If she could only have seen Peter, the poor child thought,—­Peter understood—­just as some women not as old as her aunt would have understood.  Dear Uncle Peter!  He had told her once what Jack had said about her—­how beautiful he thought her and how he loved her devotion to her father.  Jack must have said it, for Uncle Peter never spoke anything but the exact truth.  Then why had Jack, and everything else, changed so cruelly? she would say—­talking to herself, sometimes aloud.  For the ring had gone from his voice and the tenderness from his touch.  Not that he ever was tender, not that she wanted him to be, for that matter; and then she would shut her door and throw herself on her bed in an agony of tears—­ pleading a headache or fatigue that she might escape her father’s inquiry, and often his anxious glance.

The only ray of light that had pierced her troubled heart—­and this only flashed for a brief moment—­was the glimpse she had had of Jack’s mind when he and her father first met.  The boy had called to inquire after his Chief’s health and for any instructions he might wish to give, when MacFarlane, hearing the young hero’s voice in the hall below, hurried down to greet him.  Ruth was leaning over the banister at the time and saw all that passed.  Once within reach MacFarlane strode up to Jack, and with the look on his face of a man who had at last found the son he had been hunting for all his life, laid his hand on the lad’s shoulder.

“I think we understand each other, Breen,—­don’t we?” he said simply, his voice breaking.

“I think so, sir,” answered Jack, his own eyes aglow, as their hands met.

Nothing else had followed.  There was no outburst.  Both were men; in the broadest and strongest sense each had weighed the other.  The eyes and the quivering lips and the lingering hand-clasp told the rest.  A sudden light broke in on Ruth.  Her father’s quiet words, and his rescuer’s direct answer came as a revelation.  Jack, then, did want to be thanked!  Yes, but not by her!  Why was it?  Why had he not understood?  And why had he made her suffer, and what had she done to deserve it?

If Jack suspected any of these heartaches and misgivings, no one would have surmised it.  He came and went as usual, passing an hour in the morning and an hour at night with his Chief, until he had entirely recovered his strength—­bringing with him the records of the work; the number of feet drilled in a day; cost of maintenance; cubic contents of dump; extent and slope and angles of “fill”—­all the matters which since his promotion (Jack now had Bolton’s place) came under his immediate supervision.  Nor had any word passed between himself and Ruth, other than the merest commonplace.  He was cheery, buoyant, always ready to help,—­always at her service if she took the train for New York or stayed after dark at a neighbor’s house, when he would insist on bringing her home, no matter how late he had been up the night before.