"

"Until to-morrow."

"Ah!"

The hand lying on Harrie's dark curls lay more heavily perhaps--that
was all.

"Is there anything you wish? anything you want done? any person you
would like to see?"

"Yes," the dying man answered, "yes, Sir Everard Kingsland."

"Sir Everard Kingsland is here."

He motioned the baronet to approach.

Sir Everard bent over him.

"Send them away," said the sick man. "Both. I want to speak to you
alone."

Ho delivered the message, and the rector and doctor went into the
passage to wait.

"Come closer," the captain said, and the young baronet knelt by the
bedside, opposite Harrie, "and tell the truth to a dying man. Harrie,
my darling, are you listening?"

"Yes, papa."

She lifted her pale young face, rigid in tearless despair.

"My own dear girl, I am going to leave a little sooner than I thought.
I knew my death would be soon and sudden, but I did not expect it so
soon, so awfully sudden as this!" His lips twitched spasmodically, and
there was a brief pause. "I had hoped not to leave you alone and
friendless in the world, penniless and unprotected. I hoped to live to
see you the wife of some good man, but it is not to be. God wills for
the best, my darling, and to Him I leave you."

A dry, choking sob was the girl's answer. Her eyes were burning and
bright. The captain turned to the impatient, expectant young baronet.

"Sir Everard Kingsland," he said, with a painful effort, "you are the
son of my old and much-valued friend; therefore I speak. My near
approach to eternity lifts me above the minor considerations of time.
Yesterday morning, from yonder window, I saw you on the terrace with my
daughter."

The baronet grasped his hand, his face flushed, his eyes aglow. Oh,
surely, the hour of his reward had come!

"You made her an offer of your hand and heart?"

"Which she refused," the young man said, with a glance of unutterable
reproach. "Yes, sir; and I love her with my whole heart!"

"I thought so," very faintly. "Why did you refuse, Harrie?"

"Oh, papa! Why are we talking of this now?"

"Because I am going to leave you, my daughter. Because I would not
leave you alone. Why did you refuse Sir Everard?"

"Papa, I--I only knew him such a little while."

"And that is all? You don't dislike him, do you?"

"No-o, papa."

"And you don't like any one else better?"

"Papa, you know I don't."

"My own spotless darling! And you will let Sir Ever