"And your father, would you have told him?"

She hesitated. "I don't know," she said, but with less a.s.surance.

"Perhaps so, later on. It had all been kept a secret so far, all the whole dreadful thing, why not a little longer? Besides-- besides, Father knows how much Charlie means to me. Father and I had a long talk about him one night and I--I think he knows. And he is very fond of Charlie himself; he has said so so many times.

He would have forgiven him, too, if I had asked him. He always does what I ask."

"Yes, ye-es, I cal'late that's so. But, to be real honest now, Maud, would you have been satisfied to have it that way? Would you have felt that it was the honorable thing for Charlie to do? Isn't what he has done better? He's undertakin' the biggest and finest job a man can do in this world to-day, as I see it. It's the job he'd have taken on months ago if he'd felt 'twas right to leave Ruth--Mrs. Armstrong--so soon after--after bein' separated from her so long. He's taken on this big job, this man's job, and he says to you: 'Here I am. You know me now. Do you care for me still?

If you do will you wait till I come back?' And to your dad, to Sam, he says: 'I ain't workin' for you now. I ain't on your payroll and so I can speak out free and independent. If your daughter'll have me I mean to marry her some day.' Ain't that the better way, Maud? Ain't that how you'd rather have him feel--and do?"

She sighed and shook her head. "I--I suppose so," she admitted.

"Oh, I suppose that you and he are right. In his letter he says just that. Would you like to see it; that part of it, I mean?"

Jed took the crumpled and tear-stained letter from her hand.

"I think I ought to tell you, Maud," he said, "that writin' this was his own idea. It was me that suggested his enlistin', although I found he'd been thinkin' of it all along, but I was for havin'

him go and enlist and then come back and tell you and Sam. But he says, 'No. I'll tell her in a letter and then when I come back she'll have had time to think it over. She won't say 'yes' then simply because she pities me or because she doesn't realize what it means. No, I'll write her and then when I come back after enlistin'

and go to her for my answer, I'll know it's given deliberate.'"

She nodded. "He says that there," she said chokingly. "But he--he must have known. Oh, Jed, how CAN I let him go--to war?"

That portion of the letter which Jed was permitted to read was straightforward and honest and manly. There were no appeals for pity or sympathy. The writer stated his case and left the rest to her, that was all. And Jed, reading between the lines, respected Charles Phillips more than ever.

He and Maud talked for a long time after that. And, at last, they reached a point which Jed had tried his best to avoid. Maud mentioned it first. She had been speaking of his friendship for her lover and for herself.

"I don't see what we should have done without your help, Jed," she said. "And when I think what you have done for Charlie! Why, yes-- and now I know why you pretended to have found the four hundred dollars Father thought he had lost. Pa left it at Wapatomac, after all; you knew that?"

Jed stirred uneasily. He was standing by the window, looking out into the yard.

"Yes, yes," he said hastily, "I know. Don't talk about it, Maud.

It makes me feel more like a fool than usual and . . . er . . .

don't seem as if that was hardly necessary, does it?"

"But I shall talk about it. When Father came home that night he couldn't talk of anything else. He called it the prize puzzle of the century. You had given him four hundred dollars of your own money and pretended it was his and that you had--had stolen it, Jed. He burst out laughing when he told me that and so did I. The idea of your stealing anything! You!"

Jed smiled, feebly.

"'Twas silly enough, I give in," he admitted. "You see," he added, in an apologetic drawl, "nine-tenths of this town think I'm a prize idiot and sometimes I feel it's my duty to live up--or down--to my reputation. This was one of the times, that's all. I'm awful glad Sam got his own money back, though."

"The money didn't amount to anything. But what you did was the wonderful thing. For now I understand why you did it. You thought--you thought Charlie had taken it to--to pay that horrid man in Middleford. That is what you thought and you--"

Jed broke in. "Don't! Don't put me in mind of it, Maud," he begged. "I'm so ashamed I don't know what to do. You see--you see, Charlie had said how much he needed about that much money and-- and so, bein' a--a woodenhead, I naturally--"

"Oh, don't! Please don't! It was wonderful of you, Jed. You not only gave up your own money, but you were willing to sacrifice your good name; to have Father, your best friend, think you a thief.

And you did it all to save Charlie from exposure. How could you, Jed?"

Jed didn't answer. He did not appear to have heard her. He was gazing steadily out into the yard.

"How could you, Jed?" repeated Maud. "It was wonderful! I can't understand. I--"

She stopped at the beginning of the sentence. She was standing beside the little writing-table and the drawer was open. She looked down and there, in that drawer, she saw the framed photograph of Ruth Armstrong. She remembered that Jed had been sitting at that desk and gazing down into that drawer when she entered the room. She looked at him now. He was standing by the window peering out into the yard. Ruth had come from the back door of the little Winslow house and was standing on the step looking up the road, evidently waiting for Barbara to come from school. And Jed was watching her. Maud saw the look upon his face--and she understood.

