f kept his eyes on hers, but he answered to his mother: "Not any more
than I deserved. I hadn't any right to expect that she would stand it."

Again the sick woman tried to say something. Jeff made out a few
syllables, and, after his mother had repeated her words, he had to look
to Cynthia for help.

"She wants to know if it's all right now."

"What shall I say?" asked Jeff, huskily.

"Tell her the truth."

"What is the truth?"

"That we haven't made it up."

Jeff hesitated, and then said: "Well, not yet, mother," and he bent an
entreating look upon Cynthia which she could not feel was wholly for
himself. "I--I guess we can fix it, somehow. I behaved very badly to
Cynthia."

"No, not to me!" the girl protested in an indignant burst.

"Not to that little scalawag, then!" cried Jeff. "If the wrong wasn't to
you, there wasn't any wrong."

"It was to you!" Cynthia retorted.

"Oh, I guess I can stand it," said Jeff, and his smile now came to his
lips and eyes.

His mother had followed their quick parley with eager looks, as if she
were trying to keep her intelligence to its work concerning them. The
effort seemed to exhaust her, and when she spoke again her words were so
indistinct that even Cynthia could not understand them till she had
repeated them several times.

Then the girl was silent, while the invalid kept an eager look upon her.
She seemed to understand that Cynthia did not mean to speak; and the
tears came into her eyes.

"Do you want me to know what she said?" asked Jeff, respectfully,
reverently almost.

Cynthia said, gently: "She says that then you must show you didn't mean
any harm to me, and that you cared for me, all through, and you didn't
care for anybody else."

"Thank you," said Jeff, and he turned to his mother. "I'll do everything
I can to make Cynthy believe that, mother."

The girl broke into tears and went out of the room. She sent in the
night-watcher, and then Jeff took leave of his mother with an unwonted
kiss.

Into the shadow of a starlit night he saw the figure he had been waiting
for glide out of the glitter of the hotel lights. He followed it down the
road.

"Cynthia!" he called; and when he came up with her he asked: "What's the
reason we can't make it true? Why can't you believe what mother wants me
to make you?"

Cynthia stopped, as her wont was when she wished to speak seriously. "Do
you ask that for my sake or hers?"

"For both your sakes."

"I thought so