Fabian went to meet her, saying softly:

"He has called for you, my dear! The only word he has spoken since he
recovered consciousness was your name."

"So Uncle Clarence told me," she said, in a broken voice.

"Come to him now," said Fabian, leading her to the bedside.

She sank on her knees and took the hand of the dying man and kissed it,
pleading:

"Grandfather, dear grandfather, I love you. I am grieved at having
offended you. Will you forgive me--now?"

He made several painful efforts to answer her, before he uttered the few
disconnected words:

"Yes--forgive--you--Cora."

She bathed his hand with her tears. All on her part also was forgotten
now--all the harshness and despotism of years was forgotten now, and
nothing was remembered but the gray-haired man, always gray-haired in
her knowledge of him, who had protected her orphanage and given her a
home and an education. She knelt there, holding his hand, and was
presently touched and comforted because the lingers of that hand closed
on hers with a loving pressure that they had never given her in all her
life before. That was the last sign of consciousness he gave for many
hours.

Mr. Fabian took the doctor aside.

"Ought I to send for my wife?" he inquired.

"Yes; I think so," replied the physician.

And the son knew that answer was his father's sentence of death. Not one
of the family could be spared from this death bed to go and fetch
Violet. So Mr. Fabian went down stairs to the library and wrote a hasty
note:

DEAR VIOLET: You offered to come and help to nurse the
father, who is sicker than we thought, but with no contagious
fever. Come now, dear, and bring baby and nurse, for you may have
to stay several days.

FABIAN.

He inclosed this letter in an envelope, sealed and directed it, and took
it down to the stable, where he found his own groom Charles in the
coachman's room.

"Put the horses to the carriage again, and return to Violet Banks to
bring your mistress here. Give her this note. It will explain all," said
Mr. Fabian, handing the note to the servant.

He found the same group around the death bed. Clarence and the doctor
standing on the left side, Cora kneeling by the right side, still
holding the hand of the dying man, whose fingers were closed upon hers
and whose face was turned toward hers, but with "no speculation" in it.
Two hours passed away without any change. The sound of wheels without
could be heard