The next minute the wheels stopped at the door, and there were steps on the stairs.
“He has come!” cried the girl, joyfully. “Lift me up in your arms, Richard, that I may see him.”
As he responded to her wish, and held her up with her head resting upon his shoulder, the door opened, and, to his intense astonishment, the handsome man of fashion, looking sallow, haggard, and ten years older, with the great drops of sweat upon his face, and his hair clinging wetly to his brow, half staggered into the room.
“Papa, dear papa!” wailed the girl, stretching out one hand; and with a groan, as he read in her wasted features the coming end, he stumbled forward, to sink crushed and humbled to his knees before the face of death.
“My poor child!” he groaned.
“I knew—you would come,” moaned the girl, faintly. “Mother—quick—papa—kind to her—once more—suffered so—so much—”
With her last strength, her trembling little fingers placed those of Vanleigh upon the hand of his neglected, forsaken wife; and then, as a shudder ran through her frame, her nerveless arm dropped, and her head turned away to sink pillowed on Richard’s arm. There was a smile upon her lip, as her eyes were bent fixedly upon his, and then as he gazed he saw that their loving light faded, to give place to a far-off, awful stare, and a deep groan burst from the young man’s breast.
Vanleigh started up at that, exclaiming wildly—
“Quick—a doctor—the nearest physician—do you hear!”
“It is too late,” said Richard, sadly. “Your child is dead.”