She looked like one to be trusted, the brave, unselfish little girl, on whom the dying eyes were fixed, so that Rossie’s was the last face they ever saw before they closed forever on the things of this world, and entered upon the realities of the next. Everard was not there, for the train was behind time, and when at last the Forrest House carriage came rapidly up the avenue, bringing the son who ten days ago had been cast out from his home and bidden never to enter it again, there were knots of crape upon the bell-knobs, and in the chamber above a sheeted figure lay, scarcely more quiet and still than when bound in the relentless bands of paralysis, but with death upon the white face, which in its last sleep looked so calm and peaceful. CHAPTER XIX. THE JUDGE’S WILL. It was Rosamond who met Everard as he came into the house, and taking his hands in hers, held them in token of sympathy, but said no word by way of condolence, or of the dead father either. She merely asked him of his journey and the delay of the train, and if he was not cold and hungry, and saw that his supper was served him by a bright, cheerful fire, and made him in all respects as comfortable as she could, while the servants vied with each other in their attentions to him, for was he not now their master, the rightful heir of all the Forrest property. Whether Everard experienced any sense of freedom and heirship, or not, I cannot tell, or what he felt when at last he stood by his dead father, and looked upon the face which, when he saw it last, had been distorted with passion and hatred of himself. How placid and even sweet it was in its expression now,—so sweet that Everard stooped down, kissing the cold forehead, and whispered softly: “I am so sorry, father, that I ever made you angry with me;” then, he replaced the covering and went out from the silent room. In the hall he met Rossie, who, seeing the trace of weeping on his face, thought to comfort him by repeating the message left him by his father. “Would you mind my telling you all about his sickness; can you bear to hear it?” she asked, and he replied: “Yes, tell me about it,—from the very first.” So they sat down together, and in her quaint, straightforward way Rossie told the story of the last ten days, softening as much as possible the judge’s anger when he found his son had taken him at his word and gone, and dwelling the most upon the change which came over him while lying so helpless and weak. She told of the method of communication she managed to establish, and which had been suggested to her by reading Monte Cristo, and then continued: