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A month full of happy days had flown by when Evadne and her father returned one morning from a long tramp in search of specimens. A delightful afternoon had followed, he in a hammock, she on a low seat beside him, arranging, classifying and preparing their morning's spoil for the microscope. Suddenly she turned towards him with a troubled face.
"Dearest, how pale you look! Are you very tired?"
"It is only the heat," he answered lightly. "We had a pretty stiff walk this morning, you know."
"And I carried you on and on!" she cried reproachfully. "I was so anxious to find this particular crab. Isn't he a pretty fellow?" and she lifted the box that her father might watch the tiny creature's play. "I shall go at once and make you an orange sherbet."
"Let Dinah do it and you stay here with me."
"No indeed! You know you think no one can make them as well as I do. I promise you this one shall be superfine."
"As you will, little one,—only don't stay away too long."
He lay very still after she had left him, looking dreamily through the vines at the silver spray of the fountain. The air had grown oppressively sultry; no breath of wind stirred the heavily drooping leaves, no sound except the rhythmic splash of the fountain and the soft lapping of the waves upon the beach. He closed his eyes while their ceaseless monotone seemed to beat upon his brain.
"Forever! Forever! Forever!"
A spasm of pain crossed his face as Evadne's voice woke the echoes with a merry song. "Poor little lass!" he murmured. Then he smiled as she came towards him, quaffed off the beverage she had prepared with loving skill, and called her the best cook in all the Indies.
"Has it refreshed you, dearest?" she asked anxiously.
"Immensely! Now you shall read me some of Lalla Rookh, and after dinner
I will set about making a Mecca for your crab."
Evadne stroked the dainty claws,—
"Poor little chap! So you are a pilgrim like the rest of us. I wish we did not have to go on and on, dearest!" she exclaimed passionately, "why cannot we stand still and enjoy?"
"It would grow monotonous, little Vad. Progress is the law of all being, and seventy years of life is generally enough for the majority. You would not like to live to be an old lady of two hundred and fifty? Think how tired you would be!"
She laid her cheek against his upon the pillow. "I should never grow tired,—with you!"
The evening drew on, hot and breathless. Low growls of distant thunder were heard at intervals, and in the eastern sky the lightning played.
Evadne watched it, sitting on the top step of the veranda, her white muslin dress in happy contrast with the deep green of the vines which clustered thickly about the pillar against which she leaned. On the step below her a young man sat. He too was clad in white and the rich crimson of the silken scarf which he wore about his waist enhanced his Spanish beauty. A zither lay across his knees over which his hands wandered skilfully as he made the air tremble with dreamy music. Mr. Hildreth paced slowly up and down the veranda behind them.
"What is the news from the great world, Geoff? I saw a troop ship signaled this morning. Have you been on board yet?"
"No, sir, I have been looking over the plantation with my father all day, and only got home in time for dinner."
"You chose a cool time for it!" and Mr. Hildreth laughed.
Geoffrey Chittenden shrugged his shoulders. "When Geoffrey Chittenden, Senior, makes up his mind to do anything, he has the most sublime indifference for the thermometer of any one I ever had the honor of knowing. But the ship only brought a small detachment, I believe; she will carry away a larger one. The garrison here is to be reduced, you know."
"Yes, it is a mistake I think. Will Drewson have to go? He has been on this Station longer than any of the others."
"Yes, his company has marching orders for Malta. He told me last night he was coming to take leave of you next week."
"Our nice Captain Drewson going away!" Evadne exclaimed, aghast. "Why, dearest, he is one of our oldest friends!"
"The law of progression, Vad darling."
"How I hate it!" she cried, while her lips trembled. "Why can't we just live on in the old happy way? You will be going next, Geoff, and the Hamiltons and the Vandervoorts. Does nothing last?"
Her voice hushed itself into silence and again Lenox Hildreth heard the soft waves singing,—
"Forever! Forever! Forever!"
"Oh yes, Evadne," Geoffrey said with a laugh: "we are very lasting. It is only the unfortunate people under military rule who prove unreliable. Let me sing you my latest song to cheer your spirits. I only learned it last week."
He struck a few chords and was beginning his song when a low groan made him spring to his feet. Evadne passed him like a flash of light and flew to her father's side. He was leaning heavily against a pillar with his handkerchief, already showing crimson stains, pressed tightly against his lips.
They laid him gently down and summoned help. After that all was like a horrible dream to Evadne. She was dimly conscious that friends came with ready offers of assistance, and that Barbadoes' best physicians were unremitting in their efforts to stop the hemorrhage; while she stood like a statue beside her father's bed. She was absolutely still. When at last the hemorrhage was checked the exhaustion was terrible. Evadne longed to throw herself beside him and pillow the dear head upon her bosom, but Dr. Danvers had whispered,—
"A sudden sound may start the hemorrhage again,—the slightest shock is sure to." After that, not for worlds would she have moved a finger.
The day passed and another night drew on. One of the physicians was constantly in attendance, for the hemorrhage returned at intervals. Just as the rose-tinted dawn looked shyly through the windows, her father spoke, and Evadne bent her head to catch the faint tone of the voice which sounded so far away.
"Vad, darling, I have made an awful mistake! I thought everything a sham. I know better now. Make it the business of your life, little Vad, to find Jesus Christ."
Again the red stream stained his lips, and Dr. Danvers came swiftly forward, but Lenox Hildreth was forever beyond all need of human care.
* * * * *
A week passed, and day after day Evadne sat by her window, speaking no word. Outdoors the fountain still sparkled in the sunshine and the birds sang, but for her the foundations of life had been shaken to their center. Her friends tried in vain to break up her unnatural calm.
"If you would only have a good cry, Evadne," Geoffrey Chittenden said at last, "you would feel better, dear. That is what all girls do, you know."
She turned upon him a pair of solemn eyes, out of which the merry sparkle had faded. "Will crying give me back my father?"
"Why, no, dear. Of course I didn't mean that. But these things are bound to happen to us all, sooner or later, you know. It is the rule of life."
"'The law of progression,'" she said with a dreary laugh. "I wish the world would stop for good!"
When the clergyman came she met him quietly, and he found himself not a little disconcerted by the steady gaze of the mournful grey eyes. He was not accustomed to dealing with such wordless grief, and he found his favorite phrases sadly inadequate to the occasion. There was an awkward pause.
"Dr. Danvers says your father told him some time ago that, in the event of his death, he wished you to make your home with your uncle in America?" he said at length.
Evadne bowed.
"Well, my dear young lady, you will find it in all respects a most desirable home, I feel confident. Judge Hildreth holds a position of great trust in the church, and is universally esteemed as a Christian gentleman of sterling character."
The grey eyes were lifted to his face.
"Shall I find Jesus Christ there?"
"Jesus Christ?" The clergyman echoed her words with a start. "I beg your pardon, my dear. The Lord sitteth upon his throne in the heavens. We must approach him reverently, with humble fear."
"That seems a long way off," said Evadne in a disappointed tone. "There must be some mistake. My father told me to make it the business of my life to find him."
"Your father, my dear! Oh, ah, ahem!"
An indignant flash leaped into the grey eyes. Evadne rose and faced him.
"You must excuse me, sir," she said quietly. Then she left the room.
And the tears, which all the kindly sympathy had failed to bring her, at the first breath of censure fell about her like a flood.