Ruth’s eyes flamed and the color left her cheeks.  She stretched out both hands as if to keep from falling.

“Saved daddy!” she gasped—­“Carried him out on—­Oh!  Aunt Felicia!—­and I have been so mean!  To think he got up out of bed and—­and—­” Everything swam before her eyes.

Miss Felicia sprang forward and caught her in her arms.

“Come!—­none of this, Child.  Pull yourself together right away.  Get her some water, nurse,—­she has stood all she can.  There now, dearie—­” Ruth’s head was on her breast now.  “There—­there—­Such a poor darling, and so many things coming all at once.  There, darling, put your head on my shoulder and cry it all out.”

The girl sobbed on, the wrinkled hand patting her cheek.

“Oh, but you don’t know, aunty—­” she crooned.

“Yes, but I do—­you blessed child.  I know it all.”

“And won’t somebody go and help him?  He is all alone, he told me so.”

“Uncle Peter is with him, dearie.’”

“Yes,—­but some one who can—­” she straightened up—­“I will go, aunty—­I will go now.”

“You will do nothing of the kind, you little goose; you will stay just where you are.”

“Well, won’t you go, then?  Oh, please—­please—­aunty.”  Peter’s bald head now rose above the edge of the banisters.  Miss Felicia motioned him to go back, but Ruth heard his step and raised her tear-drenched face half hidden in her dishevelled hair.

“Oh, Uncle Peter, is Jack—­is Mr. Breen—­”

Miss Felicia’s warning face behind Ruth’s own, for once reached Peter in time.

“In his bed and covered up, and his landlady, Mrs. Hicks, sitting beside him,” responded Peter in his cheeriest tones.

“But he fainted from pain—­and—­”

“Yes, but that’s all over now, my dear,” broke in Miss Felicia.

“But you will go, anyhow—­won’t you, aunty?” pleaded Ruth.

“Certainly—­just as soon as I put you to bed, and that is just where you have got to go this very minute,” and she led the overwrought trembling girl into her room and shut the door.

Peter stood for an instant looking about him, his mind taking in the situation.  Ruth was being cared for now, and so was MacFarlane—­the white cap and apron of the noiseless nurse passing in and out of the room in which he lay, assured him of that.  Bolton, too, in the room next to Jack’s, was being looked after by his sister who had just arrived.  He, too, was fairly comfortable, though a couple of his fingers had been shortened.  But there was nobody to look after Jack—­no father, mother, sister—­nobody.  To send for the boy’s uncle, or Corinne, or his aunt, was out of the question, none of them having had more than a word with him since his departure.  Yet Jack needed attention.  The doctor had just pulled him out of one fainting spell only to have him collapse again when his coat was taken off, and the bandages were loosened.  He was suffering greatly and was by no means out of danger.