“Well, that is why I spoke as I did--why I am surprised at seeing her here again. Weren’t you yourself surprised?” “No, I knew that she was coming. I have a letter telling me the train she would arrive by.” “Oh!” The two walked on in silence for a minute or two. Then Horace said, with a fine assumption of good feeling and honest regret: “I spoke thoughtlessly, old fellow; of course I couldn’t know that you were interested in--in the matter. I truly hope I didn’t say anything to wound your feelings.” “Not at all,” replied Reuben. “How should you? What you said is what everybody will say--must say. Besides, my feelings are of no interest whatever, so far as this affair is concerned. It is her feelings that I am thinking of; and the more I think--well, the truth is, I am completely puzzled. I have never in all my experience been so wholly at sea.” Manifestly Horace could do nothing at this juncture but look his sympathy. To ask any question might have been to learn nothing. But his curiosity was so great that he almost breathed a sigh of relief when Reuben spoke again, even though the query he put had its disconcerting side: “I daresay you never knew much about her before she left Thessaly?” “I knew her by sight, of course, just as a village boy knows everybody. I take it you did know her. I can remember that she was a pretty girl.” If there was an underlying hint in this conjunction of sentences, it missed Reuben’s perception utterly. He replied in a grave tone: “She was in my school, up at the Burfield. And if you had asked me in those days to name the best-hearted girl, the brightest girl, the one who in all the classes had the making of the best woman in her, I don’t doubt that I should have pointed to her. That is what makes the thing so inexpressibly sad to me now; and, what is more, I can’t in the least see my way.” “Your way to what?” “Why, to helping her, of course. She has undertaken something that frightens me when I think of it. This is the point: She has made up her mind to come back here, earn her own living decently, face the past out and live it down here among those who know that past best.” “That’s a resolution that will last about three weeks.” “No, I think she is determined enough. But I fear that she cruelly underestimates the difficulties of her task. To me it looks hopeless, and I’ve thought it over pretty steadily the last few days.” “Pardon my asking you,” said Horace, “but you have confided thus far in me--what the deuce have you got to do with either her success or her failure?” “I’ve told you that I was her teacher,” answered Reuben, still with the slow, grave voice. “That in itself would give me an interest in her. But there has been a definite claim made on me in her behalf. You remember Seth Fairchild, don’t you?” “Perfectly. He edits a paper down in Tecumseh, doesn’t he? He did, I know, when I went abroad.”