o tell me anything of yourself, and so I can't help you there, I'm
going to bed."

XXIX.

SUBMISSION.

Next day Jim was haggard and restless, and wanted to potter about the
house. I took him to the largest stream in those parts, when our rods
came in play; and there he did some of the worst fishing I ever
saw--worse than I did in May, when I had him on my mind. He has himself
on his mind now, and some one else too. He kept trying to talk, which is
impossible when you are wading. After he had lost a two-pounder and
fallen into a deep hole, I got out on the bank to avoid a place where
the water went down hill too fast--something between rapids and a
cascade. He came and sat on a log by me, looking disconsolate.

"Jim," I said, "You're pretty wet. Perhaps you'd better go home and
write that letter."

"I don't see my way yet. How can you be so positive?"

"Because I've heard the story before, and know more about it than you
do. I had a friend who was there at the time too. O, it caused some
talk, I can tell you. Did your hero suppose it would interest nobody but
himself?"

"Yes, as I told you. Good heavens! You don't mean--"

"O, no public talk; only the family, and people who knew the facts and
could be trusted. They were all sorry for him too; they thought he was
such an ass. You see a performance like his can't end where it begins;
it has consequences."

"You say, 'for him too.' They couldn't be sorry for the lady--why should
they?"

"You are pigheaded, Jim. What did I tell you last night? This thing put
its mark on her, in a way no man has a right to mark a woman without
her consent. See that trout jump, in the pool down yonder? I must get
him."

"Wait a moment. What I told you about could not have been known unless
the lady told it; and she was not of that sort. I don't understand."

"Decidedly you don't. I can't waste a day like this on second-hand
gossip, Jim; as you said yesterday, the evening is the time for talk.
You go home and change your clothes and rest your brain. I know my way
here, and I want to fill my basket. I'll get back in time for supper.
Here, you can take these."

And so I sent him off. He is biddable and humble now, and will be more
so presently; in a kind of transition state, he is. He came back in the
afternoon, and sat on the bank while I pulled out the biggest fish yet.
I carried home the best basket we've had; not so many specimens, but far
finer ones, than from that