He never knew, indeed, until many years afterward, what had brought Stephen Merrill to Coniston.  When Jethro went up the stairs that afternoon, he found William Wetherell alone, looking out over the garden with a new peace and contentment in his eyes.  Jethro drew breath when he saw that look, as if a great load had been lifted from his heart.

“F-feelin’ some better to-day, Will?” he said.

“I am well again, Jethro,” replied the storekeeper, pressing Jethro’s hand for the first time in months.

“S-soon be, Will,” said Jethro, “s-soon be.”

Wetherell, who was not speaking of the welfare of the body, did not answer.

“Jethro,” he said presently, “there is a little box lying in the top of my trunk over there in the corner.  Will you get it for me.”

Jethro rose and opened the rawhide trunk and handed the little rosewood box to his friend.  Wetherell took it and lifted the lid reverently, with that same smile on his face and far-off look in his eyes, and drew out a small daguerreotype in a faded velvet frame.  He gazed at the picture a long time, and then he held it out to Jethro; and Jethro looked at it, and his hand trembled.

It was a picture of Cynthia Ware.  And who can say what emotions it awoke in Jethro’s heart?  She was older than the Cynthia he had known, and yet she did not seem so.  There was the same sweet, virginal look in the gray eyes, and the same exquisite purity in the features.  He saw her again—­as if it were yesterday—­walking in the golden green light under the village maples, and himself standing in the tannery door; he saw the face under the poke bonnet on the road to Brampton, and heard the thrush singing in the woods.  And—­if he could only blot out that scene from his life!—­remembered her, a transformed Cynthia,—­remembered that face in the lantern-light when he had flung back the hood that shaded it; and that hair which he had kissed, wet, then, from the sleet.  Ah, God, for that briefest of moments she had been his!

So he stared at the picture as it lay in the palm of his hand, and forgot him who had been her husband.  But at length he started, as from a dream, and gave it back to Wetherell, who was watching him.  Her name had never been mentioned between the two men, and yet she had been the one woman in the world to both.

“It is strange,” said William Wetherell, “it is strange that I should have had but two friends in my life, and that she should have been one and you the other.  She found me destitute and brought me back to life and married me, and cared for me until she died.  And after that—­you cared for me.”

“You—­you mustn’t think of that, Will, ’twahn’t much what I did—­no more than any one else would hev done!”

“It was everything,” answered the storekeeper, simply; “each of you came between me and destruction.  There is something that I have always meant to tell you, Jethro,—­something that it may be a comfort for you to know.  Cynthia loved you.”