He had been selected as the architect for the new buildings, and it was quite natural that he should have become interested in the securities of the company.  This threatened calamity was one that might overtake any man.  Get Garry out of this hole and he would stay out; let him sink, and his whole career would be ruined.  And then there was a sentimental side to it even if Garry was a gambler—­one that could not be ignored when he thought of Corinne and the child.

Late in the afternoon, his mind still unsettled, he poured out his anxieties to Ruth.  She did not disappoint him.  Her big heart swelled only with sympathy for the wife who was suffering.  It made no difference to her that Corinne had never been even polite, never once during the sojourn of the Minotts in the village having manifested the slightest interest either in her own or Jack’s affairs—­not even when MacFarlane was injured, nor yet when the freshet might have ruined them all.  Ruth’s generous nature had no room in it for petty rancors or little hurts.  Then, too, Jack was troubled for his friend.  What was there for her to do but to follow the lamp he held up to guide her feet—­the lamp which now shed its glad effulgence over both?  So they talked on, discussing various ways and means, new ties born of a deeper understanding binding them the closer—­these two, who, as they sometimes whispered to each other, were “enlisted for life,” ready to meet it side by side, whatever the day developed.

Before they parted, she promised again to go and see Corinne and cheer her up.  “She cannot be left alone, Jack, with this terrible thing hanging over her,” she urged, “and you must meet Garry when he returns to-night.  Then we can learn what he has done—­perhaps he will have fixed everything himself.”  But though Jack went to the station and waited until the arrival of the last train had dropped its passengers, there was no sign of Garry.  Nor did Ruth find Corinne.  She had gone to the city, so the nurse said, with Mr. Minott by the early train and would not be back until the next day.  Until their return Jack and Ruth found their hands tied.

On the afternoon of the second day a boy called at the brick office where Jack was settling up the final accounts connected with the “fill” and the tunnel, preparatory to the move to Morfordsburg, and handed him a note.  It was from Corinne.

“I am in great trouble.  Please come to me at once,” it read.  “I am here at home.”

Corinne was waiting for him in the hall.  She took his hand without a word of welcome, and drew him into the small room where she had seen him two nights before.  This time she shut and locked the door.

“Mr. McGowan has just been here,” she moaned in a voice that showed how terrible was the strain.  “He tried to force his way up into Garry’s room but I held him back.  He is coming again with some one of the church trustees.  Garry had a bad turn in New York and we came home by the noon train, and I have made him lie down and sent for the doctor.  McGowan must not see him; it will kill him if he does.  Don’t leave us, Jack!”