She was silent a long while before she turned to him, and then the tears were running very swiftly down her cheeks.

“Yes, I will do it for you,” she answered.  “Uncle Jethro, I believe you are the best man, in the world.”

“D-don’t say that, Cynthy—­d-don’t say that,” he exclaimed, and a sharp agony was in his voice.  He got to his feet and went to the folding doors and opened them.  “Steve!” he called, “Steve!”

“S-says she’ll stay, Steve.”

Mr. Merrill had come in, followed by his wife.  Cynthia saw them but dimly through her tears.  And while she tried to wipe the tears away she felt Mrs. Merrill’s arm about her, and heard that lady say:—­“We’ll try to make you very happy, my dear, and send you back safely in the spring.”

CHAPTER VIII

An attempt will be made in these pages to set down such incidents which alone may be vital to this chronicle, now so swiftly running on.  The reasons why Mr. Merrill was willing to take Cynthia into his house must certainly be clear to the reader.  In the first place, he was under very heavy obligations to Jethro Bass for many favors; in the second place, Mr. Merrill had a real affection for Jethro, which, strange as it may seem to some, was quite possible; and in the third place, Mr. Merrill had taken a fancy to Cynthia, and he had never forgotten the unintentional wrong he had done William Wetherell.  Mr. Merrill was a man of impulses, and generally of good impulses.  Had he not himself urged upon Jethro the arrangement, it would never have come about.  Lastly, he had invited Cynthia to his house that his wife might inspect her, and Mrs. Merrill’s verdict had been instant and favorable—­a verdict not given in words.  A single glance was sufficient, for these good people so understood each other that Mrs. Merrill had only to raise her eyes to her husband’s, and this she did shortly after the supper party began; while she was pouring the coffee, to be exact.  Thus the compact that Cynthia was to spend the winter in their house was ratified.

There was, first of all, the parting with Jethro and the messages with which he and Ephraim were laden for the whole village and town of Coniston.  It was very hard, that parting, and need not be dwelt upon.  Ephraim waved his blue handkerchief as the train pulled out, but Jethro stood on the platform, silent and motionless:  more eloquent in his sorrow—­so Mr. Merrill thought—­than any human being he had ever known.  Mr. Merrill wondered if Jethro’s sorrow were caused by this parting alone; he believed it was not, and suddenly guessed at the true note of it.  Having come by chance upon the answer to the riddle, Mr. Merrill stood still with his hand on the carriage door and marvelled that he had not seen it all sooner.  He was a man to take to heart the troubles of his friends.  A subtle change had indeed come over Jethro, and he was not the same man Mr. Merrill had known for many years.  Would others, the men with whom Jethro contended and the men he commanded, mark this change?  And what effect would it have on the conflict for the mastery of a state which was to be waged from now on?