Helen's desire to get back to John made her decide to start on Monday,
instead of waiting until Wednesday, when the fortnight she had planned
for her visit ended.
"I must go," she said, smiling at Dr. Howe's railings. "I cannot stay
away from home any longer. And you'll come soon, Lois, dear!"
Even daily letters from John had not saved her from homesickness. They
were a comfort, even though they were filled with pleadings and prayers
that, for her soul's sake, she would see the error of her belief. Such
tenderness struggled through the pages of argument, Helen would lay her
cheek against them, and say softly, "I'll come home to you soon, dear."
One of these last letters had entreated her to write immediately upon its
receipt, and answer it point by point. She did so, saying at the last,
"Now let us drop the whole subject. I will never, as long as I have
reason, believe this terrible doctrine,--never. So why need we ever speak
of it again? I know it is your fear of eternity which leads you to try to
make me believe it, but, dearest, if eternity depends on this, it is
already settled; let us just be glad together while we can, in this
beautiful time. Oh, I shall soon be home; I can think of nothing else."
And she counted the hours until she could start. When the morning came,
with its clear June sky, and great white clouds lying dreamily behind the
hills, her face was running over with gladness, in spite of her sympathy
for Lois's grief.
"How happy you look!" Lois said wistfully, as she sat watching Helen put
on her bonnet before the swinging mirror in its white and gold frame, on
her dressing-table.
Helen had not known how her eyes were smiling, and she looked with quick
compunction at Lois's white face. "I shall see John so soon," she
answered contritely. "I can't help it."
"I shall miss you awfully," Lois went on, leaning her forehead against
the edge of the bureau, and knotting the long linen fringe of the cover
with nervous little fingers.
"But think how soon I'll have you in Lockhaven, dear; and you will be a
little stronger then, and happier, too," Helen said, brightly.
For Lois was so worn and tired that a less active person would have
called herself ill; as it was, she was not able to bear the long ride to
Mercer and back, and Helen was to go alone, for Dr. Howe had to go out of
Ashurst a little way, to perform a marriage ceremony.
"You'll have rain before the day is over, my dear," he said, as he put
her into the carriage, "and that will make it better traveling, no dust.
It's a shame that I should have to go in the other direction. Why
couldn't those people get married to-morrow instead of to-day, I should
like to know? Or why couldn't you stay twenty-four hours longer? Could
not stand it to be away from home another minute! Well, well, that's
right,--that's the way it should be. Hope Ward is as anxious to get you
back as you are to run off and leave us; perhaps he doesn't want you,
young lady." The rector laughed at Helen's confident look. "I don't half
like your going to Mercer by yourself," he added.
"Oh, I shall get along very well," said Helen cheerily. "I have no doubt
there'll be a letter for me from John at the post-office, and I will get
it as we go through the village. I'll have that to read."
"It will hardly last all the way to Lockhaven," Lois commented.
"Oh, yes, it will," answered Helen, with a ripple of joy in her tone,
which, for pure gladness, was almost laughter. "You don't know, Lois!"
Lois smiled drearily; she was sitting on the steps, her arms crossed
listlessly on her knees, and her eyes fixed in an absent gaze on the
garden.
"Here's Giff," Helen continued, arranging her traveling-bag and some
books on the opposite seat of the carriage. "I shall just have time to
say good-by to him."
"That is what I came for," Gifford said, as he took her hand a moment.
"I will bring Lois safely to you in a fortnight."
Mrs. Dale was on the porch, and Sally and Jean stood smiling in the
doorway; so, followed by hearty good-bys and blessings, with her hands
full of flowers, and the sunshine resting on her happy face and
glinting through her brown hair, Helen drove away.
Mr. Dale was at the post-office, and came out to hand her the letter she
expected.
"So you're off?" he said, resting his hand on the carriage door, and
looking at her with a pleasant smile. "You've made me think of the
starling, this last week,--you remember the starling in the Bastile?
'I can't get out,' says the starling,--'I can't get out.' Well, I'm glad
you want to get out, my dear. My regards to your husband." He stood
watching the carriage whirl down the road, with a shade of envy on his
face.
When Helen had gone, and the little group on the porch had scattered,
Lois rose to go into the house, but Gifford begged her to wait.
