"Maud!" he exclaimed. "Maud!"

Her hair, usually so carefully arranged, was disordered; her hat
was not adjusted at its usual exact angle; and as for the silver
fox, it hung limply backside front. Her eyes were red and she held
a handkerchief in one hand and a letter in the other.

"Oh, Jed!" she cried.

Jed put out his hands. "There, there, Maud!" he said. "There,
there, little girl."

They had been confidants since her babyhood, these two. She came
to him now, and putting her head upon his shoulder, burst into a
storm of weeping. Jed stroked her hair.

"There, there, Maud," he said gently. "Don't, girlie, don't. It's
goin' to be all right, I know it. . . . And so you came to me, did
you? I'm awful glad you did, I am so."

"He asked me to come," she sobbed. "He wrote it--in--in the
letter."

Jed led her over to a chair. "Sit down, girlie," he said, "and
tell me all about it. You got the letter, then?"

She nodded. "Yes," she said, chokingly; "it--it just came. Oh, I
am so glad Father did not come home to dinner to-day. He would
have--have seen me and--and--oh, why did he do it, Jed? Why?"

Jed shook his head. "He had to do it, Maud," he answered. "He
wanted to do the right thing and the honorable thing. And you
would rather have had him do that, wouldn't you?"

"Oh--oh, I don't know. But why didn't he come to me and tell me?
Why did he go away and--and write me he had gone to enlist? Why
didn't he come to me first? Oh. . . . Oh, Jed, how COULD he treat
me so?"

She was sobbing again. Jed took her hand and patted it with his
own big one.

"Didn't he tell you in the letter why?" he asked.

"Yes--yes, but--"

"Then let me tell you what he told me, Maud. He and I talked for
up'ards of three solid hours last night and I cal'late I understood
him pretty well when he finished. Now let me tell you what he said
to me."

He told her the substance of his long interview with Phillips. He
told also of Charles' coming to Orham, of why and how he took the
position in the bank, of his other talks with him--Winslow.

"And so," said Jed, in conclusion, "you see, Maud, what a dreadful
load the poor young feller's been carryin' ever since he came and
especially since he--well, since he found out how much he was
carin' for you. Just stop for a minute and think what a load
'twas. His conscience was troublin' him all the time for keepin'
the bank job, for sailin' under false colors in y