“No, your father has still one degree of fever,” he grumbled, with a wise shake of his bushy head. “No--nobody, Miss MacFarlane,--do you understand? He can see NOBODY--or I won't be responsible,” and with this the crabbed old fellow climbed into his gig and drove away. She looked after him for a moment and two hot tears dropped from her eyes and dashed themselves to pieces on the peach-blossom ribbon. But the sky was clearing again--she didn't realize it,--but it was. April skies always make alternate lights and darks. The old curmudgeon had gone, but the garden gate was again a-swing. Ruth heard the tread on the porch and drawing back the curtains looked out. The most brilliant sunbeams were but dull rays compared with what now flashed from her eyes. Nor did she wait for any other hand than her own to turn the knob of the door. “Why, Mr. Breen!” “Yes, Miss Ruth,” Jack answered, lifting his hat, an unrestrained gladness at the sight of her beauty and freshness illumining his face. “I have come to report for duty to your father.” “But you cannot see him. You must report to me,” she laughed gayly, her heart brimming over now that he was before her again. “Father was going to send for you to-day, but the doctor would not let him. Hush! he musn't hear us.” “He would not let me go out either, but as I am tired to death of being cooped up in my room, I broke jail. Can't I see him?” he continued in a lower key. He had his coat off and had hung it on the rack, she following him into the sitting-room, absorbing every inch of his strong, well-knit body from his short-cropped hair where the bandages had been wound, down to the sprained wrist which was still in splints. She noted, too, with a little choke in her throat, the shadows under the cheek bones and the thinness of the nose. She could see plainly how he had suffered. “I am sorry you cannot see father.” She was too moved to say more. “He still has one degree of fever.” “I have two degrees myself,” Jack laughed softly,--“one records how anxious I was to get out of my cell and the other how eager I was to get here. And now I suppose I can't stay.” “Oh, yes, you can stay if you will keep as still as a mouse so father can't hear you,” she whispered, a note of joy woven in her tones. She was leading him to the sofa as she spoke. He placed a cushion for her, and took his place beside her, resting his injured hand, which was in a sling, on the arm. He was still weak and shaking.