And now we must go back for a chapter—­a very short chapter—­to the day before that town meeting which had so momentous an influence upon the history of Coniston and of the state.  That Monday, too, it will be remembered, dawned in storm, the sleet hissing in the wide throats of the centre-chimneys, and bearing down great boughs of trees until they broke in agony.  Dusk came early, and howling darkness that hid a muffled figure on the ice-bound road staring at the yellow cracks in the tannery door.  Presently the figure crossed the yard; the door, flying open, released a shaft of light that shot across the white ground, revealed a face beneath a hood to him who stood within.

“Jethro!”

She darted swiftly past him, seizing the door and drawing it closed after her.  A lantern hung on the central post and flung its rays upon his face.  Her own, mercifully, was in the shadow, and burning now with a shame that was insupportable.  Now that she was there, beside him, her strength failed her, and her courage—­courage that she had been storing for this dread undertaking throughout the whole of that dreadful day.  Now that she was there, she would have given her life to have been able to retrace her steps, to lose herself in the wild, dark places of the mountain.

“Cynthy!” His voice betrayed the passion which her presence had quickened.

The words she would have spoken would not come.  She could think of nothing but that she was alone with him, and in bodily terror of him.  She turned to the door again, to grasp the wooden latch; but he barred the way, and she fell back.

“Let me go,” she cried.  “I did not mean to come.  Do you hear?—­let me go!”

To her amazement he stepped aside—­a most unaccountable action for him.  More unaccountable still, she did not move, now that she was free, but stood poised for flight, held by she knew not what.

“G-go if you’ve a mind to, Cynthy—­if you’ve a mind to.”

“I’ve come to say something to you,” she faltered.  It was not, at all the way she had pictured herself as saying it.

“H-haven’t took’ Moses—­have you?”

“Oh,” she cried, “do you think I came here to speak of such a thing as that?”

“H-haven’t took—­Moses, have you?”

She was trembling, and yet she could almost have smiled at this well-remembered trick of pertinacity.

“No,” she said, and immediately hated herself for answering him.

“H-haven’t took that Worthington cuss?”

He was jealous!

“I didn’t come to discuss Mr. Worthington,” she replied.

“Folks say it’s only a matter of time,” said he.  “Made up your mind to take him, Cynthy?  M-made up your mind?”

“You’ve no right to talk to me in this way,” she said, and added, the words seeming to slip of themselves from her lips, “Why do you do it?”

“Because I’m—­interested,” he said.

“You haven’t shown it,” she flashed back, forgetting the place, and the storm, and her errand even, forgetting that Jake Wheeler, or any one in Coniston, might come and surprise her there.