Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/371

Rh "Who is he?" inquired the Colonel.

"I'll tell you pretty soon. But tell me first, would you consider selling an interest in the ranch to the right person on the right understanding? I mean as an idea?"

"I would if you wish it, Daffy," agreed the Colonel a little sadly.

"I!" cried Daphne. "Oh no, godpapa! I don't come in it at all! You make me feel so responsible! You shouldn't put it on me that way!"

"I don't mean it that way," said the Colonel, smiling at her panic. "It is very simple. It is only this: besides keeping the ranch for Allie as long as I lived, I had hoped to leave it to you when I died. And if somebody else owned a share of it, it complicated it so for you."

"I?" repeated Daphne. "I? Corona del Monte?"

"Who else, dear child: who else in all the world?" asked the Colonel gently. "I have no flesh and blood: and ever since that spring day when I came on you alone among the wildflowers so bravely facing the cattle, you have grown into my heart until you are more than flesh and blood could ever be. Why, dearie, I can't take the old ranch with me when I go, and to whom should it go but to the one I love best now in the world?"

Daphne clung to him, weeping a little. There were tears in the Colonel's eyes too, open and unashamed.

"So you see, dear, why I am such a cranky old codger; and why I have been so reluctant to do what I know is the sensible thing. And why I wish there were some other way. But I suppose there isn't," he sighed.

Daphne drew away from him. Her eyes were wet, but she did not dry them.

"Listen, godpapa!" she said solemnly. "We have joked half seriously many times about Dolman, and how I used to believe in him when I was a little girl. Last night I was down at Dolman's House with—with Ken; and something said to me—no it didn't say to me, it just welled up inside of me—anyway I was told to do what I did and what I am doing now. I could not see how it would work: I did not believe it would work. But I obeyed the telling. And what you have just said made it all