouldn't do at all. Perhaps . . . perhaps . . ."

"Never mind the perhapses. What is it?"

"Um. . . . Suppose we let it wait a little spell and talk the situation over just a little mite. You've been talkin' with your sister, you say, and she don't entirely agree with you."

"No. I say things can't go on as they've been going. They can't."

"Um-hm. Meanin'--what things?"

"Everything. Jed, do you remember that day when you and I had the talk about poetry and all that? When you quoted that poem about a chap's fearing his fate too much? Well, I've been fearing my fate ever since I began to realize what a mess I was getting into here in Orham. When I first came I saw, of course, that I was skating on thin ice, and it was likely to break under me at any time. I knew perfectly well that some day the Middleford business was bound to come out and that my accepting the bank offer without telling Captain Hunniwell or any one was a mighty risky, not to say mean, business. But Ruth was so very anxious that I should accept and kept begging me not to tell, at least until they had had a chance to learn that I was worth something, that I gave in and . . . I say, Jed," he put in, breaking his own sentence in the middle, "don't think I'm trying to shove the blame over on to Sis. It's not that."

Jed nodded. "Sho, sho, Charlie," he said, "course 'tain't. I understand."

"No, I'll take the blame. I was old enough to have a mind of my own. Well, as I was saying, I realized it all, but I didn't care so much. If the smash did come, I figured, it might not come until I had established myself at the bank, until they might have found me valuable enough to keep on in spite of it. And I worked mighty hard to make them like me. Then--then--well, then Maud and I became friends and--and--oh, confound it, you see what I mean! You must see."

The Winslow knee was clasped between the Winslow hands and the Winslow foot was swinging. Jed nodded again.

"I see, Charlie," he said.

"And--and here I am. The smash has come, in a way, already.

Babbitt, so Ruth tells me, knows the whole story and was threatening to tell, but she says Grover a.s.sures her that he won't tell, that he, the major, has a club over the old fellow which will prevent his telling. Do you think that's true?"

"I shouldn't be surprised. Major Grover sartinly did seem to put the fear of the Lord into Phin this afternoon. . . . And that's no one-horse miracle," he drawled, "when you consider that all the ministers in Orham haven't been able to do it for forty odd years. . . . Um. . . . Yes, I kind of cal'late Phin'll keep his hatches shut. He may bust his b'iler and blow up with spite, but he won't talk about you, Charlie, I honestly believe. And we can all thank the major for that."

"I shall thank him, for one!"

"Mercy on us! No, no. He doesn't know your story at all. He just thinks Babbitt was circulatin' lies about Ruth--about your sister.

You mustn't mention the Middleford--er--mess to Major Grover."