"Your rough old UNCLE NAT."
"She'll answer that," the old man said, as he read it over. "She'll tell me to come home," and, like a very child, his heart bounded with joy as he thought of breathing again the air of the western world.
The letter was sent, and with it we, too, will return to America, and going backward for a little, take up our story at a period three months subsequent to the time when Eugenia wrote to Uncle Nat.
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CHAPTER XIV
MANAGEMENT.
One year had passed away since the night when Ella Hastings died, and alone in his chamber the husband was musing of the past, and holding, as it were, communion with the departed, who seemed this night to be so near that once he said aloud, "Ella, are you with me now?" But to his call there came no answer, save the falling of the summer rain; and again, with his face upon the pillow, just as it had lain one year ago, he asked himself if to the memory of the dead he had thus long been faithful; if no thought of another had mingled with his love for her; and was it to ascertain this that she had come back to him to-night, for he felt that she was there, and again he spoke aloud, "I have not forgotten you, darling; but I am lonesome, oh, so lonesome, and the world looks dark and drear. Lay your hand upon my heart, dear Ella, and you will feel its weight of pain."
But why that sudden lifting of the head, as if a spirit hand had indeed touched him with its icy fingers? Howard Hastings was not afraid of the dead, and it was not this which made him start so nervously to his feet. His ear had caught the sound of a light footstep in the hall below, and coming at that hour of a stormy night, it startled him, for he remembered that the outer door had been left unlocked. Nearer and nearer it came, up the winding stairs, and on through the silent hall, tin til it readied the threshold of his chamber, where it ceased, while a low voice spoke his name.
In an instant he was at the door, standing face to face with Dora Deane, whose head was uncovered, and whose hair was drenched with the rain.
"Dora," he exclaimed, "how came you here and wherefore have you come?"