he moonlight, swathed airily round in
the old-fashioned soft woollen cloud she wore.

"Is it some trouble you've got into? I shall stand by you!"

"Oh, you splendid girl! The trouble's over, but it's something you can't
stand by me in, I guess. You know that girl I wrote to you about--the
one I met at the college tea, and--"

"Yes! Miss Lynde!"

"Come on! We can't stay here talking. Let's go down and sit on your
porch." She mechanically obeyed him, and they started on together down
the hill again; but she did not offer to take his arm, and he kept the
width of the roadway from her.

"What about her?" she quietly asked.

"Last night I ended up the flirtation I've been carrying on with her
ever since."

"I want to know just what you mean, Jeff."

"I mean that last week I got engaged to her, and last night I broke with
her." Cynthia seemed to stumble on something; he sprang over and caught.
her, and now she put her hand in his arm, and stayed herself by him as
they walked.

"Go on," she said.

"That's all there is of it."

"No!" She stopped, and then she asked, with a kind of gentle
bewilderment: "What did you want to tell me for?"

"To let you break with me--if you wanted to."

"Don't you care for me any more?"

"Yes, more than ever I did. But I'm not fit for you, Cynthia. Mr.
Westover said I wasn't. I told him about it--"

"What did he say?"

"That I ought to break with you."

"But if you broke with her?"

"He told me to stick to her. He was right about you, Cynthy. I'm not fit
for you, and that's a fact."

"What was it about that girl? Tell me everything." She spoke in a tone
of plaintive entreaty, very unlike the command she once used with Jeff
when she was urging him to be frank with her and true to himself. They
had come to her father's house and she freed her hand from his arm
again, and sat down on the step before the side door with a little sigh
as of fatigue.

"You'll take cold," said Jeff, who remained on foot in front of her.

"No," she said, briefly. "Go on."

"Why," Jeff began, harshly, and with a note of scorn for himself and his
theme in his voice, "there isn't any more of it, but there's no end
to her. I promised Mr. Westover I shouldn't whitewash myself, and I
sha'n't. I've been behaving badly, and it's no excuse for me because she
wanted me to. I began to go for her as soon as I saw that she wanted me
to, and that she liked the excitement. The excitement is all that she
car