"You speak in riddles," she said, "and I always hated guessing." Then she held out her hand with a pleasant, conventional smile. "I am grateful to you in spite of everything," she said; "and now good-by." His arms hung at his side. "No, I won't shake hands," he answered. "What's the use?" "As you please--only, it's the usual thing at parting." "All the same, I won't do it," he said stubbornly. "My hands are not clean." He held them out, soiled with earth and the stains from the tobacco. For an instant her eyes dwelt upon him very kindly. "Oh, I shan't mind the traces of honest toil," she said; but as he still hung back, she gave a friendly nod and went quickly homeward along the road. As her figure vanished among the trees, a great bitterness oppressed him, and, picking up his knife, he went back doggedly to his work. In the kitchen, when he returned to dinner some hours later, he found Cynthia squinting heavily over the torn coat. "I must say you ruined this yesterday," she remarked, looking up from her needle, "and if you'd listened to me you could have stopped those horses just as well in your old jean clothes. I had a feeling that something was going to happen, when I saw you with this on." "I don't doubt it," he responded, woefully eyeing the garment spread on her knees, "and I may as well admit right now that I made a mess of the whole thing. To think of my wasting the only decent suit I had on a Fletcher--after saving up a year to buy it, too." Cynthia twitched the coat inside out and placed a square patch over the ragged edges of the rent. "I suppose I ought to be thankful you saved the boy's life," she observed, "but I can't say that I feel particularly jubilant when I look at these armholes. Of course, when I first heard of it the coat seemed a mere trifle, but when I come to the mending I begin to wish you'd been heroic in your everyday clothes. There'll have to be a patch right here, but I don't reckon it will show much. Do you mind?" "I'd rather wear a mustard plaster than a patch any time," he replied gravely; "but as long as there's no help for it, lay them on--don't slight the job a bit because of my feelings. I can stand pretty well having my jean clothes darned and mended, but I do object to dressing up on Sundays in a bedquilt." "Well, you'll have to, that's all," was Cynthia's reassuring rejoinder. "It's the price you pay for being a hero when you can't afford it." CHAPTER VI. Shows Fletcher in a New Light