ng the while that he did not know whether he were glad or not. She
had never looked fairer or sweeter to him than she did now, and yet
there was a difference which he detected, and which troubled him. It
would have been easy to say "I love you," to the helpless little
school-teacher at Mrs. Biggs's, and he wished now he had done so, and
not waited till she became a daughter of the Crompton House, as he
believed she was. Now he could only look his love into the eyes which
fell beneath his gaze, as he held her hand and questioned her of the
Colonel's sudden attack, and the means by which she had discovered her
relationship to Amy.

Again he repeated, "I am so glad for you," and might have said more if
Howard had not stepped into the hall, his face clouded and anxious.

"He wants you, I think," he said to Eloise. "At least he wants
something,--I don't know what."

Eloise went to him at once, and again there was a painful effort to
speak. But whatever he would say was never said, and after a little the
palsied tongue ceased trying to articulate, and only his eyes showed
how clear his reason was to the last. If there was sorrow for the past,
he could not express it. If thoughts of the palmetto clearing were in
his mind, no one knew it. All that could be guessed at was that he
wanted Amy and Eloise with him.

"Call him father. I think he will like it," Eloise said to her mother,
while Howard looked up quickly, and to Peter, who was present, it seemed
as if a frown settled on his face as a smile flickered around the
Colonel's mouth at the sound of the name Amy had not given him since she
came from California.

All the afternoon and evening they watched him, as his breathing grew
shorter and the heavy lids fell over the eyes, which, until they closed,
rested upon Amy, who held his hand and spoke to him occasionally,
calling him father, and asking if he knew her. To the very last he
responded to the question with a quivering of the lids when he could no
longer lift them, and when the clock on the stairs struck twelve, the
physician who was present said to Eloise, "Take your mother away; he is
dead."

CHAPTER V

LOOKING FOR A WILL

For three days the Colonel lay in the great drawing-room of the Crompton
House, the blinds of which were closed, while knots of crape streamed
from every door, and the servants talked together in low tones,
sometimes of the dead man and sometimes of the future, wondering who
would be