With his chin sunk on the breast of his warm new overcoat, he mused upon the past and all the cruel events that had followed upon his falsehood. Two men were talking earnestly near him over a little table, and he overheard one saying to the other: “It’s never too late to mend! I’m going to turn over a new leaf!” “By gum, so will I!” ejaculated Dan Ellis, and he got up and paid for his meal and hurried out upon the sidewalk. “If I’ve lost that pasteboard thing he give me, I s’pose I’ll never find him!” he muttered, searching his pocket for Doctor Ludington’s card. “Hooray, here ’tis, and I’m off! I’ll see if it makes a poor, homesick chap feel good to do the right thing by the man that saved his life,” he said, setting off at almost a run for the hospital. Arrived there, it was not so easy to find the young doctor, or at least to gain admittance to him. “He’s shut up in his room, after staying up all night with a dying man!” an attendant told him. “I only want him a minit!” “He gave orders he would not be disturbed for anything. He is not feeling well.” “I reckon not, if he read the papers this morning, poor chap!” muttered Dan; then aloud: “He’ll see me, and be glad enough of it, though I am tough-looking, I know. Please, sir, go and tell him hit’s Dan Ellis, from West Virginny, on a matter of life and death!” The man said afterward that the message took effect as quick as a dose of the doctor’s own medicine. He said he wanted Dan brought to him at once. Very ill and wretched he looked, lying back in his armchair with the morning papers all about him. “Ah, Dan, so it was you I ran into that night? I’ve puzzled over you since, knowing your face so well, though your name eluded me. Well, what can I do for you this time?” he asked kindly. “It’s me as kin help you this time, doc!” cried Dan, and blundered into a full confession of his wrongdoing at the instigation of the twins. The doctor’s pale face grew radiant with a holy joy. He put self aside and thought only of Eva. “If you will come with me to Mr. Hamilton’s Dan, and tell this story, you may restore little Eva’s happiness,” he cried eagerly. “I’m in your hands, doc. Do anything you like with me!” was the glad reply. In a few minutes they were in a carriage on their way. After some difficulty with Reggie’s valet, they gained admittance to him, and made their business known. What a moment for Reginald Hamilton! Doubt changed to certainty, sorrow to joy, despair to hope. “If she will only forgive me!” he cried hopefully, but Doctor Ludington could not tell him what to expect. He only said: “If I have any influence I will use it for you. But go now and beguile Patty Groves some way to Fifth Avenue, and I will meet you there with Dan. Justice shall be done at last, and little Eva’s fair name righted before the world, while the shame of the falsehood that marred her life shall fall on Patty Groves, where it belongs!” CHAPTER XXXIX. “ONLY YOU, MY DARLING!”