"I believe it is Mr. Howard," Eloise thought, and said to him, "He is coming on the next train. I hear it now. He will soon be here. Is that what you want?"

The dying man turned his head wearily. There was more besides Howard he wanted, but when at last the young man came into the room, his eyes shone with a look of pleased recognition, and he tried to speak a welcome. In the hall outside Jack was waiting, and as Eloise passed out he gave her his hand, and leading her to a settee, sat down beside her, and told her how glad he was for the news he had heard of her, but feeling 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 master now of Crompton Place. Speculation on this point was rife everywhere, and on no one had it a stronger hold than on Howard himself. He would not like to have had it known that within twenty-four hours after his uncle's death he had gone through every pigeon-hole and nook in the Colonel's safe and private drawers, and turned over every paper searching for a will, and when he found none, had congratulated himself that in all human probability he was the sole heir. He was very properly sad, with an unmistakable air of ownership as he went about the place, giving orders to the servants. To Amy he paid great deference, telling the undertaker to ask what she liked and abide by her decisions. And here he was perfectly safe. With the shock of the Colonel's death Amy had relapsed into a dazed, silent mood, saying always, "I don't know; ask Eloise," and when Eloise was asked, she replied, "I have been here too short a time to give any orders. Mr. Howard will tell you."

Thus everything was left to him, as he meant it should be, stipulating that Eloise meet the people who came, some to offer their sympathy, and more from a morbid curiosity to see whatever there was to be seen. This Eloise did with a dignity which surprised herself, and if Howard were the master, she was the mistress, and apparently as much at home as if she had lived there all her life. Ruby was the first to call. She had not seen Eloise since the astounding news that she was Amy's daughter.