Nothing else had followed. There was no outburst. Both were men; in the broadest and strongest sense each had weighed the other. The eyes and the quivering lips and the lingering hand-clasp told the rest. A sudden light broke in on Ruth. Her father's quiet words, and his rescuer's direct answer came as a revelation. Jack, then, did want to be thanked! Yes, but not by her! Why was it? Why had he not understood? And why had he made her suffer, and what had she done to deserve it? If Jack suspected any of these heartaches and misgivings, no one would have surmised it. He came and went as usual, passing an hour in the morning and an hour at night with his Chief, until he had entirely recovered his strength--bringing with him the records of the work; the number of feet drilled in a day; cost of maintenance; cubic contents of dump; extent and slope and angles of “fill”--all the matters which since his promotion (Jack now had Bolton's place) came under his immediate supervision. Nor had any word passed between himself and Ruth, other than the merest commonplace. He was cheery, buoyant, always ready to help,--always at her service if she took the train for New York or stayed after dark at a neighbor's house, when he would insist on bringing her home, no matter how late he had been up the night before. If the truth were known, he neither suspected nor could he be made to believe that Ruth had any troubles. The facts were that he had given her all his heart and had been ready to lay himself at her feet, that being the accepted term in his mental vocabulary--and she would have none of him. She had let him understand so--rebuffed him--not once, but every time he had tried to broach the subject of his devotion;--once in the Geneseo arbor, and again on that morning when he had really crawled to her side because he could no longer live without seeing her. The manly thing to do now was to accept the situation: to do his work; look after his employer's interests, read, study, run over whenever he could to see Peter--and these were never-to-be-forgotten oases in the desert of his despair--and above all never to forget that he owed a duty to Miss Ruth in which no personal wish of his own could ever find a place. She was alone and without an escort except her father, who was often so absorbed in his work, or so tired at night, as to be of little help to her. Moreover, his Chief had, in a way, added his daughter's care to his other duties. “Can't you take Ruth to-night--” or “I wish you'd meet her at the ferry,” or “if you are going to that dinner in New York, at so-and-so's, would you mind calling for her--” etc., etc. Don't start, dear reader. These two came of a breed where the night key and the daughter go together and where a chaperon would be as useless as a policeman locked inside a bank vault.