Waiting to hear no more, Hill went through the kitchen and entered the tiny drawing-room. The blinds were down and on the sofa he saw Eva seated, dressed in black. She sprang to her feet when she saw him. "Oh, Allen, I am so glad you have come. Your father said you could not, because of your foot." "I sprained it, Eva, last night when----" "Yes. Your father told me all. I wondered why you did not come back, Allen, to relieve my anxiety. Of course you did not go to the Red Deeps?" "No," said Allen sitting down, her hand within his own, "I never got so far, dearest. So your dream came true?" "Yes. Truer than you think--truer than you can imagine," said Eva in a tone of awe. "Oh, Allen, I never believed in such things; but that such a strange experience should come to me,"--she covered her face and wept, shaken to the core of her soul; Allen soothed her gently, and she laid her head on his breast, glad to have such kind arms around her. "Yes, my father is dead," she went on, "and do you know, Allen, wicked girl that I am, I do not feel so filled with sorrow as I ought to be? In fact"--she hesitated, then burst out, "Allen, I _am_ wicked, but I feel relieved----" "Relieved, Eva?" "Yes! had my father come home alive everything would have gone wrong. You and I would have been parted, and--and--oh, I can't say what would have happened. Yet he is my father after all, though he treated my mother so badly, and I knew so little about him. I wish--oh, I wish that I could feel sorry, but I don't--I don't." "Hush, hush! dearest," said Allen softly, "you knew little of your father, and it's natural under the circumstances you should not feel the loss very keenly. He was almost a stranger to you, and----" While Allen was thus consoling her, the door opened abruptly and Hill entered rather excited. "Eva," he said quickly, "you never told me that your father's wooden hand had been removed." "It has not been," said Eva; "it was on when we laid out his body." "It's gone now, then," said Hill quietly, and looking very pale; "gone." CHAPTER VI THE WARNING On hearing this announcement of the loss, Eva rose and went to the chamber of death. There, under a sheet, lay the body of her father looking far more calm in death, than he had ever looked in life. But the sheet was disarranged on the right side, and lifting this slightly, she saw that what Mr. Hill said was true. The wooden hand had been removed, and now there remained but the stump of the arm. A glance round the room showed her that the window was open, but she remembered opening it herself. The blind was down, but some one might have entered and thieved from the dead. It was an odd loss, and Eva could not think why it should have taken place. When she returned to the tiny drawing-room, Allen and his father were in deep conversation. They looked up when the girl entered. "It is quite true," said Eva, sitting down; "the hand is gone."