"You stay too much in-doors," he remonstrated; "it has made your face a
little white. Do come into the garden awhile."
"She does look badly," said Mrs. Dale from the top of the steps,
contemplating her niece critically. "I declare it puts me out of all
patience with her, to see her fretting in this way."
Mrs. Dale was experiencing that curious indignation at a friend's
suffering which expends itself upon the friend; in reality her heart was
very tender towards her niece. "She misses the Forsythes," Mrs. Dale
continued. "She's been so occupied with Arabella Forsythe since the
accident, she feels as if she had nothing to do."
There was no lack of color in Lois's face now, which did not escape
Gifford's eye.
"Go, now, and walk with Gifford," said Mrs. Dale coaxingly, as though she
were speaking to a child.
Lois shook her head, without looking at him. "I don't believe I will, if
you don't mind."
But Mrs. Dale was not satisfied. "Oh, yes, you'd better go. You've
neglected the flowers dreadfully, I don't know how long it is since your
father has had any fresh roses in the library."
"I'll get the garden scissors," Gifford pleaded; "it won't take long just
to cut some roses."
"Well," Lois said languidly.
Gifford went through the wide cool hall for the shears and the basket of
scented grass for the posies; he knew the rectory as well as his own
home. Mrs. Dale had followed him, and in the shadowy back hall she gave
him a significant look.
"That's right, cheer her up. Of course she feels their going very much.
I must say, it does not show much consideration on the part of the young
man to leave her at such a time,--I don't care what the business is that
calls him away! Still, I can't say that I'm surprised. I never did like
that Dick, and I have always been afraid Lois would care for him."
"I think it is a great misfortune," Gifford said gravely.
"Oh, well, I don't know," demurred Mrs. Dale. "It is an excellent match;
and his carelessness now--well, it is only to be expected from a young
man who would carry his mother off from--from our care, to be looked
after by a hired nurse. He thought," said Mrs. Dale, bridling her head
and pursing up her lips, "that a lot of 'fussy old women' couldn't take
care of her. Still, it will be a good marriage for Lois. I'm bound to say
that, though I have never liked him."
The young people did not talk much as they went down into the garden.
Lois pointed out what roses Gifford might cut, and, taking them from him,
put them into the little basket on her arm.
"How I miss Helen!" she said at last.
"Yes, of course," he answered, "but think how soon you'll see her in
Lockhaven;" and then he tried to make her talk of the lumber town, and
the people, and John Ward. But he had the conversation quite to himself.
At last, with a desperate desire to find something in which she would be
interested, he said, "You must miss your friends very much. I'm sorry
they are gone."
"My friends?"
"Yes, Mr. Forsythe--and his mother."
"Oh, no!" she answered quickly.
"No?" Gifford said, wondering if she were afraid he had discovered her
secret, and hastening to help her conceal it. "Oh, of course you feel
that the change will be good for Mrs. Forsythe?"
"Oh, I hope it will!" cried Lois, fear trembling in the earnestness of
her voice.
Gifford had stepped over the low box border to a stately bunch of
milk-white phlox. "Let's have some of this," he said, beginning to cut
the long stems close to the roots; "it always looks so well in the blue
jug."
His back was toward her, and perhaps that gave him the courage to say,
with a suddenness that surprised himself, "Ah--does Mrs. Forsythe go
abroad with her son?"
Even as he spoke he wondered why he had said it; certainly it was from no
interest in the sick lady. Was it because he hoped to betray Lois into
some expression of opinion concerning Mr. Forsythe's departure? He
despised himself if it were a test, but he did not stop to follow the
windings of his own motives.
"Abroad?" Lois said, in a quick, breathless way. "Does he go abroad?"
Gifford felt her excitement and suspense without seeing it, and he began
to clip the phlox with a recklessness which would have wrung Dr. Howe's
soul.
"I--I believe so. I supposed you knew it."
"How do you know it?" she demanded.
"He told me," Gifford admitted.
"Are you sure?" she said in a quavering voice.
Gifford had turned, and was stepping carefully back among the plants,
sinking at every step into the soft fresh earth. He did not look at her,
as he reached the path.
"Are you sure?" she said again.
"Yes," he answered reluctantly, "yes, he is going; I don't know about his
mother."
