"Our nice Captain Drewson going away!" Evadne exclaimed, aghast. "Why, dearest, he is one of our oldest friends!" "The law of progression, Vad darling." "How I hate it!" she cried, while her lips trembled. "Why can't we just live on in the old happy way? You will be going next, Geoff, and the Hamiltons and the Vandervoorts. Does nothing last?" Her voice hushed itself into silence and again Lenox Hildreth heard the soft waves singing,-- "Forever! Forever! Forever!" "Oh yes, Evadne," Geoffrey said with a laugh: "we are very lasting. It is only the unfortunate people under military rule who prove unreliable. Let me sing you my latest song to cheer your spirits. I only learned it last week." He struck a few chords and was beginning his song when a low groan made him spring to his feet. Evadne passed him like a flash of light and flew to her father's side. He was leaning heavily against a pillar with his handkerchief, already showing crimson stains, pressed tightly against his lips. They laid him gently down and summoned help. After that all was like a horrible dream to Evadne. She was dimly conscious that friends came with ready offers of assistance, and that Barbadoes' best physicians were unremitting in their efforts to stop the hemorrhage; while she stood like a statue beside her father's bed. She was absolutely still. When at last the hemorrhage was checked the exhaustion was terrible. Evadne longed to throw herself beside him and pillow the dear head upon her bosom, but Dr. Danvers had whispered,-- "A sudden sound may start the hemorrhage again,--the slightest shock is sure to." After that, not for worlds would she have moved a finger. The day passed and another night drew on. One of the physicians was constantly in attendance, for the hemorrhage returned at intervals. Just as the rose-tinted dawn looked shyly through the windows, her father spoke, and Evadne bent her head to catch the faint tone of the voice which sounded so far away. "Vad, darling, I have made an awful mistake! I thought everything a sham. I know better now. Make it the business of your life, little Vad, to find Jesus Christ." Again the red stream stained his lips, and Dr. Danvers came swiftly forward, but Lenox Hildreth was forever beyond all need of human care. * * * * * A week passed, and day after day Evadne sat by her window, speaking no word. Outdoors the fountain still sparkled in the sunshine and the birds sang, but for her the foundations of life had been shaken to their center. Her friends tried in vain to break up her unnatural calm. "If you would only have a good cry, Evadne," Geoffrey Chittenden said at last, "you would feel better, dear. That is what all girls do, you know." She turned upon him a pair of solemn eyes, out of which the merry sparkle had faded. "Will crying give me back my father?"