She waited a space, but he did not stir.  There was no sound, save the song of Coniston Water under the shattered ice.

“Won’t you speak to me?” she whispered.  “Won’t you tell me that they are not true?”

His shoulders shook convulsively.  O for the right to turn to her and tell her that they were lies!  He would have bartered his soul for it.  What was all the power in the world compared to this priceless treasure he had lost?  Once before he had cast it away, though without meaning to.  Then he did not know the eternal value of love—­of such love as those two women had given him.  Now he knew that it was beyond value, the one precious gift of life, and the knowledge had come too late.  Could he have saved his life if he had listened to that other Cynthia?

“Won’t you tell me that they are not true?”

Even then he did not turn to her, but he answered.  Curious to relate, though his heart was breaking, his voice was steady—­steady as it always had been.

“I—­I’ve seen it comin’, Cynthy,” he said.  “I never knowed anything I was afraid of before—­but I was afraid of this.  I knowed what your notions of right and wrong was—­your—­your mother had them.  They’re the principles of good people.  I—­I knowed the day would come when you’d ask, but I wanted to be happy as long as I could.  I hain’t been happy, Cynthy.  But you was right when you said I’d tell you the truth.  S-so I will.  I guess them things which you speak about are true—­the way I got where I am, and the way I made my livin’.  They—­they hain’t put just as they’d ought to be, perhaps, but that’s the way I done it in the main.”

It was thus that Jethro Bass met the supreme crisis of his life.  And who shall say he did not meet it squarely and honestly?  Few men of finer fibre and more delicate morals would have acquitted themselves as well.  That was a Judgment Day for Jethro; and though he knew it not, he spoke through Cynthia to his Maker, confessing his faults freely and humbly, and dwelling on the justness of his punishment; putting not forward any good he may have done; nor thinking of it; nor seeking excuse because of the light that was in him.  Had he been at death’s door in the face of nameless tortures, no man could have dragged such a confession from him.  But a great love had been given him, and to that love he must speak the truth, even at the cost of losing it.

But he was not to lose it.  Even as he was speaking a thrill of admiration ran through Cynthia, piercing her sorrow.  The superb strength of the man was there in that simple confession, and it is in the nature of woman to admire strength.  He had fought his fight, and gained, and paid the price without a murmur, seeking no palliation.  Cynthia had not come to that trial—­so bitter for her—­as a judge.  If the reader has seen youth and innocence sitting in the seat of justice, with age and experience at the bar, he has mistaken Cynthia.  She came to Coniston inexorable, it is true, because hers was a nature impelled to do right though it perish.  She did not presume to say what Jethro’s lights and opportunities might have been.  Her own she knew, and by them she must act accordingly.