He had spoken throughout in what was meant for his customary tone of dry gravity, but it failed him often, though for a word only. At such times he would pause and cough behind his wasted hand, and these frequent breaks in the narrative made its quiet tones more touching to the hearer than any declamation or any profession of profound regret, however eloquently expressed, could possibly have been. “Have you explained to her since you received the letter?” asked Reuben. “Don't you think, uncle, that she ought to know?” Ezra looked at him in a faint surprise. He supposed he had guarded himself from any suspicion of betraying his old sweetheart's personality. “Yes,” he said, still bent upon this reservation. “It happens as the person I speak of came back to Heydon Hay some time ago, and was within the parish this very day. I went to make a call upon her, and to show how Providence had seen fit to deal with both of us, but her refused to exchange speech with me. You see, Reuben,” he went on, coughing with a dry mildness of demeanor, “it's doubtless been upon her mind for a many years as I was making a sort of cruel and unmanly game of her. Seeing her that offstanding, it seemed to me her valued me so lowly as to take my letter for a kind of offence. It seems now as it was me, and not her, as was too prideful.” They were both silent for a time, but Reuben was the first to speak again. “She ought to know, uncle. She should be told. Perhaps Ruth could tell her.” “My lad, my lad!” said Ezra, mournfully reproving him. “How could I tell another of a thing like this?” “Well, sir,” Reuben answered, “I know now how the idea came into her mind, though I was puzzled at first. But she is strongly opposed to my being engaged to Ruth, and came down to tell Mr. Fuller this morning that I was a villain. I am thinking of her own lonely life, and I am sure that if Ruth and I are married she will never speak again to the only relatives she has unless this is explained. For her own sake, uncle, as well as yours, I think she ought to know the truth.” He was looking downward as he spoke, and did not see the questioning air with which Ezra regarded him. “You know who it was, then, as wrote this letter?” “Yes,” said Reuben, looking up at him. “Ruth knew the handwriting.” “Reuben!” cried the old man, sternly. He rose with more open signs of agitation than Reuben had yet seen in him, and walked hurriedly to and fro. “Reuben! Reuben!” he repeated, in a voice of keen reproach. “Ah! when was ever youth and folly separate? I never thought thee wast the lad to cry thine uncle's trouble i' the market-place!” “No, uncle, no! Don't think that of me,” cried his nephew. “I did not know what to do. I asked Ruth's advice. I could not be certain that the note was meant for you. And--guessing what I thought I guessed--I was afraid to bring it.”