sage to me when he is in trouble. That is
what he telegraphed me when he lost the coffer-dam in the Susquehanna.
Oh!--he did not really tell you that, did he, Mr. Breen?" The old
anxious note had returned--the one he had heard at the "fill."

"Yes--but nothing serious HAS happened, Miss Ruth," Jack persisted, his
voice rising in the intensity of his conviction, his earnest, truthful
eyes fixed on hers--"nothing that will not come out all right in the
end. Please, don't be worried, I know what I am talking about."

"Oh, yes, it is serious," she rejoined with equal positiveness. "You do
not know daddy. Nothing ever discourages him, and he meets everything
with a smile--but he cannot stand any more losses. The explosion was bad
enough, but if this 'fill' is to be rebuilt, I don't know what will be
the end of it. Tell me over again, please--how did he look when he said
it?--and give me just the very words. Oh, dear, dear daddy! What will he
do?" The anxious note had now fallen to one of the deepest suffering.

Jack repeated the message word for word, all his tenderness in his
tones--patting her shoulder in his effort to comfort her--ending with
a minute explanation of what Garry had told him: but Ruth would not be
convinced.

"But you don't know daddy," she kept repeating "You don't know him.
Nobody does but me. He would not have sent that message had he not meant
it. Listen! There he is now!" she cried, springing to her feet.

She had her arms around her father's neck, her head nestling on his
shoulder before he had fairly entered the door. "Daddy, dear, is it very
bad?" she murmured.

"Pretty bad, little girl," he answered, smoothing her cheek tenderly
with his chilled fingers as he moved with her toward the fire, "but it
might have been worse but for the way Breen handled the men."

"And will it all have to be rebuilt?"

She was glad for Jack, but it was her father who now filled her mind.

"That I can't tell, Puss"--one of his pet names for her, particularly
when she needed comforting--"but it's safe for the night, anyway."

"And you have worked so hard--so hard!" Her beautiful arms, bare from
the elbow, were still around his neck, her cheek pressed close--her
lovely, clinging body in strong contrast to the straight, gray, forceful
man in the wet storm-coat, who stood with arms about her while he
caressed her head with his brown fingers.

"Well, Puss, we have one consolation--it wasn't our fault--the 'fill'