know you would hear of it sooner or
later anyway, and he ha'n't just found out that he was goin' wrong. Been
keepin' it up for the last three months, and writin' you all the while
them letters you was so crazy to get."

"Yes," sighed the girl. "But we've got to be just to his disposition as
well as his actions. I can see it in one light that can excuse it some.
He can't bear to be put down, and I know he's been left out a good
deal among the students, and it's made him bitter. He told me about it;
that's one reason why he wanted to leave Harvard this last year. He saw
other young men made much of, when he didn't get any notice; and when
he had the chance to pay them back with a girl of their own set that was
trying to make a fool of him--"

"That was the time for him to remember you," said Whitwell.

Cynthia broke under the defence she was trying to make. "Yes," she said,
with an indrawn sigh, and she began to sob piteously.

The sight of her grief seemed to kindle her father's wrath to a flame.
"Any way you look at him, he's been a dumn blackguard; that's what he's
been. You're a million times too good for him; and I--"

She sobbed herself quiet, and then she said: "Father, I don't like to go
up there to-night. I want to stay here."

"All right, Cynthia. I'll come down and stay with you. You got
everything we want here?"

"Yes. And I'll go up and get the breakfast for them in the morning.
There won't be much to do."

"Dumn 'em! Let 'em get their own breakfast!" said Whitwell, recklessly.

"And, father," the girl went on as if he had not spoken, "don't you talk
to Mrs. Durgin about it, will you?"

"No, no. I sha'n't speak to her. I'll just tell Frank you and me are
goin' to stay down here to-night. She'll suspicion something, but she
can figure it out for herself. Or she can make Jeff tell her. It can't
be kept from her."

"Well, let him be the one to tell her. Whatever happens, I shall never
speak of it to a soul besides you."

"All right, Cynthy. You'll have the night to think it over--I guess you
won't sleep much--and I'll trust you to do what's the best thing about
it."

XLV.

Cynthia found Mrs. Durgin in the old farm-house kitchen at work getting
breakfast when she came up to the hotel in the morning. She was early,
but the elder woman had been earlier still, and her heavy face showed
more of their common night-long trouble than the girl's.

She demanded, at sight of her, "What's the matte