"I must go now," he said, hastily; and though Evelyn followed him out into the corridor there were no fond lingering words. "Good-bye, Eva; take care of yourself," he said, kissing her; and then he went away, and Evelyn went back into the room with a heavy heart. He had been very kind, but he had not once said that he was glad to see her back; and again she told herself that something had come between them. But there was no opportunity for coming to any understanding, for the shadows were closing round Belgrave House, and the Angel of Death was standing before the threshold. Ah! the end was drawing near now. Mr. Huntingdon was dying. He had never recovered consciousness, or seemed to recognize the faces round him; not even his favorite Erle, or the daughter who fed and soothed him like an infant; and yet in a dim sort of way he seemed conscious of her presence. He would wail after her if she left him, and his withered hands would grope upon the coverlet in a feeble, restless way, but never once did he articulate her name. He was dying fast, they told Erle, when he had returned home that night; and he had gone up at once to the sickroom and had not left it again. Mrs. Trafford was sitting by the bed as usual. She was rubbing the cold wrinkled hands, and speaking to him in a low voice; she turned her white, haggard face to Erle as he entered, and motioned him to be quiet, and then again her eyes were fixed on the face of the dying man. Oh! if he would only speak to her one word, if she could only make him understand that she forgave him now! "I have sinned," he had said to her, "but in the presence of the dead there should be peace;" but she had answered him with bitterness; and then he had fallen across the feet of his dead grandson, with his gray head stricken to the dust with late repentance. And yet he was her father! She stooped over him now and wiped the death dews from his brow; and at that moment another scene rose unbidden to her mind. She was kneeling beside her husband; she was holding him in her arms, and he was panting out his life on her bosom. "Nea," she heard him say again in his weak, gasping voice, "do not be hard on your father. We have done wrong, and I am dying; but, thank God, I believe in the forgiveness of sins;" and then he had asked her to kiss him; and as her lips touched his he died. "Father," she whispered, as she thought of Maurice. "Father!" The fast glazing eyes turned to her a moment and seemed to brighten into consciousness. "He is looking at you--he knows you, Mrs. Trafford." Ah, he knows her at last; what is it he is saying? "Come home with your own Nea, father--with your own Nea; your only child, Nea;" and as she bends over him to soothe him, the old man's head drops heavily on her shoulder. Mr. Huntingdon was dead. CHAPTER XXXIX. EVELYN'S REVENGE.