Viola was at his side before the child had ceased speaking.
The colonel's head had dropped forward on his breast. A yellowish, waxen hue had spread over his face, and his eyes, cold and brooding, were staring straight before him.
"Father!" she said, touching his hand with a strange fearfulness she had never felt before.
The word sounded portentously loud in the deep, mysterious stillness that had settled on the room. Awe of something majestic and terrible clutched Viola's heart. As she stood staring, she heard the child screaming down the hall:
"Mommer! Mommer! the colonel's sick again, and his eyes are open. Oh, come quick--come quick!"
A moment later Mrs. Seymour's heavy footfall sounded at the doorway, and she entered panting. As her glance fell on the colonel, she gave a sharp sound.
"What is it?" whispered Viola, her tongue suddenly dry and stiff as a piece of leather. "He won't speak."
Mrs. Seymour stepped forward, and laying her hand on the colonel's eyes, softly closed the lids.
"He won't never speak no more, my dear," she said gently.
Viola looked at her with a wild and terrified face.
"Oh, no, Mrs. Seymour!" she cried. "Oh, no--oh, not that! We were just going away--we were going home! Oh, it couldn't be that; it's too cruel, it's too unnecessary. He wanted so to go! There was no harm in it. Why couldn't they have waited till we'd got home?"
She raised her hands to her head in a gesture of dazed despair, and fell senseless into Mrs. Seymour's arms.
One week from the day Viola had told her father of their contemplated return to San Francisco, Colonel Reed had passed into a memory.
Death had come and gone so quickly--so terribly, bewilderingly quickly! Viola had hardly realized what had happened to so check and change the current of her life when the days had already sprung back to their monotonous routine, and the other boarders had laid aside the expressions of lugubrious solemnity which they had worn while death had hushed the house. Now, while she sat still and stupid in her room up-stairs, they told funny stories and "joshed" each other at dinner, as they had "joshed" the old pioneer a few weeks before. Even Corinne had returned to the doll and the kitten, though, out of consideration for Viola, she played with them furtively on the corner of the balcony, where, with the assistance of an old umbrella and a pair of towels, she had built herself what she called a house. One morning, stepping out upon the balcony, Viola came upon the child lying face downward and whispering to herself while she played the solitaire the colonel had taught her, with the pack of cards he had bought for her a few days before his death.