t Ruth to have Peter's help, nor Miss Felicia's; nor
MacFarlane's; not anybody's help where her heart was concerned. If Ruth
loved him that was enough, but he wouldn't have anybody persuade her to
love him, or advise with her about loving him. How much Peter knew he
could not say. Perhaps!--perhaps Ruth told him something!--something he
was keeping to himself!

As this last thought forced itself into his brain a great surge of joy
swept over him. For a brief moment he stood irresolute. One of Peter's
phrases now rang clear: "Stoop a little!" Stoop?--hadn't he done
everything a man could do to win a woman, and had he not found the bars
always facing him?

With this his heart sank again. No, there was no use of thinking
anything more about it, nor would he tell him. There were some things
that even Peter couldn't understand,--and no wonder, when you think how
many years had gone by since he loved any woman.

The chime of the little clock rang out.

Jack turned quickly: "Eleven o'clock, Uncle Peter, and I must go; time's
up. I hate to leave you."

"And what about the shanty and the cook?" said Peter, his eyes searching
Jack's.

"I'll go,--I intended to go all the time if you approved."

"And what about Ruth?"

"Don't ask me, Uncle Peter, not now." And he hurried off to pack his
bag.

CHAPTER XX

If Jack, after leaving Peter and racing for the ferry, had, under
Peter's advice, formulated in his mind any plan by which he could break
down Ruth's resolve to leave both her father and himself in the lurch
and go out in the gay world alone, there was one factor which he must
have left out of his calculations--and that was the unexpected.

One expression of Peter's, however, haunted him all the way home:--that
Ruth was suffering and that he had been the cause of it. Had he hurt
her?--and if so, how and when? With this, the dear girl's face, with
the look of pain on it which Miss Felicia had noticed, rose before him.
Perhaps Peter was right. He had never thought of Ruth's side of the
matter--had never realized that she, too, might have suffered. To-morrow
he would go to her. If he could not win her for himself he could, at
least, find out the cause and help relieve her pain.

This idea so possessed him that it was nearly dawn before he dropped to
sleep.

With the morning everything changed.

Such a rain had never been known to fall--not in the memory of the
oldest moss-back in the village--if any such anc