“Er—­wait awhile, Bob.  Go back to Harvard.  W-wouldn’t write that letter if I was you.”

“But I will.  I’ll not have him think I’m ashamed of what I’ve done.  I’m proud of it, Mr. Bass.”

In the eyes of Coniston, which had been waiting for his reappearance, Bob Worthington jumped into the sleigh and drove off.  He left behind him Jethro Bass, who sat in his chair the rest of the morning with his head bent in revery so deep that Millicent had to call him twice to his simple dinner.  Bob left behind him, too, a score of rumors, sprung full grown into life with his visit.  Men and women an incredible distance away heard them in an incredible time:  those in the village found an immediate pretext for leaving their legitimate occupation and going to the store, and a gathering was in session there when young Mr. Worthington drove past it on his way back.  Bob thought little about the rumors, and not thinking of them it did not occur to him that they might affect Cynthia.  The only person then in Coniston whom he thought about was Jethro Bass.  Bob decided that his liking for Jethro had not diminished, but rather increased; he admired Jethro for the advice he had given, although he did not mean to take it.  And for the first time he pitied him.

Bob did not know that rumor, too, was spreading in Brampton.  He had his dinner in the big walnut dining room all alone, and after it he smoked his father’s cigars and paced up and down the big hall, watching the clock.  For he could not go to her in the school hours.  At length he put on his hat and hurried out, crossing the park-like enclosure in the middle of the street; bowed at by Mr. Dodd, who always seemed to be on hand, and others, and nodding absently in return.  Concealment was not in Bob Worthington’s nature.  He reached the post-office, where the partition door was open, and he walked right into a comparatively full meeting of the Brampton Club.  Ephraim sat in their midst, and for once he was not telling war stories.  He was silent.  And the others fell suddenly silent, too, at Bob’s entrance.

“How do you do, Mr. Prescott?” he said, as Ephraim struggled to his feet.  “How is the rheumatism?”

“How be you, Mr. Worthington?” said Ephraim; “this is a kind of a surprise, hain’t it?” Ephraim was getting used to surprises.  “Well, it is good-natured of you to come in and shake hands with an old soldier.”

“Don’t mention it, Mr. Prescott,” answered honest Bob, a little abashed, “I should have done so anyway, but the fact is, I wanted to speak to you a moment in private.”

“Certain,” said Ephraim, glancing helplessly around him, “jest come out front.”  That space, where the public were supposed to be, was the only private place in the Brampton post-office.  But the members of the Brampton Club could take a hint, and with one consent began to make excuses.  Bob knew them all from boyhood and spoke to them all.  Some of them ventured to ask him if Harvard had bust up.