Cynthia lingered to hear no more, and went out, dazed, into the September sunshine:  Jethro beaten, and broken, and gone to Coniston.  Resolution came to her as she walked.  Arriving home, she wrote a little note and left it on the table for Ephraim; and going out again, ran by the back lane to Mr. Sherman’s livery stable behind the Brampton House, and in half an hour was driving along that familiar road to Coniston, alone; for she had often driven Jethro’s horses, and knew every turn of the way.  And as she gazed at the purple mountain through the haze and drank in the sweet scents of the year’s fulness, she was strangely happy.  There was the village green in the cool evening light, and the flagstaff with its tip silvered by the departing sun.  She waved to Rias and Lem and Moses at the store, but she drove on to the tannery house, and hitched the horse at the rough granite post, and went in, and through the house, softly, to the kitchen.

Jethro was standing in the doorway, and did not turn.  He may have thought she was Millicent Skinner.  Cynthia could see his face.  It was older, indeed, and lined and worn, but that fearful look of desolation which she had once surprised upon it, and which she in that instant feared to see, was not there.  Jethro’s soul was at peace, though Cynthia could not understand why it was so.  She stole to him and flung her arms about his neck, and with a cry he seized her and held her against him for I know not how long.  Had it been possible to have held her there always, he would never have let her go.  At last he looked down into her tear-wet face, into her eyes that were shining with tears.

“D-done wrong, Cynthy.”

Cynthia did not answer that, for she remembered how she, too, had exulted when she had believed him to have accomplished Isaac Worthington’s downfall.  Now that he had failed, and she was in his arms, it was not for her to judge—­only to rejoice.

“Didn’t look for you to come back—­didn’t expect it.”

“Uncle Jethro!” she faltered.  Love for her had made him go, and she would not say that, either.

“D-don’t hate me, Cynthy—­don’t hate me?”

She shook her head.

“Love me—­a little?”

She reached up her hands and brushed back his hair, tenderly, from his forehead.  Such—­a loving gesture was her answer.

“You are going to stay here always, now,” she said, in a low voice, “you are never going away again.”

“G-goin’ to stay always,” he answered.  Perhaps he was thinking of the hillside clearing in the forest—­who knows!  “You’ll come-sometime, Cynthy—­sometime?”

“I’ll come every Saturday and Sunday, Uncle Jethro,” she said, smiling up at him.  “Saturday is only two days away, now.  I can hardly wait.”

“Y-you’ll come sometime?”

“Uncle Jethro, do you think I’ll be away from you, except—­except when I have to?”

“C-come and read to me—­won’t you—­come and read?”