“It is good of you to say so,” she replied, lifting her head and leaning back so that she could look into his eyes the better, “but I know you don’t think so.  Daddy was just getting over his losses on the Susquehanna bridge.  This work would have set him on his feet.  Those were his very words—­and he was getting so easy in his mind, too—­and we had planned so many things!”

“But you can still go to Newport,” Jack pleaded.  “We will be here some months yet, and—­”

“Oh—­but I won’t go a step anywhere.  I could not leave him now—­ that is, not as long as I can help him.”

“But aren’t you going to the Fosters’ and Aunt Felicia’s?” She might not be, but it was good all the same to hear her deny it.

“Not to anybody’s!” she replied, with an emphasis that left no doubt in his mind.

Jack’s heart gave a bound.

“But you were going if we went to Morfordsburg,” he persisted.  He was determined to get at the bottom of all his misgivings.  Perhaps, after all, Peter was right.

Ruth caught her breath.  The name of the town had reopened a vista which her anxiety over her father’s affairs had for the moment shut out.

“Well, but that is over now.  I am going to stay here and help daddy.”  Again the new fear tugged at her heart.  “You are going to stay, too, aren’t you, Mr. Breen?” she added in quick alarm.  “You won’t leave him, will you?—­not if—­” again the terrible money loss rose before her.  What if there should not be money enough to pay Jack?

“Me!  Why, Miss Ruth!”

“But suppose he was not able to—­” she could not frame the rest of the sentence.

“You can’t suppose anything that would make me leave him, or the work.”  This also came with an emphasis of positive certainty.  “I have never been so happy as I have been here.  I never knew what it was to be myself.  I never knew,” he added in softened tones, “what it was to really live until I joined your father.  Only last night Uncle Peter and I were talking about it.  ‘Stick to Mac,’ the dear old fellow said.”  It was to Ruth, but he dared not express himself, except in parables.  “Then you had thought of going?” she asked quickly, a shadow falling across her face.

“No—­” he hesitated—­“I had only thought of staying.  It was you who were going—­I was all broken up about being left here alone, and Uncle Peter wanted to know why I did not beg you to stay, and I—­”

Ruth turned her face toward him.

“Well, I am going to stay,” she answered simply.  She did not dare to trust herself further.

“Yes!—­and now I don’t care what happens!” he exclaimed with a thrill in his voice.  “If you will only trust me, Miss Ruth, and let me come in with you and your father.  Let me help!  Don’t let there be only two—­let us be three!  Don’t you see what a difference it would make?  I will work and save every penny I can for him and take every bit of the care from his shoulders; but can’t you understand how much easier it would be if you would only let me help you too?  I could hardly keep the tears back a moment ago when I saw you sink down here.  I can’t see you unhappy like this and not try to comfort you.”