't know. That's the address he give in his last letter," said
Whitwell. "I'll be glad when I've done with him for good and all. He's
all kinds of a devil."

It was in Westover's mind to say that he wished the Whitwells had never
had anything to do with Durgin after his mother's death. He had felt it a
want of delicacy in them that they had been willing to stay on in his
employ, and his ideal of Cynthia had suffered a kind of wound from what
must have been her decision in the matter. He would have expected
something altogether different from her pride, her self-respect. But he
now merely said: "Yes, I shall be glad, too. I'm afraid he's a bad
fellow."

His words seemed to appeal to Whitwell's impartiality. "Well, I d' know
as I should say bad, exactly. He's a mixture."

"He's a bad mixture," said Westover.

"Well, I guess you're partly right there," Whitwell admitted, with a
laugh. After a dreamy moment he asked: "Ever hear anything more about
that girl here in Boston?"

Westover knew that he meant Bessie Lynde. "She's abroad somewhere, with
her aunt."

Whitwell had not taken any wine; apparently he was afraid of forming
instantly the habit of drink if he touched it; but he tolerated
Westover's pint of Zinfandel, and he seemed to warm sympathetically to a
greater confidence as the painter made away with it. "There's one thing I
never told Cynthy yet; well, Jombateeste didn't tell me himself till
after Jeff was gone; and then, thinks I, what's the use? But I guess you
had better know."

He leaned forward across the table, and gave Jombateeste's story of the
encounter between Jeff and Alan Lynde in the clearing. "Now what do you
suppose was the reason Jeff let up on the feller? Of course, he meant to
choke the life out of him, and his just ketchin' sight of Jombateeste--do
you believe that was enough to stop him, when he'd started in for a thing
like that? Or what was it done it?"

Westover listened with less thought of the fact itself than of another
fact that it threw light upon. It was clear to him now that the Class-Day
scrapping which had left its marks upon Jeff's face was with Lynde, and
that when Jeff got him in his power he was in such a fury for revenge
that no mere motive of prudence could have arrested him. In both events,
it must have been Bessie Lynde that was the moving cause; but what was it
that stayed Jeff in his vengeance?

"Let him up, and let him walk away, you say?" he demanded of Whitwell.