She nodded. "He says that there," she said chokingly. "But he—he must have known. Oh, Jed, how CAN I let him go—to war?"
That portion of the letter which Jed was permitted to read was straightforward and honest and manly. There were no appeals for pity or sympathy. The writer stated his case and left the rest to her, that was all. And Jed, reading between the lines, respected Charles Phillips more than ever.
He and Maud talked for a long time after that. And, at last, they reached a point which Jed had tried his best to avoid. Maud mentioned it first. She had been speaking of his friendship for her lover and for herself.
"I don't see what we should have done without your help, Jed," she said. "And when I think what you have done for Charlie! Why, yes— and now I know why you pretended to have found the four hundred dollars Father thought he had lost. Pa left it at Wapatomac, after all; you knew that?"
Jed stirred uneasily. He was standing by the window, looking out into the yard.
"Yes, yes," he said hastily, "I know. Don't talk about it, Maud. It makes me feel more like a fool than usual and . . . er . . . don't seem as if that was hardly necessary, does it?"
"But I shall talk about it. When Father came home that night he couldn't talk of anything else. He called it the prize puzzle of the century. You had given him four hundred dollars of your own money and pretended it was his and that you had—had stolen it, Jed. He burst out laughing when he told me that and so did I. The idea of your stealing anything! You!"
Jed smiled, feebly.
"'Twas silly enough, I give in," he admitted. "You see," he added, in an apologetic drawl, "nine-tenths of this town think I'm a prize idiot and sometimes I feel it's my duty to live up—or down—to my reputation. This was one of the times, that's all. I'm awful glad Sam got his own money back, though."
"The money didn't amount to anything. But what you did was the wonderful thing. For now I understand why you did it. You thought—you thought Charlie had taken it to—to pay that horrid man in Middleford. That is what you thought and you—"