Part 54 (2/2)

”How can she leave him?” gasped Miss Ruth. ”Married people ought to love each other so that they could not be parted.”

”You have never been in a position to judge how they ought to love each other,” said Miss Deborah sharply. ”But this is what comes of youthful marriages, Gifford. A person should have reached years of maturity before thinking of marriage. Such things do not happen when people are reasonably old”--

”But not too old, sister,” Miss Ruth interrupted, a little color creeping into her faded cheek.

Miss Deborah did not notice the amendment; she was anxious to hear the practical side of the matter, and had questions to ask about Helen's money, and whether Gifford supposed that that man would do anything for her; but except their grave disapproval that Helen should differ from her husband, nothing was said of theology. As they talked, the sisters grew full of sympathy, which waxed and waned as they thought of Helen's sorrow, or the impropriety of her action.

”I shall make her some jelly directly,” said Miss Deborah, ”and put in plenty of Madeira; the poor thing needs strength.”

”This must be the reason,” Miss Ruth said,--she had put her brushes down some time ago,--”that she was in such distress that day at her mother's grave. Oh, how trying this is for her! Indeed, I am sure death is easier to bear, when one--loves--than a parting like this.”

”Really, dear Ruth,” returned her sister, holding her head very straight, ”you would not say that if you knew what it was to lose a--friend, by death. At least Mr. Ward is alive, even if Helen cannot see him. Ah, dear me! Well, I wonder how Adele Dale feels now? I should be miserable if we had such a thing happen in our family. A husband and wife quarrel, and separate! Shocking!”

”But there is no quarrel, you know,” Gifford protested slowly, and for the third or fourth time.

But Miss Deborah brushed this aside. ”They are separated; it is the same thing. In our family, an unhappy marriage was never known. Even when your grandfather's sister married a Bellingham,--and of course everybody knows the Bellingham temper,--and they quarreled, just three weeks to a day after the wedding, she never thought of such a disgraceful thing as leaving him. I have heard dear mamma say she never spoke to him again, except when she had to ask for money; that almost killed her, she was so proud. But she never would have lowered herself by leaving him. Yes, this is really most improper in poor dear Helen.”

Miss Deborah's feelings vibrated, even while she was making the jelly, and though it was finally sent, she balanced her kindness by saying to Mrs. Dale that it did not seem just right for a young thing like Lois to know of such a painful affair. It gave Miss Deborah so much pleasure to say this to her old enemy that she made excuses for Helen for a whole day afterwards.

Late that afternoon Gifford went to say good-by at the rectory. It was a still, hazy August day, with a hint of autumn in the air; sometimes a yellowing leaf floated slowly down, or one would notice that the square tower of St. Michael's could be seen, and that the ivy which covered its south side was beginning to redden.

Miss Helen was not at home, Jean said. She thought she'd gone up to the graveyard,--she most always went there.

So Gifford started in search of her. ”She ought not to be alone so much,”

he thought, and he wondered, with a man's dullness in such matters, why, if she and Lois had made up after that one quarrel, they were not the same tender friends. He met Lois at the rectory gate. She was coming from the village, and there was a look in her face which gave him a sudden jealous pain. She held a letter in her hand, and her eyes were running over with happiness; her lips smiled so that they almost broke into laughter as she spoke.

”Something seems to make you very happy, Lois?” he said.

”It does,” she cried,--”very, very!”

”I am glad,” he said, wis.h.i.+ng she could find it in her heart to tell him of her joy.

”Forsythe has come to his senses,” he thought. ”I suppose he has been unusually loving, confound him!”

The two young people parted, each a little graver than when they met.

”How he does like to be with Helen!” Lois thought, as she went on, and Gifford sighed impatiently as he wished Forsythe were more worthy of her.

He found Helen walking wearily home alone. ”I wanted to say good-by,” he said, taking her hand in his big warm grasp, ”and just tell you that I'll look after him, you know, in any way I can. I'll see him every day, Helen.” She looked at him gratefully, but did not speak. ”I wish,”

Gifford continued, hesitating, ”you would not take such long walks by yourself. Why don't you let Lois come with you?”

”She would not care to,” she answered briefly.

”Oh, I think you are wrong there,” he remonstrated. ”She is lonely, too.”

Helen seemed to consider. ”You know it has been an unhappy summer for Lois, and if you shut her out of your sorrow”--

”I did not mean to be selfish,” she replied, not seeing how much Gifford spoke for her own sake, ”and I do not shut her out; but so long as she only sympathizes with me, and not with John too, I cannot let her talk to me about it.”

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