"I've promised Gilbert that I won't interfere, and that's enough," said
Barton, doggedly.

Miss Lavender was foiled for a moment, but she presently returned to the
attack. "I dunno as it's enough, after what's gone before," she said.
"Couldn't you go a step furder, and lend Gilbert a helpin' hand,
whenever and whatever?"

"Betsy!" Gilbert exclaimed.

"Let me alone, lad! I don't speak in Gilbert's name, nor yet in
Martha's; only out o' my own mind. I don't ask you to do anything, but I
want to know how it stands with your willin'ness."

"I've offered, more than once, to do him a good turn, if I could; but I
guess my help wouldn't be welcome," Barton answered. The sting of the
suspicion rankled in his mind, and Gilbert's evident aversion sorely
wounded his vanity.

"Wouldn't be welcome. Then I'll only say this; maybe I've got it in my
power, and 't isn't sayin' much, for the mouse gnawed the mashes o' the
lion's net, to help you to what you're after, bein' as it isn't Martha,
and can't be her money. S'pose I did it o' my own accord, leavin' you to
feel beholden to me, or not, after all's said and done?"

But Alfred Barton was proof against even this assault. He was too
dejected to enter, at once, into a new plot, the issue of which would
probably be as fruitless as the others. He had already accepted a
sufficiency of shame, for one day. This last confession, if made, would