, speechless.

Jim seated himself on a stool, and lit his pipe.

Joe eyed him. Jim was a sort of hero to him on account of his hunting
fame. As soon as he could control his tongue, he addressed him:

"Heard the news?" said he, trying to speak like a man.

"What news?"

"Old Andrew Bolton's got out of prison and come back. He's crazy,
too."

"How did you get hold of such nonsense?"

"Heard the women talking."

Jim pondered a moment. Then he said "Damn," and Joe admired him as
never before. When Jim had gone out, directly, Joe shook his fist at
a sugar barrel, and said "Damn," in a whisper.

Jim in the meantime was hurrying along the road to the Bolton house.
He made up his mind that he must see Lydia. He must know if she had
authorized the revelation that had evidently been made, and if so,
through whom. He suspected the minister, and was hot with jealousy.
His own friendship with Lydia seemed to have suffered a blight after
that one confidential talk of theirs, in which she had afforded him a
glimpse of her sorrowful past. She had not alluded to the subject a
second time; and, somehow, he had not been able to get behind the
defenses of her smiling cheerfulness. Always she was with her father,
it seemed; and the old man, garrulous enough when alone, was
invariably silent and moody in his daughter's company. One might
almost have said he hated her, from the sneering impatient looks he
cast at her from time to time. As for Lydia, she was all love and
brooding tenderness for the man who had suffered so long and
terribly.

"He'll be better after a while," she constantly excused him. "He
needs peace and quiet and home to restore him to himself."

"You want to look out for him," Jim had ventured to warn the girl,
when the two were alone together for a moment.

"Do you mean father?" Lydia asked. "What else should I do? It is all
I live for--just to look out for father."

Had she been a martyr bound to the stake, the faggots piled about her
slim body, her face might have worn just that expression of high
resignation and contempt for danger and suffering.

The young man walked slowly on. He wanted time to think. Besides--he
glanced down with a quick frown of annoyance at his mud-splashed
clothing--he certainly cut a queer figure for a call.

Some one was standing on the doorstep talking to Fanny, as he
approached his own home. Another instant and he had recognized Wesley
Elliot. He stopped behind a clump of lo