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You you mustn't. I we can't spare you." She drew a long breath. "I would go to the other end of the world," she said, "rather than tell Captain Hunniwell the truth about my brother. I told you because Babbie had told you so much already. . . . Oh," turning swiftly toward him, "YOU won't tell Captain Hunniwell, will you?" Before he could answer she stretched out her hand.
And heavier still there weighed the thought of Ruth Armstrong. He had given her his word not to mention her brother's secret to a soul, not even to him. And yet, some day or other, as sure and certain as the daily flowing and ebbing of the tides, that secret would become known. Some day Captain Sam Hunniwell would learn it; some day Maud would learn it.
At last he could stand it no longer. "Now, Mrs. Armstrong," he pleaded, "of course " She interrupted. "No," she said, as if coming to a final decision and speaking that decision aloud: "No, I can't do it." "Eh? Can't do what?" "I can't have Captain Hunniwell know of our trouble. I came here to Orham, where no one knew me, to avoid that very thing.
Jed expected Ruth to speak; he was certain she understood the situation and realized its danger; she appeared to him anxious and very nervous. It was to him, and to him alone her brother excepted she could speak, but the days passed and she did not. And it was Captain Hunniwell who spoke first. Captain Sam entered the windmill shop about two o'clock one windy afternoon in the first week of March.
He strode across the room and seized his visitor by the arm. "You go home, Sam Hunniwell," he ordered. "Go home and think THINK, I tell you. All your life you've had just what I haven't. You married the girl you wanted and you and she were happy together.
"That's what I want to know what is it? You were talking about Maud Hunniwell. You said you had known her since she was a baby and that she was something or other; that was as far as you got." "Sho! . . . Hum. . . . Oh, yes, yes; I was goin' to say she was a mighty nice girl, as nice as she is good-lookin' and lively.
His habitual desire to please and humor each person he met each person of consequence, that is; very poor people or village eccentrics like Jed Winslow did not much matter, of course was in this case augmented by a particular desire to please Captain Sam Hunniwell. Captain Sam, being one of Orham's most influential men, was not, in Mr.
Go home, and thank God you're what you are and AS you are. . . . No, I won't talk! I don't want to talk! . . . Go HOME." He had been dragging his friend to the door. Now he actually pushed him across the threshold and slammed the door between them. "Well, for . . . the Lord . . . sakes!" exclaimed Captain Hunniwell. The scraping of the key in the lock was his only answer.
But at intervals during that day, and on other days which followed, he was conscious of an uneasy feeling, a feeling almost of guilt coupled with a dim foreboding. Ruth Armstrong had called him a friend and loyal. But had he been as loyal to an older friend, a friend he had known all his life? Had he been loyal to Captain Sam Hunniwell? That was the feeling of guilt.
It was perfectly characteristic and perfectly adorable and so absolutely absurd. I love him for it, and as yet I haven't dared thank him for fear I shall cry again, as I did when Captain Hunniwell told us. Yet, when I think of his declaring he took the money to buy a suit of clothes, I feel like laughing. Oh, he IS a dear, isn't he?"
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