“I can see her now, and feel her arms around my neck. Oh, Eva, little Eva, come back!” he moaned; but they assured him he had dreamed it all, that there was no chance of poor crazy Eva coming back any more. Their assurance was so complete that they staggered his belief, and convinced him it was all a vision of his sleep. He sighed, and murmured: “I saw her so plain I thought it was real! But send for a lawyer. I want to add a codicil to my will, so that if little Eva ever gets well she may share the fortune with you.” What significant looks they cast on each other, and the spinster answered quickly: “Very well, gran’ther, we will have Mr. Gilmer here directly. Now take your nourishment and go to sleep.” He shook his head, and would take nothing, waiting wearily with failing strength for the coming of the lawyer they had never summoned. Toward noon he grew drowsy and delirious again, and the spinster, realizing that his end was too near to be helped or hindered now, sent out for the neighbors. They came gladly enough, full of pity, but Grandfather Groves was too far gone to be glad of their neighborly company now, much as he had fretted for it when the women selfishly kept them away. They could only offer the last kind ministrations to the dying man, who had sunk into a gentle sleep, with gasping breaths coming slower and slower. When some one, a woman, wiped the death damp from his brow with her soft handkerchief he stirred slightly and smiled with a broken murmur. Those who heard it plainest said afterward that the murmured word was “Eva.” With that murmur he died, sinking away gently as a child in its mother’s arms into the calm repose of death. CHAPTER XIV. DRIVEN FROM HOME. Exhausted by her wild outcries and her frenzied efforts to break down the door, as well as by her long fast of twenty-four hours, Eva sank unconscious to the floor, and lay there for a long time ere she revived. When consciousness returned she was too spent and weary to do aught but creep to her bed and lie there shivering with the chill of the cool April night, and sobbing like a weary child that weeps all its tears dry ere it falls asleep. Everything was very quiet; not a sound broke the stillness but the loud voice of Mr. Groves’ big Newfoundland, Link--short for Lincoln--as he bayed at the moon, now low, now loud, but always in direst anguish, as if convinced in the canine mind that some disaster was happening to the ones he loved best, his old master and little Eva. He knew that the exile had returned, for he had had a most affectionate meeting with her outdoors when she came. Though he howled and yelped most dismally under her window, he could not coax her out again, but he heard her voice in those prolonged shrieks that assured him she was in trouble.