t 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 matter with you and Jeff,
Cynthy?"

Cynthia was unrolling the cloud from her hair. She said, as she tied on
her apron: "You must get him to tell you, Mrs. Durgin."

"Then there is something?"

"Yes."

"Has Jeff been using you wrong?"

Cynthia stooped to open the oven door, and to turn the pan of biscuit she
found inside. She shut the door sharply to, and said, as she rose: "I
don't want to tell anything about it, and I sha'n't, Mrs. Durgin. He can
do it, if he wants to. Shall I make the coffee?"

"Yes; you seem to make it better than I do. Do you think I shouldn't
believe you was fair to him?"

"I wasn't thinking of that. But it's his secret. If he wants to keep it,
he can keep it, for all me."

"You ha'n't give each other up?"

"I don't know." Cynthia turned away with a trembling chin, and began to
beat the coffee up with an egg she had dropped into the pot. She put the
breakfast on the table when it was ready, but she would not sit down with
the rest. She said she did not want any breakfast, and she drank a cup