"Una sat beside him, fanning him."
Then one evening, just as it was getting dark, her father opened his eyes and looked at her with a smile.
There had been a slight thunderstorm during the afternoon, and the rain was still falling; and Una thought that perhaps the cooler weather had made her father feel better.
"Are you better, father?" she whispered.
"Darling, I want you to do something for me," he said. "Go to Mr. Carew, and ask him to come and see me this evening."
Una slipped from her chair at once. She had wanted so often to fetch the Vicar to see her father, but had not liked to do so without permission; and now here was her father asking her to go. With a glad heart the little girl hurried downstairs and passed out through the front door.
She knew the way to the vicarage quite well, for she had once or twice been along the road with Marie, since the day she had first seen the little Carews through the gate, and had often watched from the Grange garden while the vicarage children ran along the little lane. But the lane looked strangely unfamiliar tonight, with the dark clouds scudding across the face of the moon overhead.
Presently rain began to fall heavily once more, and Una, who had not waited to put on hat or coat, was drenched to the skin before she reached the vicarage.
Mr. Carew was sitting writing at his study table when he heard a quick tap on the window. For a moment he raised his eyes, then, thinking it was only the branch of a tree tapping against the glass, he went on writing.
The quick "tap, tap, tap," began again, however; and going to the window he saw a pale, frightened little face gazing at him from the other side of the glass.
In a moment he had opened the window and taken poor, wet little Una in his arms.
"I saw your light burning, and I tapped; and father wants you," she said, all in one breath; and although Mr. Carew wanted her to stay and change into dry clothes, nothing would induce her to wait, and he had to content himself with wrapping her in a warm shawl and carrying her back in his arms through the rain.
Then he handed her over to Marie's care, telling her that the little girl had better have a hot bath and something nice and hot to drink as soon as possible, while he went straight to Monsieur Gen's room.
An hour later, while Una lay in bed listening for the slightest sound from her father's room, the Vicar fetched her to say good-night to him.
"Good-bye, darling," said her father. "God bless you, little one."
"Good-night, father—dear father!" said the child, crying softly, she knew not why; and then Mr. Carew carried her back to bed, and she slept soundly until awakened the next morning by the sunshine pouring through the window on to her bed.
But, although the sun shone brightly out of doors and birds sang gaily in the trees, it was a sad, sad day within the house, for Monsieur Gen had died during the night, and little Una was an orphan.
Oh, how slowly the hours of that day dragged by for Una! No one had much time to spare for the little girl, and she walked drearily from room to room, feeling that it was cruel of the sun to shine and the birds to sing so merrily when her father was dead and she would never, on earth, hear him speak again.
She fell asleep at last—curled up in one of the large study chairs—worn out with crying and want of sleep; for often during the last fortnight she had kept herself awake in case her father should want anything and call for her in the night.
There, some hours later, Mr. Carew found her—fast asleep, and with her arms tightly folded round one of her father's coats.
Very gently he lifted the little girl in his arms and carried her down the lane to the vicarage; and when Una awoke she found herself in Norah's little bed, with Mrs. Carew bending over her with loving looks and tender words of sympathy.
She was to live with them always now, Mrs. Carew told the little girl, and she must try and be as happy as she could among them, and look upon Norah and Dan and Mary and Ruth and Tom and Philip and Stephen as her own brothers and sisters.
In a few days' time, as soon as the little girl was well enough for the journey, she was sent with old Marie to stay at a little seaside place called Bembies. Dan went with them also, partly because Mrs. Carew had thought that it would be good for Una to have a child's company, and partly because the little boy really needed a change.
And at Bembies Una told Dan her father's secret.
What it was must be kept for a new chapter.
CHAPTER XII.
HER FATHER'S SECRET.
At the top of a high six-barred gate sat Tom, swinging his legs and whistling softly in a thoughtful kind of way, while he watched Una and Dan, who were seated below him on the grass, making a wreath of red berries, hops and nuts.
The Harvest Thanksgiving was to be held at the little church the following evening, and Ruth—like her namesake of long ago—was gathering the few stray ears of corn left among the stubble. She was helping to make a sickle to hang in front of the pulpit.
"Una," began Tom hesitatingly, "you said once—before you went away—that when you came back again you'd tell us about your father's secret. Will you?"
"Oh, will you, Una?" asked Norah, who had just joined the others with a fresh supply of berries and hops from the hedge.
Dan said nothing; for had not Una talked to him often about her father when they had sat on the bench at Bembies, or side by side in the deep window-seat overlooking the quaint little western bay? The little boy remembered all that she had told him, and often thought to himself that he too would try and do some good in the world, even though he would never be able to run so fast as Tom, or to play football or cricket like Stephen and Philip.
Una looked up from the wreath with a sad little smile on her face.
"It is funny you should ask me just now," she said; "I was just thinking about it, and wondering if I should tell you."
