Some day Captain Sam Hunniwell would learn it;
some day Maud would learn it. Better, far better, that they
learned it before marriage, or even before the public announcement
of their engagement--always provided there was to be such an
engagement. In fact, were it not for Ruth herself, no
consideration for Charles' feelings would have prevented Jed's
taking the matter up with the young man and warning him that,
unless he made a clean breast to the captain and Maud, he--Jed--
would do it for him. The happiness of two such friends should not
be jeopardized if he could prevent it.
But there was Ruth. She, not her brother, was primarily
responsible for obtaining for him the bank position and obtaining
it under fake pretenses. And she, according to her own confession
to Jed, had urged upon Charles the importance of telling no one.
Jed himself would have known nothing, would have had only a vague,
indefinite suspicion, had she not taken him into her confidence.
And to him that confidence was precious, sacred. If Charlie's
secret became known, it was not he alone who would suffer; Ruth,
too, would be disgraced. She and Babbie might have to leave Orham,
might have to go out of his life forever.
No wonder that, as the days passed, and Gabe Bearse's comments and
those of Captain Eri Hedge were echoed and reasserted by the
majority of Orham tongues, Jed Winslow's worry and foreboding
increased.
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