第81章

"Jed," she said, earnestly, "what should I do without you? You are my one present help in time of trouble.I wonder if you know what you have come to mean to me."It was an impulsive speech, made from the heart, and without thought of phrasing or that any meaning other than that intended could be read into it.A moment later, and without waiting for an answer, she hurried from the shop.

"I must go," she said."I shall think over your advice, Jed, and Iwill let you know what I decide to do.Thank you ever and ever so much."Jed scarcely heard her.After she had gone, he sat perfectly still by the bench for a long period, gazing absently at the bare wall of the shop and thinking strange thoughts.After a time he rose and, walking into the little sitting-room, sat down beside the ugly little oak writing table he had bought at a second-hand sale and opened the upper drawer.

Weeks before, Ruth, yielding to Babbie's urgent appeal, had accompanied the latter to the studio of the local photographer and there they had been photographed, together, and separately.The results, although not artistic triumphs, being most inexpensive, had been rather successful as likenesses.Babbie had come trotting in to show Jed the proofs.A day or so later he found one of the said proofs on the shop floor where the little girl had dropped it.

It happened to be a photograph of Ruth, sitting alone.

And then Jed Winslow did what was perhaps the first dishonest thing he had ever done.He put that proof in the drawer of the oak writing table and said nothing of his having found it.Later he made a wooden frame for it and covered it with glass.It faded and turned black as all proofs do, but still Jed kept it in the drawer and often, very often, opened that drawer and looked at it.Now he looked at it for a long, long time and when he rose to go back to the shop there was in his mind, along with the dream that had been there for days and weeks, for the first time the faintest dawning of a hope.Ruth's impulsive speech, hastily and unthinkingly made, was repeating itself over and over in his brain."I wonder if you know what you have come to mean to me?" What had he come to mean to her?

An hour later, as he sat at his bench, Captain Hunniwell came banging in once more.But this time the captain looked troubled.

"Jed," he asked, anxiously, "have you found anything here since Iwent out?"

Jed looked up.

"Eh?" he asked, absently."Found? What have you found, Sam?""I? I haven't found anything.I've lost four hundred dollars, though.You haven't found it, have you?"Still Jed did not appear to comprehend.He had been wandering the rose-bordered paths of fairyland and was not eager to come back to earth.

"Eh?" he drawled."You've--what?"

His friend's peppery temper broke loose.

"For thunder sakes wake up!" he roared."I tell you I've lost four hundred dollars of the fourteen hundred I told you I collected from Sylvester Sage over to Wapatomac this mornin'.I had three packages of bills, two of five hundred dollars each and one of four hundred.The two five hundred packages were in the inside pocket of my overcoat where I put 'em.But the four hundred one's gone.