?" asked Ruth, sitting up with a ghastly
face, and looking at me in a bewildered stare.

"All right, all safe, tell the lady," cried a clear, exulting voice
from below: "here's sweet little Miss Nellie, without a scratch on
her."

It was Lester's shout from the yard, and it rang through all the
building.

"Do you hear, Ruth? do you hear?" I screamed, beside myself with joy
and thankfulness. "He has saved your husband a dozen times, that hero,
and now he brings back your child to you. Oh, what a noble fellow! how
I envy him his feelings!"

He was in the room by this time with Nellie in his arms: he heard me
and gave me just one look. I never saw him again, but I never shall
forget it, for it revealed the long agony of a blighted life that
moment struggling into hope again through expiation. He did not wait
for Ruth's broken cry of gratitude, but was gone as soon as the child
was in her arms.

"Come, boys," I heard him cry cheerily outside, "lend a hand to help
the governor to his room: he's got a scratch or two, and the doctor's
coming to dress them. He will be all right again before we can get
things set straight round here."

Governor Denham's wounds were not so slight as Lester hoped, but they
were not dangerous, and when, to prevent my aunt's alarm for my safety
(for the news of "the break" spread rapidly through the town), I
parted from my friends before nightfall and rode back to the hotel
as I had come, I left three of the most excitedly grateful and happy
people behind me I had ever seen.

"I suppose it is no use to urge it further, Ruth darling," said her
husband as we parted, "but I really wish you would go to San Francisco
with our friend and let Nellie have a chance to forget the shock
she has endured. You need the change too, if you would ever think of
yourself."

"It is because I do think of myself that I prefer to remain where I am
happiest," said Ruth decidedly. "As for Nell, she is a pioneer child,
and will soon be as merry and fearless as ever. But, Jenny dear, we
owe you an apology for the novel dinner-party we have given you. When
you come back it will seem like a frightful dream, and not a reality,
we shall all be so quiet and orderly again." As we stood alone in the
hall, from which every sign of the late terrible conflict had been
removed save the bloodstains that had sunk into the stone beyond the
power of a hasty washing to obliterate, Ruth said in a low whispering
tone that was full