He groaned in remorseful agony, and, as if in answer, there was a light rustling among the darkest shadows near the door and a slight gray figure flew across the room to his side. “Gran’ther! Gran’ther, darling!” Two soft arms were wound about his neck, two warm lips pressed his cheek, and he felt her raining tears. “Gran’ther, I’ve been listening at the door and heard all the kind things you said of me! Oh, I guessed already you had got sorry for that night and wanted me back! When I got over the craziness I kept longing for you always! I could hear you calling in the lonesome nights for your little Eva!” “’Twas me you heard calling, little Eva, sure enough, for many’s the night I couldn’t sleep and kept praying to God for a sight of you, and last night I told Him, if He would forgive me for my sin to you, to send me just a vision of you if you couldn’t come yourself. He has answered my prayer and forgiven me, though I cain’t forgive myself! Is it really you, lovey, or jest a vision?” quavered the old man, fondling the bright head on his breast with a tremulous hand. “It’s your own real Eva, gran’ther, that ran away from the asylum and begged her way on the train, and walked miles and miles from the station, hiding in the woods all day, until she dared to venture out like an outcast by night just to see you again,” sobbed the girl. “You won’t let them take me back there any more, will you? I am not crazy now!” “No, darling little pet, you sha’n’t never leave me no more,” he promised, in his blindness, adding proudly: “Turn the lamp up higher, little Eva, so I can see you better. We don’t have to be saving on kerosene now! And we have chicking for dinner every day--and pie, too! And the girls have new flim-flams, all sorts of fineries from Clarksburg! I have struck ile at last!” “Oh, gran’ther!” and she caught her breath in joyous sympathy. He had been hoping for this so long. But as the lamplight flared on his pallid face, with the blue lips, thin, pinched nostrils and sunken eyes, her heart sank like lead. How awfully he was changed from their last meeting. Years had gone over his head in those few months. Was this death? His feeble, halting voice went on: “’Pears like I didn’t care much ’bout my luck while you was gone, the other girls are so selfish! But now I’m glad, for your sake, little Eva. Did I tell you they made me sign my will and cut you off with five dollars when I was so mad, jest at fust? Yes, they did, but since we struck ile I got sorry for it. Two wells a-spouting on old Stony Ledge, honey, enamost a hundred barrels a day, and me getting more’n forty dollars a day on my royalties and other leases. Coming in every day, Eva, all that money, and me not turning a hand to work for it! You shall have your share, too--the biggest share of all, for I’ll alter my will and make you my heiress, and jest a legacy to them other selfish ones that don’t care how soon I die!”