"Jed! Oh, Jed!"
It was Maud Hunniwell's voice. She had entered the shop and the living-room without his hearing her and now she was standing behind him with her hand upon his shoulder. He started, turned and looked up into her face. And one glance caused him to forget himself and even the pictured face in the drawer for the time and to think only of her.
"Maud!" he exclaimed. "Maud!"
Her hair, usually so carefully arranged, was disordered; her hat was not adjusted at its usual exact angle; and as for the silver fox, it hung limply backside front. Her eyes were red and she held a handkerchief in one hand and a letter in the other.
"Oh, Jed!" she cried.
Jed put out his hands. "There, there, Maud!" he said. "There, there, little girl."
They had been confidants since her babyhood, these two. She came to him now, and putting her head upon his shoulder, burst into a storm of weeping. Jed stroked her hair.
"There, there, Maud," he said gently. "Don't, girlie, don't. It's goin' to be all right, I know it. . . . And so you came to me, did you? I'm awful glad you did, I am so."
"He asked me to come," she sobbed. "He wrote it—in—in the letter."
Jed led her over to a chair. "Sit down, girlie," he said, "and tell me all about it. You got the letter, then?"