Here, to his dismay, he saw the color come and go on Lois's sad little
face, and her lip tremble, and her eyes fill, and then, dropping her
roses, she began to cry heartily.
"Oh, Lois!" he exclaimed, aghast, and was at her side in a moment. But
she turned away, and, throwing her arm about an old locust-tree in the
path, laid her cheek against the rough bark, and hid her eyes.
"Oh, don't cry, Lois," he besought her. "What a brute I was to have told
you in that abrupt way! Don't cry."
"Oh, no," she said, "no, no, no! you must not say that--you--you do not
understand"--
"Don't," he said tenderly, "don't--Lois!"
Lois put one hand softly on his arm, but she kept her face covered.
Gifford was greatly distressed.
"I ought not to have told you in that way,"--Lois shook her
head,--"and--and I have no doubt he--they'll come to Ashurst and
tell you of their plans before they start."
Lois seemed to listen.
"Yes," Gifford continued, gaining conviction from his desire to help her,
"of course he will return."
Lois had ceased to cry. "Do--do you think so?"
"I'm sure of it," Gifford answered firmly; and even as he spoke, he had a
mental vision, in which he saw himself bringing Dick Forsythe back to
Ashurst, and planting him forcibly at Lois's feet. "I ought to have
considered," he went on, looking at her anxiously, "that in your
exhausted state it would be a shock to hear that your friends were going
so far away; though Europe isn't so very far, Lois. Of course they'll
come and tell you all about it before they go; probably they had their
own reasons for not doing it before they left Ashurst,--your health,
perhaps. But no doubt, no possible doubt, that Mr. Forsythe, at least,
will come back here to make any arrangements there may be about his
house, you know."
This last was a very lame reason, and Gifford felt it, for the house had
been closed and the rent paid, and there was nothing more to do; but he
must say something to comfort her.
Lois had quite regained her composure; even the old hopeless look had
returned.
"I beg your pardon," she said. "I am very--foolish. I don't know why I am
so weak--I--I am still anxious about Mrs. Forsythe, you know; the long
journey for her"--
"Of course," he assured her. "I know how it startled you."
She turned to go into the house, and Gifford followed her, first picking
up the neglected roses at her feet.
"I do not know what you think of me," she said tremulously.
"I only think you are not very strong," he answered tenderly, yet keeping
his eyes from her averted face; he felt that he had seen more than he had
a right to, already. His first thought was to protect her from herself;
she must not think she had betrayed herself, and fancy that Gifford had
guessed her engagement. He still hoped that, for the sake of their old
friendship, she would freely choose to tell him. But most of all, she
should not feel that she had shown despairing love for a man who
neglected and slighted her, and that her companion pitied her. He even
refused to let his thought turn to it.
"You must not mind me, Lois. I quite understand--the suddenness of
hearing even the most--indifferent thing is enough to upset one when one
is so tired out with nursing, and all that. Don't mind me."
"You are so good, Gifford," she said, with a sudden shy look from under
her wet lashes, and a little lightening of her heavy eyes.
It was at least a joy to feel that he could comfort her, even though it
cut his own heart to do so, and the pain of it made him silent for a few
minutes.
When they had reached the steps, Lois's face had settled into its white
apathy, which was almost despair. "I think I'll go in, Giff," she said.
"I am so tired."
"Won't you fix the roses?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No, I--I don't care anything about them; Sally can
do it. Just leave them on the steps."
She gave him a wan little smile, and went into the house. Gifford stood
in the sunshine, with the roses and the white phlox, and looked after her
retreating figure. But in spite of his heartache, he would not leave the
flowers to die, so he went hunting about for something to put them in,
and finding the India china punch-bowl, with its soft blues and greens
of enamel, and twists of roses and butterflies over groups of tiny
mandarins, he brought it out, and laid his flowers in it, a little
clumsily, perhaps, and heedless that some of the stems stuck out; but
as he forgot the water, this did not so much matter. Then he carried it
into the hall, and put it down on the table under the square window, and
plodded home alone.
The noon sunshine poured hot and bright through the little panes of
glass, and when Lois, later in the day, found the withered, drooping
roses and the hanging heads of the white phlox, she felt they were only
in keeping with all the rest of life.
Even the sparkling day had darkened, and Dr. Howe's prophecy of rain had
been fulfilled.