The news of MacFarlane’s expected departure soon became known in the village.  There were not many people to say good-by, the inhabitants having seen but little of the engineer and still less of his daughter, except as she flew past, in a mad gallop, on her brown mare, her hair sometimes down her back.  The pastor of the new church came, however, to express his regrets, and to thank Mr. MacFarlane for his interest in the church building.  He also took occasion to say many complimentary things about Garry, extolling him for the wonderful manner in which that brilliant young architect had kept within the sum set apart by the trustees for its construction, and for the skill with which the work was being done, adding that as a slight reward for such devotion the church trustees had made Mr. Minott treasurer of the building fund, believing that in this way all disputes could the better be avoided,—­one of some importance having already arisen (here the reverend gentleman lowered his voice) in which Mr. McGowan, he was sorry to say, who was building the masonry, had attempted an overcharge which only Mr. Minott’s watchful eye could have detected, adding, with a glance over his shoulder, that the collapse of the embankment had undermined the contractor’s reputation quite as much as the freshet had his culvert, at which MacFarlane smiled but made no reply.

Corinne also came to express her regrets, bringing with her a scrap of an infant in a teetering baby carriage, the whole presided over by a nurse in a blue dress, white cap, and white apron, the ends reaching to her feet:  not the Corinne, the Scribe is pained to say, who, in the old days would twist her head and stamp her little feet and have her way in everything.  But a woman terribly shrunken, with deep lines in her face and under her eyes.  Jack, man-like, did not notice the change, but Ruth did.

After the baby had been duly admired, Ruth tossing it in her arms until it crowed, Corinne being too tired for much enthusiasm, had sent it home, Ruth escorting it herself to the garden gate.

“I am sorry you are going,” Corinne said in Ruth’s absence.  “I suppose we must stay on here until Garry finishes the new church.  I haven’t seen much of Ruth,—­or of you, either, Jack.  But I don’t see much of anybody now,—­not even of Garry.  He never gets home until midnight, or even later, if the train is behind time, and it generally is.”

“Then he must have lots of new work,” cried Jack in a cheerful tone.  “He told me the last time I saw him on the train that he expected some big warehouse job.”

Corinne looked out of the window and fingered the handle of her parasol.

“I don’t believe that is what keeps him in town, Jack,” she said slowly.  “I hoped you would come and see him last Sunday.  Did Garry give you my message?  I heard you were at home to-day, and that is why I came.”

“No, he never said a single word about it or I would have come, of course.  What do you think, then, keeps him in town so late?” Something in her voice made Jack leave his own and take a seat beside her.  “Tell me, Corinne.  I’ll do anything I can for Garry and you too.  What is it?”