“Whether she does or whether she doesn't,” broke in Miss Felicia, “hasn't got a single thing to do with it, Peter. You just go back to your work, Mr. Breen, and look after your gunpowder plots, or whatever you call them, and if some one of these gentlemen of elegant leisure--not one of whom so far has offered his services--cannot manage to escort you to your father's house, Ruth, I will take you myself. Now come inside the drawing-room, every one of you, or you will all blame me for undermining your precious healths--you, too, Major, and bring your cigars with you. So you don't drop your ashes into my tea-caddy, I don't care where you throw them.” It was late in the afternoon of the second day when the telegram arrived, a delay which caused no apparent suffering to any one except, perhaps, Peter, who wandered about with a “Nothing from Jack yet, eh?” A question which no one answered, it being addressed to nobody in particular, unless it was to Ruth, who had started at every ring of the door-bell. As to Miss Felicia--she had already dismissed the young man from her mind. When it did arrive there was a slight flutter of interest, but nothing more; Miss Felicia laying down her book, Ruth asking in indifferent tones--even before the despatch was opened--“Is he coming?” and Morris, who was playing chess with Peter, holding his pawn in mid-air until the interruption was over. Not so Peter--who with a joyous “Didn't I tell you the boy would keep his promise--” sprang from his chair, nearly upsetting the chess-board in his eagerness to hear from Jack, an eagerness shared by Ruth, whose voice again rang out, this time in an anxious tone, “Hurry up, Uncle Peter--is he coming?” Peter made no answer; he was staring straight at the open slip, his face deathly pale, his hand trembling. “I'll tell you all about it in a minute, dear,” he said at last with a forced smile. Then he touched Morris's arm and the two left the room. CHAPTER XIV The Scribe would willingly omit this chapter. Dying men, hurrying doctors, improvised stretchers made of wrenched fence rails; silent, slow-moving throngs following limp, bruised bodies,--are not pleasant objects to write about and should be disposed of as quickly as possible. Exactly whose fault it was nobody knew; if any one did, no one ever told. Every precaution had been taken each charge had been properly placed and tamped; all the fulminates inspected and the connections made with the greatest care. As to the battery--that was known to be half a mile away in the pay shanty, lying on Jack Breen's table. Nor was the weather unfavorable. True, there had been rain the day before, starting a general thaw, but none of the downpour had soaked through the outer crust of the tunnel to the working force inside and no extra labor had devolved on the pumps. This, of course, upset all theories as to there having been a readjustment of surface rock, dangerous sometimes, to magnetic connections.