Part 36 (2/2)

Gifford was silent, almost breathless; it all came back to him,--the warm, still afternoon, the suns.h.i.+ne, the faintly rustling leaves of the big silver poplar, and Mr. Denner's friend's love story. But only the pathos and the tenderness of it showed themselves to him now. He put his hand up to his eyes, a moment; somehow, he felt as though this was something too sacred for him to see.

”I know, sir,” he said; ”I--I see.”

”I trust,” Mr. Denner continued, in a relieved voice, ”there is no impropriety in mentioning this to you, though you are still a youth. You have seemed older these last few days, more--ah--sedate, if I may so express it. They--they frequently speak as though you were quite a youth, whereas it appears to me you should be considered the head of the family,--yes, the head of the family. And therefore it seemed to me fitting that I should mention this to you, because I wished to request you to dispose of the miniature. It would have been scarcely proper to do otherwise, scarcely honorable, sir.”

”I am grateful to you for doing so,” Gifford replied gently. ”I beg you will believe how entirely I appreciate the honor of your confidence.”

”Oh, not at all,” said Mr. Denner, waving his hand, ”not at all,--pray do not mention it. And you will give it to one of them,” he added, peering through the dusk at the young man, ”if--if it should be necessary?”

”Yes, sir,” he answered, ”I will; but you did not mention which one, Mr.

Denner.”

Mr. Denner was silent; he turned his head wearily toward the faint glimmer which showed where the window was, and Gifford heard him sigh. ”I did not mention which,--no. I had not quite decided. Perhaps you can tell me which you think would like it best?”

”I am sure your choice would seem of most value to them.”

Mr. Denner did not speak; he was thinking how he had hoped that leap at the runaway horse would have decided it all. And then his mind traveled back to the stone bench, and his talk with Gifford, and the proverb.

”Gifford,” he said firmly, ”give it, if you please, to Miss Deborah.”

They did not speak of it further. Gifford was already reproaching himself for having let his patient talk too much, and Mr. Denner, his mind at last at rest, was ready to fall asleep, the miniature clasped in his feverish hand.

The next day, Gifford had no good news to carry to the rectory. The lawyer had had a bad night, and was certainly weaker, and sometimes he seemed a little confused when he spoke. Gifford shrank from telling Lois this, and yet he longed to see her, but she did not appear.

She was with Mrs. Forsythe, her aunt said; and when he asked for the invalid, Mrs. Dale shook her head. ”I asked her how she felt this morning, and she said, 'Still breathing!' But she certainly is pretty sick, though she's one to make herself out at the point of death if she scratches her finger. Still--I don't know. I call her a sick woman.”

Mrs. Dale could not easily resign the sense of importance which attends the care of a very sick person, even though Arabella Forsythe's appet.i.te had unquestionably improved.

”We've telegraphed again for her son,” she went on, ”though I must say she does not seem to take his absence much to heart. They are the sort of people, I think, that love each other better at a distance. Now, if I were in her place, I'd be perfectly miserable without my children. I don't know what to think of his not writing to her. It appears that he's on a pleasure party of some kind, and he's not written her a line since he started; so of course she does not know where he is.”

But to Lois Mrs. Forsythe's illness was something beside interest and occupation. The horror of her possible death hung over the young girl, and seemed to sap her youth and vigor. Her face was drawn and haggard, and her pleasant gray eyes had lost their smile. Somehow Mr. Denner's danger, which to some extent she realized, did not impress her so deeply; perhaps because that was, in a manner, the result of his own will, and perhaps, too, because no one quite knew how much the little gentleman suffered and how near death he was.

Lois had heard Gifford's voice as she went into the sick-room, and his words of blame rung again in her ears. They emphasized Mrs. Forsythe's despair about her son's future. She spoke to Lois as though she knew there was no possible chance of her recovery.

”You see, my dear,” she said, in her soft, complaining voice, which sometimes dropped to a whisper, ”he has no aunts or uncles to look after him when I am gone; no one to be good to him and help him to be good. Not that he is wild or foolish, Lois, like some young men, but he's full of spirit, and he needs a good home. Oh, what will he do without me. He has no one to take care of him!”

Lois was too crushed by misery to feel even a gleam of humor, when the thought flashed through her mind that she might offer to take his mother's place; but she knew enough not to express it.

”Oh,” Mrs. Forsythe continued, ”if he were only married to some sweet girl that I knew and loved how happy I should be, how content!”

”I--I wish he were,” Lois said.

”My death will be so hard for him, and who will comfort him! I am sorry I distress you by speaking so, but, my dear child, on your death-bed you look facts in the face. I cannot help knowing his sorrow, and it makes me so wretched. My boy,--my poor boy! If I could only feel easy about him!

If I thought, oh, if I could just think, you cared for him! I know I ought not to speak of it, but--it is all I want to make me happy. I might have had a little more of life, a few months, perhaps, if it had not been for the accident. There, there, you mustn't be distressed; but if I could know you cared for him, it would be worth dying for, Lois.”

”I do care for him!” Lois sobbed. ”We all do!”

Mrs. Forsythe shook her head. ”You are the only one I want; if you told me you would love him, I should be happy, so happy! Perhaps you don't like to say it. But listen: I know all about last fall, and how you sent the poor fellow away broken-hearted; but I couldn't stop loving you, for all that, and I was so glad when he told me he was going to try again; and that is what he is coming down to Ashurst for. Yes, he is coming to ask you. You see, I know all his secrets; he tells me everything,--such a good boy, he is. But I've told you, because I cannot die, oh, I cannot die, unless I know how it will be for him. If you could say yes, Lois, if you could!”

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