"I feel awfully shaky, and I want you there if anything happens," he said, while Jack, whose first thought had been that he would be in the way, was not loath to go. Eloise was in Crompton, and ever since he left it, a thought of her had been in his mind. "If I find her as sweet and lovely as I left her, I'll ask her to be my wife, and take her away from Mrs. Biggs," he was thinking as the train sped on over the New England hills toward Crompton, which it reached about two P.M. Peter was at the station with Sam, and to Howard's eager questions answered, "Pretty bad. No change since morning. Don't seem to know anybody except Mrs. Amy and Miss Eloise. She's with him all the time, and he tries to smile when she speaks to him." "Who?" both the young men asked in the same breath, and Peter told them all he knew of the matter during the rapid drive to the house. Howard was incredulous, and made Peter repeat the story twice, while his brain worked rapidly with a presentiment that this new complication might prove adverse to him. "What do you think of it?" he asked Jack, who replied, "I see no reason to doubt it," and he was conscious of a pang of regret that he had not asked Eloise to be his wife before her changed circumstances. "She would then know that I loved her for herself, and not for any family relations," he thought. He had no doubt that Amy was Col. Crompton's daughter, and if so, Eloise's position would be very different from what it had been. "I'll wait the course of events, as this is no time for love-making," he decided, as they drove up to the door, from which the doctor was just emerging. "Matter of a few hours," he said to Howard. "I am glad you have come. Evidently he wants to see you, or wants something, nobody can make out what. You have heard the news?" Howard bowed, and entering the house, ran up to his uncle's room. The Colonel was propped on pillows, laboring for breath, and trying to articulate words impossible to speak, while, if ever eyes talked, his were talking, first to Amy and then to Eloise, both of whom were beside him, Amy smoothing his hair and Eloise rubbing his cold hands. They had been with him for hours, trying to understand him as he struggled to speak. "There is something he wants to tell us," Eloise said, and in his eyes there was a look of affirmation, while the lips tried in vain to frame the words, which were only gurgling sounds.