"What's the matter with the doctor?" asked Dick Forsythe, lounging up to the rectory porch, his hands in his pockets and his hat on the back of his head. "I walked behind him all the way from the village; he looked, as though some awful thing had happened, and he walked as if he was possessed." "Oh, Mr. Denner's worse," Lois answered tearfully. Mr. Forsythe had found her on the porch, and, in spite of her grief, she looked nervously about for some one to save her from a _tete-a-tete_. Dick seemed as anxious as she. "No, I won't sit down, thank you. Mother just wanted to know if you'd run in this afternoon a few minutes," and any one less frightened than Lois must have seen that he wished his mother had chosen another messenger. "Is she--is she pretty comfortable?" the girl said, pulling a rose to pieces, and looking into the cool, dark hall for a third person; but there was only Max, lying fast asleep under the slender-legged table, which held a blue bowl full of peonies, rose, and white, and deep glowing red. Dick also glanced towards the door. "Oh, yes, she'll be all right. Ah--unfortunately, I can't stay very long in Ashurst, but she'll be all right, I'm sure. You'll cheer her up when I'm gone, Miss Howe?" Lois felt herself grow white. A sudden flash of hope came into her mind, and then fear. What did it mean? Was he going because he dared not ask her, or would his mother tell him that he would surely succeed? Oh, her promise! