Erle had followed him into the room, but Mr. Huntingdon took no notice of him. If he could, he would have spoken to him and implored him to leave him, but his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth. He wished to be alone with his grandson, to hide from every one, if he could, that he was stricken down at last.

He had loved him, but not as he had loved Erle—the Benjamin of his old age; his son of consolation. He had been stern with him, and had never sought to win his confidence; and now the blood of the unhappy boy seemed crying to him from the ground. And it was for this that he had taken him from his mother, that he should lie there in the prime of his youth with all the measure of his sins filled to the brim. How had he died—but he dared not ask, and no one told him. Erle had indeed said something about a child; but he had not understood any more than he understood that they had sent to tell the mother. Erle’s voice, broken with emotion, had certainly vibrated in his ears, but no sense of the words had reached him. If he had known that that mother was already on her way to claim the dead body of her son, he would have hidden himself and his gray hairs.

What a beautiful face it was, he thought; all that had marred it in life was softened now; the sneers, the hard bitter lines, were smoothed away, and something like a smile rested on the young lips. Ah, surely he was at rest now! Some stray hairs clung damply to his temples, and Mr. Huntingdon stooped over him and put them aside with almost a woman’s tenderness, and then he sat down on the chair beside him and bowed his gray head in his hands.

He was struck down at last! If his idolized Erle had lain there in Percy’s place he could have borne it better. But Nea’s boy! What if she should come and require him at his hands! “Come home with your own Nea, father”—had he ever ceased to hear those words?

Had he ever forgotten her standing there in the snow with her baby hidden under her shawl, and her sweet thin face raised to his? Had he ever ceased to love her and yearn for her when his anger was most bitter against her? Surely the demons must have leagued together to keep possession of his soul, or he would never have so hardened himself against her! He had taken her boy from her; he had tempted his youthful weakness with the sight of his wealth, and then he had left him to his own devices. He had not taught him to “wash his hands in innocency, or to take heed to the things that were right.” Day and night that boy’s dead face, with its likeness to his mother would haunt his memory. Oh, Heaven! that he were indeed childless, that none of these things might have come upon him.

“Uncle Rolf, will you not come away with me?” implored Erle; “the house is quite quiet now, and all the people have gone;” but Mr. Huntingdon only shook his head—he had no strength to rise from his chair, and he could not tell Erle this. The poor boy was terribly alarmed at his uncle’s looks; he did not seem to understand anything he said; and what if Mrs. Trafford should take it in her head to come—if only he could get his uncle away.

But even as he framed the wish the door opened noiselessly, and Mr. Huntingdon raised his eyes. A tall woman with gray hair like his, and a pale, beautiful face with an expression on it that almost froze his blood, looked at him for a moment, then silently passed up the room, and with her dress brushing him as he sat there motionless, paused beside the couch. And it was thus that Nea and her father met again. But she did not notice him; there was only one object for her eyes—the still, mute figure of her boy. Silently, and still with that awful look of woe on her face, she drew the dark head into her arms, and laid the dead cheek against her breast; and as she felt the irresponsive weight, the chilled touch, her dried-up misery gave way, and the tears streamed from her eyes.

She was calling him her darling—her only boy.

She had forgotten his cowardly desertion of her; the faults and follies of his youth. Living, he had been little to her, but she claimed the dead as her own. She had forgotten all; she was the young mother again, as she smoothed the dark hair with her thin fingers and pressed the cold face closer to her bosom, as though she could warm the deadly chill of death.

“Nea,” exclaimed a feeble voice in her ear. “Nea, he was my boy too.” And looking up, she saw the tall bowed figure of her father, and two wrinkled hands stretched out to her. Ah, she was back in the present again. She laid her boy down on the pillow, and drew the quilt tenderly over him; but all the beauty and softness seemed to die out of her face, as she turned to her father.

“My boy,” she answered, “not yours; for you never loved him as I did. You tempted him from me, and made him despise his mother; but he is mine now; God took him from you who were ruining him soul and body, to give him back to me.”

“Nea,” returned the old man with a groan, “I have sinned—I know it now. I have blighted your life; I have been a hard cruel father; but in the presence of the dead there should be peace.”

“My life,” she moaned; “my life. Ah, if that were all I could have forgiven it long ago; but it was Maurice—Maurice whom you left to die of a broken heart, though I prayed you to come with me. It was my husband whom you killed; and now, but for you my boy would be living.”

“Nea, Nea,” he wailed again; “my only child, Nea;” but as she turned, moved by the concentrated agony of his voice, he fell with his face downward on the couch, across the feet of his dead grandson.

******

The doctors who were summoned said that a paralytic seizure had long been impending; he might linger for a few weeks, but it was impossible to say whether he would ever recover full consciousness again.

Erle heard them sadly; he had been very fond of the old man in spite of the tyrannical sway that had ruled him from boyhood. His uncle had been his generous benefactor, and he could not hear of his danger without emotion.

Mrs. Trafford had not left the house from the moment of her father’s alarming seizure; she had taken quiet possession of the sick-room, and had only left it to follow her boy to the grave. Fern was there too, but Erle did not speak to her; the crape veil hid her face, and he could only see the gleam of her fair hair shining in the wintery sunlight. The two women had stood together, Fern holding her mother’s hand; and when the service was over, Mrs. Trafford had gone back to Belgrave House, and some kindly neighbor had taken the girl home. Erle would gladly have spoken some word of sympathy, but Mrs. Trafford gave him no opportunity. Neither of them knew how sadly and wistfully the poor girl looked after them. Erle’s changed looks, his paleness and depression made Fern’s heart still heavier; she had not known that he had loved Percy so. She had no idea that it was the sight of her own slim young figure moving between the graves that made Erle look so sad. She was dearer to him than ever, he told himself, as they drove away from the cemetery; and he hated himself as he said it.

He had not seen Evelyn since Percy’s death. She was staying at some country house with her aunt, Lady Maltravers, where he was to have joined them; but of course this was impossible under the circumstances; and though he did not like to own to himself that her absence was a relief, he took the opportunity of begging her not to hurry back to London on his account, as his time was so fully occupied with necessary business and watching his poor uncle that he would not be free to come to her.

Evelyn sighed as she read the letter; it sounded a little cold to her. If she were in Erle’s place she would have wanted him to come at once. Was it not her right, as his promised wife, to be beside him and try to comfort him? How could she have the heart for these hollow gayeties, knowing that he was sad and troubled? If it had been left to her, she would not have postponed their marriage; she would have gone to church quietly with him, and then have returned with him to Belgrave House to nurse the invalid; but her aunt had seemed shocked at the notion, and Erle had never asked her to do so.

Evelyn was as much in love as ever, but her engagement had not satisfied her; every one told her what a perfect lover Erle was—so devoted, so generous. Indeed, he was perfection in her eyes, but still something was lacking. Outwardly she could find no fault with him, but there were times when she feared that she did not make him happy; and yet, if she ever told him so, he would overwhelm her with kind affectionate speeches.

Yes, he was fond of her; but why was he so changed and quiet when they were alone together? What had become of the frank sunshiny look, the merry laugh, the careless indolence that had always belonged to Erle? She never seemed to hear his laugh now; his light-hearted jokes, and queer provoking speeches, were things of the past. He was older, graver; and sometimes she fancied there was a careworn look on his face. He was always very indignant if she hinted at this—he always refuted such accusations with his old eagerness; but nevertheless Evelyn often felt oppressed by a sense of distance, as though the real Erle were eluding her. The feeling was strong upon her when she read that letter; and the weeks of separation that followed were scarcely happy ones.

And still worse, their first meeting was utterly disappointing. He had come to the station to welcome them, and seen after their luggage, and had questioned about their journey; his manner had been perfectly kind, but there had been no eager glow of welcome in his eyes. Lady Maltravers said he looked ill and wearied, and Evelyn felt wretched. But it was the few minutes during which her aunt had left them together that disappointed her most; he had not taken the seat by her at once, but had stood looking moodily into the fire; and though at her first word he had tried to rouse himself, the effort was painfully evident. “He is not happy; there is something on his mind,” thought the poor girl, watching him. “There is something that has come between us, and that he fears to tell me.”

Just then he looked up, and their eyes met.

“I am afraid I am awfully stupid this evening, Eva,” he said, apologetically; “but I was up late with Uncle Rolf last night.”

“Yes,” she answered, gently; “I know you have had a terrible time; how I longed to be with you and help you. I did not enjoy myself at all. Poor Mr. Huntingdon; but as you told Aunt Adela, he is not really worse.”

“No, he is just the same; perhaps a trifle more conscious and weaker; that is all.”

“And there is no hope?”

“None; all the doctors agree in saying that. His health has been breaking for years, and the sudden shock was too much for him. No; it is no use deceiving ourselves; no change can happen but the worst.”

“Poor Mrs. Trafford.”

“Ah, you would say so if you could see her; Percy’s death has utterly broken her down; but she is very brave, and will not spare herself. We think Uncle Rolf knows her, and likes to have her near him; he always seems restless and uneasy if she leaves the room. But indeed the difficulty is to induce her to take needful rest.”

“You are looking ill yourself, dear Erle,” she returned, tenderly; but at that moment Lady Maltravers re-entered, and Erle looked at his watch.

“I must go now,” he said, hastily; and though Evelyn followed him out into the corridor there were no fond lingering words. “Good-bye, Eva; take care of yourself,” he said, kissing her; and then he went away, and Evelyn went back into the room with a heavy heart. He had been very kind, but he had not once said that he was glad to see her back; and again she told herself that something had come between them.

But there was no opportunity for coming to any understanding, for the shadows were closing round Belgrave House, and the Angel of Death was standing before the threshold.

Ah! the end was drawing near now. Mr. Huntingdon was dying.

He had never recovered consciousness, or seemed to recognize the faces round him; not even his favorite Erle, or the daughter who fed and soothed him like an infant; and yet in a dim sort of way he seemed conscious of her presence. He would wail after her if she left him, and his withered hands would grope upon the coverlet in a feeble, restless way, but never once did he articulate her name.

He was dying fast, they told Erle, when he had returned home that night; and he had gone up at once to the sickroom and had not left it again.

Mrs. Trafford was sitting by the bed as usual. She was rubbing the cold wrinkled hands, and speaking to him in a low voice; she turned her white, haggard face to Erle as he entered, and motioned him to be quiet, and then again her eyes were fixed on the face of the dying man. Oh! if he would only speak to her one word, if she could only make him understand that she forgave him now!

“I have sinned,” he had said to her, “but in the presence of the dead there should be peace;” but she had answered him with bitterness; and then he had fallen across the feet of his dead grandson, with his gray head stricken to the dust with late repentance. And yet he was her father! She stooped over him now and wiped the death dews from his brow; and at that moment another scene rose unbidden to her mind.

She was kneeling beside her husband; she was holding him in her arms, and he was panting out his life on her bosom.

“Nea,” she heard him say again in his weak, gasping voice, “do not be hard on your father. We have done wrong, and I am dying; but, thank God, I believe in the forgiveness of sins;” and then he had asked her to kiss him; and as her lips touched his he died.

“Father,” she whispered, as she thought of Maurice. “Father!”

The fast glazing eyes turned to her a moment and seemed to brighten into consciousness.

“He is looking at you—he knows you, Mrs. Trafford.”

Ah, he knows her at last; what is it he is saying?

“Come home with your own Nea, father—with your own Nea; your only child, Nea;” and as she bends over him to soothe him, the old man’s head drops heavily on her shoulder. Mr. Huntingdon was dead.