“You have read the articles,” she said.

Read them!  During her walk hither Cynthia had been incapable of thought, but the epithets and arraignments and accusations, the sentences and paragraphs, wars printed now, upon her brain, never, she believed, to be effaced.  Every step of the way she had been unconsciously repeating them.

“Have you read them?” asked Cynthia.

“Yes, my dear.”

“Has everybody read them?” Did the whole world, then, know of her shame?

“I am glad you came to me, my dear,” said Miss Lucretia, taking her hand.  “Have you talked of this to any one else?”

“No,” said Cynthia, simply.

Miss Lucretia was puzzled.  She had not looked for apathy, but she did not know all of Cynthia’s troubles.  She wondered whether she had misjudged the girl, and was misled by her attitude.

“Cynthia,” she said, with a briskness meant to hide emotion for Miss Lucretia had emotions, “I am a lonely old woman, getting too old, indeed, to finish the task of my life.  I went to see Mrs. Merrill the other day to ask her if she would let you come and live with me.  Will you?”

Cynthia shook her head.

“No, Miss Lucretia, I cannot,” she answered.

“I won’t press it on you now,” said Miss Lucretia.

“I cannot, Miss Lucretia.  I’m going to Coniston.”

“Going to Coniston!” exclaimed Miss Lucretia.

The name of that place—­magic name, once so replete with visions of happiness and content—­seemed to recall Cynthia’s spirit from its flight.  Yes, the spirit was there, for it flashed in her eyes as she turned and looked into Miss Lucretia’s face.

“Are these the articles you read?” she asked; taking the clippings from her muff.

Miss Lucretia put on her spectacles.

“I have seen both of them,” she said.

“And do you believe what they say about—­about Jethro Bass?”

Poor Miss Lucretia!  For once in her life she was at a loss.  She, too, paid a deference to that face, young as it was.  She had robbed herself of sleep trying to make up her mind what she would say upon such an occasion if it came.  A wonderful virgin faith had to be shattered, and was she to be the executioner?  She loved the girl with that strange, intense affection which sometimes comes to the elderly and the lonely, and she had prayed that this cup might pass from her.  Was it possible that it was her own voice using very much the same words for which she had rebuked Mrs. Merrill?

“Cynthia,” she said, “those articles were written by politicians, in a political controversy.  No such articles can ever be taken literally.”

“Miss Lucretia, do you believe what it says about Jethro Bass?” repeated Cynthia.

How was she to avoid those eyes?  They pierced into, her soul, even as her own had pierced into Mrs. Merrill’s.  Oh, Miss Lucretia, who pride yourself on your plain speaking, that you should be caught quibbling!  Miss Lucretia blushed for the first time in many, years, and into her face came the light of battle.