But there was Ruth.  She, not her brother, was primarily responsible for obtaining for him the bank position and obtaining it under fake pretenses.  And she, according to her own confession to Jed, had urged upon Charles the importance of telling no one.  Jed himself would have known nothing, would have had only a vague, indefinite suspicion, had she not taken him into her confidence.  And to him that confidence was precious, sacred.  If Charlie’s secret became known, it was not he alone who would suffer; Ruth, too, would be disgraced.  She and Babbie might have to leave Orham, might have to go out of his life forever.

No wonder that, as the days passed, and Gabe Bearse’s comments and those of Captain Eri Hedge were echoed and reasserted by the majority of Orham tongues, Jed Winslow’s worry and foreboding increased.  He watched Charlie Phillips go whistling out of the yard after supper, and sighed as he saw him turn up the road in the direction of the Hunniwell home.  He watched Maud’s face when he met her and, although the young lady was in better spirits and prettier than he had ever seen her, these very facts made him miserable, because he accepted them as proofs that the situation was as he feared.  He watched Ruth’s face also and there, too, he saw, or fancied that he saw, a growing anxiety.  She had been very well; her spirits, like Maud’s, had been light; she had seemed younger and so much happier than when he and she first met.  The little Winslow house was no longer so quiet, with no sound of voices except those of Barbara and her mother.  There were Red Cross sewing meetings there occasionally, and callers came.  Major Grover was one of the latter.  The major’s errands in Orham were more numerous than they had been, and his trips thither much more frequent, in consequence.  And whenever he came he made it a point to drop in, usually at the windmill shop first, and then upon Babbie at the house.  Sometimes he brought her home from school in his car.  He told Jed that he had taken a great fancy to the little girl and could not bear to miss an opportunity of seeing her.  Which statement Jed, of course, accepted wholeheartedly.

But Jed was sure that Ruth had been anxious and troubled of late and he believed the reason to be that which troubled him.  He hoped she might speak to him concerning her brother.  He would have liked to broach the subject himself, but feared she might consider him interfering.

One day—­it was in late February, the ground was covered with snow and a keen wind was blowing in over a sea gray-green and splashed thickly with white—­Jed was busy at his turning lathe when Charlie came into the shop.  Business at the bank was not heavy in mid-winter and, although it was but little after three, the young man was through work for the day.  He hoisted himself to his accustomed seat on the edge of the workbench and sat there, swinging his feet and watching his companion turn out the heads and trunks of a batch of wooden sailors.  He was unusually silent, for him, merely nodding in response to Jed’s cheerful “Hello!” and speaking but a few words in reply to a question concerning the weather.  Jed, absorbed in his work and droning a hymn, apparently forgot all about his caller.