A few moments later she and Ruth met. Maud had tried to avoid that meeting by leaving Jed's premises by the front door, the door of the outer shop. But Ruth had walked to the gate to see if Babbie was coming and, as Maud emerged from the shop, the two women came face to face. For an instant they did not speak. Maud, excited and overwrought by her experience with the letter and her interview with Jed, was still struggling for self-control, and Ruth, knowing that the other must by this time have received that letter and learned her brother's secret, was inclined to be coldly defiant.

She was the first to break the silence. She said "Good afternoon"

and pa.s.sed on. But Maud, after another instant of hesitation, turned back.

"Oh, Mrs. Armstrong," she faltered, "may I speak with you just-- just for a few minutes?"

And now Ruth hesitated. What was it the girl wished to speak about? If it was to reproach her or her brother, or to demand further explanations or apologies, the interview had far better not take place. She was in no mood to listen to reproaches. Charles was, in her eyes, a martyr and a hero and now, largely because of this girl, he was going away to certain danger, perhaps to death.

She had tried, for his sake, not to blame Maud Hunniwell because Charles had fallen in love with her, but she was not, just then, inclined toward extreme forbearance. So she hesitated, and Maud spoke again.

"May I speak with you for just a few minutes?" she pleaded. "I have just got his letter and--oh, may I?"

Ruth silently led the way to the door of the little house.

"Come in," she said.

Together they entered the sitting-room. Ruth asked her caller to be seated, but Maud paid no attention.

"I have just got his letter," she faltered. "I--I wanted you to know--to know that it doesn't make any difference. I--I don't care. If he loves me, and--and he says he does--I don't care for anything else. . . . Oh,' PLEASE be nice to me," she begged, holding out her hands. "You are his sister and--and I love him so!

And he is going away from both of us."

So Ruth's coldness melted like a fall of snow in early April, and the April showers followed it. She and Maud wept in each other's arms and were femininely happy accordingly. And for at least a half hour thereafter they discussed the surpa.s.sing excellencies of Charlie Phillips, the certainty that Captain Hunniwell would forgive him because he could not help it and a variety of kindred and satisfying subjects. And at last Jed Winslow drifted into the conversation.

"And so you have been talking it over with Jed," observed Ruth.

"Isn't it odd how we all go to him when we are in trouble or need advice or anything? I always do and Charlie did, and you say that you do, too."

Maud nodded. "He and I have been what Pa calls 'chummies' ever since I can remember," she said simply.

"I don't know why I feel that I can confide in him to such an extent. Somehow I always have. And, do you know, his advice is almost always good? If I had taken it from the first we might, all of us, have avoided a deal of trouble. I have cause to think of Jed Winslow as something sure and safe and trustworthy. Like a nice, kindly old watch dog, you know. A queer one and a funny one, but awfully nice. Babbie idolizes him."

Maud nodded again. She was regarding her companion with an odd expression.

"And when I think," continued Ruth, "of how he was willing to sacrifice his character and his honor and even to risk losing your father's friendship--how he proclaimed himself a thief to save Charlie! When I think of that I scarcely know whether to laugh or cry. I want to do both, of course. It was perfectly characteristic and perfectly adorable--and so absolutely absurd. I love him for it, and as yet I haven't dared thank him for fear I shall cry again, as I did when Captain Hunniwell told us. Yet, when I think of his declaring he took the money to buy a suit of clothes, I feel like laughing. Oh, he IS a dear, isn't he?"

Now, ordinarily, Maud would have found nothing in this speech to arouse resentment. There was the very slight, and in this case quite unintentional, note of patronage in it that every one used when referring to Jed Winslow. She herself almost invariably used that note when speaking of him or even to him. But now her emotions were so deeply stirred and the memories of her recent interview with Jed, of his understanding and his sympathy, were so vivid. And, too, she had just had that glimpse into his most secret soul. So her tone, as she replied to Ruth's speech, was almost sharp.

"He didn't do it for Charlie," she declared. "That is, of course he did, but that wasn't the real reason."

"Why, what do you mean?"

"Don't you know what I mean? Don't you really know?"

"Why, of course I don't. What ARE you talking about? Didn't do it for Charlie? Didn't say that he was a thief and give your father his own money, do you mean? Do you mean he didn't do that for Charlie?"

"Yes. He did it for you."

"For me? For ME?"

"Yes. . . . Oh, can't you understand? It's absurd and foolish and silly and everything, but I know it's true. Jed Winslow is in love with you, Mrs. Armstrong."