The name Huntington had strong association for the old physician; for it was a Huntington that Lois Brooke, the younger sister of Abigail Brooke, his old sweetheart, had married, and Abigail Brooke's refusal to marry him had sent him South.

The Doctor discovered early in his acquaintance with the young officer that he was Abigail Brooke's nephew.

He, however, made no reference to his former relation to his patient's people.
Division bitterer than that war in which he had fought lay between them, the division that had embittered his life and made him an exile from his people.

But the little girl with her great, serious eyes became the old physician's idol and tyrant, and how he worked over her father! Even in those last hours when the end had unexpectedly appeared, and General Huntington was making his last arrangements with the same courage which had made him a noted officer when hardly more than a boy, the Doctor kept his counsel almost to the end.
"How long have I to live, Doctor ?" panted the dying man, when he rallied somewhat from the attack that had struck him down.
"Not very long." "Then I wish you to send for General Keith.

I wish him to take my child to my aunt, Miss Abigail Brooke." "I will attend to it" said the Doctor.
"So long as she lives she will take care of her.