It was almost four o’clock when Jed’s next visitor came.  He was the one man whom he most dreaded to meet just then.  Yet he hid his feelings and rose with hand outstretched.

“Why, good afternoon, Major!” he exclaimed.  “Real glad to see you.  Sit down.”

Grover sat.  “Jed,” he said, “Ruth tells me that you know of my good fortune.  Will you congratulate me?”

Jed’s reply was calm and deliberate and he did his best to make it sound whole-hearted and sincere.

“I sartin do,” he declared.  “Anybody that wouldn’t congratulate you on that could swap his head for a billiard ball and make money on the dicker; the ivory he’d get would be better than the bone he gave away. . . .  Yes, Major Grover, you’re a lucky man.”

To save his life he could not entirely keep the shake from his voice as he said it.  If Grover noticed it he put it down to the sincerity of the speaker.

“Thank you,” he said.  “I realize my luck, I assure you.  And now, Jed, first of all, let me thank you.  Ruth has told me what a loyal friend and counselor you have been to her and she and I both are very, very grateful.”

Jed stirred uneasily.  “Sho, sho!” he protested.  “I haven’t done anything.  Don’t talk about it, please.  I—­I’d rather you wouldn’t.”

“Very well, since you wish it, I won’t.  But she and I will always think of it, you may be sure of that.  I dropped in here now just to tell you this and to thank you personally.  And I wanted to tell you, too, that I think we need not fear Babbitt’s talking too much.  Of course it would not make so much difference now if he did; Charlie will be away and doing what all decent people will respect him for doing, and you and I can see that Ruth does not suffer.  But I think Babbitt will keep still.  I hope I have frightened him; I certainly did my best.”

Jed rubbed his chin.

“I’m kind of sorry for Phin,” he observed.

“Are you?  For heaven’s sake, why?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  When you’ve been goin’ around ever since January loaded up to the muzzle with spite and sure-thing vengeance, same as an old-fashioned horse pistol used to be loaded with powder and ball, it must be kind of hard, just as you’re set to pull trigger, to have to quit and swaller the whole charge.  Liable to give you dyspepsy, if nothin’ worse, I should say.”

Grover smiled.  “The last time I saw Babbitt he appeared to be nearer apoplexy than dyspepsia,” he said.

“Ye-es.  Well, I’m sorry for him, I really am.  It must be pretty dreadful to be so cross-grained that you can’t like even your own self without feelin’ lonesome. . . .  Yes, that’s a bad state of affairs. . . .  I don’t know but I’d almost rather be ‘town crank’ than that.”

The Major’s farewell remark, made as he rose to go, contained an element of mystery.