her or mother, either."

"Yes," Jeff assented, "that's what I think of. And I'd do anything that I
could--that you thought was right."

Jackson apparently concentrated his mind upon the question by an effort.
"Do you care as much for Cynthy as you used to?"

"Yes," said Jeff, after a moment, "as much as I ever did; and more. But
I've been thinking, since the thing happened, that, if I'd cared for her
the way she did for me, it wouldn't have happened. Look here, Jackson!
You know I've never pretended to be like some men--like Mr. Westover, for
example--always looking out for the right and the wrong, and all that. I
didn't make myself, and I guess if the Almighty don't make me go right
it's because He don't want me to. But I have got a conscience about
Cynthy, and I'd be willing to help out a little if I knew how, about her.
The devil of it is, I've got to being afraid. I don't mean that I'm not
fit for her; any man's fit for any woman if he wants her bad enough; but
I'm afraid I sha'n't ever care for her in the right way. That's the
point. I've cared for just one woman in this world, and it a'n't Cynthy,
as far as I can make out. But she's gone, and I guess I could coax Cynthy
round again, and I could be what she wants me to be, after this."

Jackson lay upon his shawl, looking up at the sky full of islands of warm
clouds in its sea of blue; he was silent so long that Jeff began to think
he had not been listening; he could not hear him breathe, and he came
forward to him quickly from the shadow of the tree where he sat.

"Well?" Jackson whispered, turning his eyes upon him.

"Well?" Jeff returned.

"I guess you'd better let it alone," said Jackson.

"All right. That's what I think, too."

XLIX.

Jackson died a week later, and they buried him in the old family lot in
the farthest corner of the orchard. His mother and Cynthia put on
mourning for him, and they stood together by his open grave, Mrs. Durgin
leaning upon her son's arm and the girl upon her father's. The women wept
quietly, but Jeff's eyes were dry, though his face was discharged of all
its prepotent impudence. Westover, standing across the grave from him,
noticed the marks on his forehead that he said were from his scrapping,
and wondered what really made them. He recognized the spot where they
were standing as that where the boy had obeyed the law of his nature and
revenged the stress put upon him for righteousness. Over the stone of the
near