De Zhirley huddled his violin again in his arms, as if dreading the descent of more drunken men, and, in the embarrassment and anguish of a man whose weakness has been spied upon, turned his face to the hearth. Jeanne stopped at the foot of the stairs and drew her shawl over her head. They continued in silence while the coffee bubbled up and firelight flickered on the wall. De Zhirley understood her errand into his cabin with the simplicity of primitive manhood. He knew she always took to flight when her stepbrother appeared. When he could speak without a sob, he said, acknowledging all she had done for his comfort that afternoon:-- “I’m much obleeged.” Jeanne, on her part, ignored the services. “Is it bad hurt?” she murmured, with unconscious maternal pathos. He offered to yield the wreck to her hands, and, drawn from her place, she went and stooped on one knee to the firelight. De Zhirley dropped on one knee beside her, and they tried to fit the mangled parts in place again. “It’s such a spite,” said Jeanne, and her trembling voice comforted him as a mother comforts her child. He had instant anxiety to make the calamity appear less to her than it really was. “Mebby by patchin’ and glue I can put it together again--though I don’t know whether it’ll sound the same. I’ve always thought so much of it,” he apologized. “I wish he had broke my neck instead of this fiddle’s,” said the girl with passion. “I’d like to see him try such a thing as that,” responded the fiddler sternly. “I’d killed him as ’twas, if I hadn’t been bigger than him.” “I must go back,” exclaimed Jeanne, stirring to rise from this post-mortem. “They’ll think I’ve fell in the river.” “I’ll go with you,” said De Zhirley. “It’s dark now, and that fellow ain’t gone far.” “No,” objected Jeanne, with sudden terror of what her neighborhood called a beau. “I don’t want no one with me.” De Zhirley took up his cap with gentle insistence like the courtliness of a great seignior. He smiled at Jeanne, and she gave him back a look of which she was unconscious. “Your supper’s all ready,” she reminded him. “I ain’t hungry like I was when I come in from the ferry. Won’t you set down and take supper with me?” invited the young man sincerely. The mere suggestion sent Jeanne Sattory to the door. Their hands mingled upon the latch, and she slid hers away, loath to part from a touch which she yet eluded. De Zhirley made the door pause while he looked down at her and said, with a shaking voice:-- “If it hadn’t been for you--there ain’t no tellin’.” Jeanne had no reply to this acknowledgment of sympathy, but drew her shawl together under her chin. Chin and mouth corners were tempting even to a one-eyed man, but he continued with gentle courtesy: “Spite of my fiddle’s gettin’ broke, I b’lieve this is the best day this cabin ever seen.” “What makes you say that?” “’Cause it’s the first time you ever come to the house.”