It was not until the morning after Peter’s departure,—­she, sitting alone, sad and silent in her chair at the head of her father’s breakfast table (Miss Felicia, as was her custom, had her coffee in her room), that the first ray of light had crept into her troubled brain.  It had only shone a brief moment,—­and had then gone out in darkness, but it held a certain promise for better days, and on this she had built her hopes.

“I am going to send for Breen to-morrow, Ruth,” her father had said as he kissed her good-night.  “There are some things I want to talk over with him, and then I want to thank him for what he did for me.  He’s a man, every inch of him; I haven’t told him so yet, —­not to his face,—­but I will to-morrow.  Fine fellow is Breen; blood will always tell in the end, my daughter, and he’s got the best in the country in his veins.  Looks more like his father every day he lives.”

She had hardly slept all night, thinking of the pleasure in store for her.  She had dressed herself, too, in her most becoming breakfast gown—­one she had worn when Jack first arrived at Corklesville, and which he said reminded him of a picture he had seen as a boy.  There were pink rosebuds woven in its soft texture, and the wide peach-blossom ribbon that bound her dainty waist contrasted so delightfully, as he had timidly hinted, with the tones of her hair and cheeks.

It was the puffy, bespectacled little doctor who shut out the light.

“No, your father has still one degree of fever,” he grumbled, with a wise shake of his bushy head.  “No—­nobody, Miss MacFarlane,—­do you understand?  He can see nobody—­or I won’t be responsible,” and with this the crabbed old fellow climbed into his gig and drove away.

She looked after him for a moment and two hot tears dropped from her eyes and dashed themselves to pieces on the peach-blossom ribbon.

But the sky was clearing again—­she didn’t realize it,—­but it was.  April skies always make alternate lights and darks.  The old curmudgeon had gone, but the garden gate was again a-swing.

Ruth heard the tread on the porch and drawing back the curtains looked out.  The most brilliant sunbeams were but dull rays compared with what now flashed from her eyes.  Nor did she wait for any other hand than her own to turn the knob of the door.

“Why, Mr. Breen!”

“Yes, Miss Ruth,” Jack answered, lifting his hat, an unrestrained gladness at the sight of her beauty and freshness illumining his face.  “I have come to report for duty to your father.”

“But you cannot see him.  You must report to me,” she laughed gayly, her heart brimming over now that he was before her again.  “Father was going to send for you to-day, but the doctor would not let him.  Hush! he musn’t hear us.”