aken her eyes from him since they entered
the carriage. She saw what neither Peter nor Ruth had seen;--that the
boy was suffering intensely from hidden wounds and that the strain was
so great he was verging on a collapse. No telling what these foolish
Southerners will do, she said to herself, when a woman is to be looked
after,--but she said nothing of all this to Ruth.

When the carriage stopped and Ruth with a spring leaped from her seat
and bounded upstairs to her father's bedside, Miss Felicia holding
Jack's hand, her eyes reading the boy's face, turned and said to Peter:

"Now you take him home where he belongs and put him to bed; and don't
you let him get up until I see him. No--" she continued in a more
decided tone, in answer to Jack's protest--"I won't have it. You go to
bed just as I tell you--you can hardly stand now."

"Perhaps I had better, Miss Felicia. I am a little shaky," replied
Jack, in a faint voice, and the carriage kept on its way to Mrs. Hicks's
leaving the good lady on MacFarlane's porch.

MacFarlane was asleep when Ruth, trembling with excitement, reached the
house. Outside the sick room, lighted by a single taper, she met the
nurse whose few hurried words, spoken with authority, calmed her, as
Jack had been unable to do, and reassured her mind. "Compound fracture
of the right arm, Miss," she whispered, "and badly bruised about the
head, as they all were. Poor Mr. Breen was the worst."

Ruth looked at her in astonishment. That was why he had not lifted his
hat, she thought to herself, as she tiptoed into the sick room and sank
to her knees beside her father's bed.

The injured man opened his eyes, and his free hand moved slowly till it
rested on his daughter's head.

"I got an awful crack, Ruth, but I am all right now. Too bad to bring
you home. Who came with you?"

"Aunt Felicia and Uncle Peter," she whispered as she stroked his
uninjured hand.

"Mighty good of them--just like old Peter. Send the old boy up--I want
to see him."

Ruth made no answer; her heart was too full. That her father was alive
was enough.

"I'm not pretty to look at, am I, child, but I'll pull out; I have been
hurt before--had a leg broken once in the Virginia mountains when you
were a baby. The smoke was the worst; I swallowed a lot of it; and I am
sore now all over my chest. Poor Bolton's badly crippled, I hear--and
Breen--they've told you about Breen, haven't they, daughter?" His voice
rose as he mentioned