“Try until she does listen,” continued Peter.  “Tell her you will be very lonely if she doesn’t go, and that she is the one and only thing in Corklesville that interests you outside of your work—­and be sure you mention the dear girl first and the work last—­and that you won’t have another happy hour if she leaves you in the—­”

“Oh!—­Uncle Peter!”

“And why not?  It’s a fact, isn’t it?  You were honest about Isaac; why not be honest with Ruth?”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not,—­you only tell her half what’s in your heart.  Tell her all of it!  The poor child has been very much depressed of late, so Felicia tells me, over something that troubles her, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you were at the bottom of it.  Give yourself an overhauling and find out what you have said or done to hurt her.  She will never forget you for pulling her father out of that hole, nor will he.”

Jack bristled up:  “I don’t want her to think of me in that way!”

“Oh, you don’t! don’t you?  Oh, of course not!  You want her to think of you as a great and glorious young knight who goes prancing about the world doing good from habit, and yet you are so high and mighty that—­Jack, you rascal, do you know you are the stupidest thing that breathes?  You’re like a turkey, my boy, trying to get over the top rail of a pen with its head in the air, when all it has to do is to stoop a little and march out on its toes.”

Jack rose from his seat and walked toward the fire, where he stood with one hand on the mantel.  He knew Peter had a purpose in all his raillery and yet he dared not voice the words that trembled on his lips; he could tell the old fellow everything in his life except his love for Ruth and her refusal to listen to him.  This was the bitterest of all his failures, and this he would not and could not pour into Peter’s ears.  Neither did he want Ruth to have Peter’s help, nor Miss Felicia’s; nor MacFarlane’s; not anybody’s help where her heart was concerned.  If Ruth loved him that was enough, but he wouldn’t have anybody persuade her to love him, or advise with her about loving him.  How much Peter knew he could not say.  Perhaps!—­perhaps Ruth told him something!—­something he was keeping to himself!

As this last thought forced itself into his brain a great surge of joy swept over him.  For a brief moment he stood irresolute.  One of Peter’s phrases now rang clear:  “Stoop a little!” Stoop?—­hadn’t he done everything a man could do to win a woman, and had he not found the bars always facing him?

With this his heart sank again.  No, there was no use of thinking anything more about it, nor would he tell him.  There were some things that even Peter couldn’t understand,—­and no wonder, when you think how many years had gone by since he loved any woman.

The chime of the little clock rang out.

Jack turned quickly:  “Eleven o’clock, Uncle Peter, and I must go; time’s up.  I hate to leave you.”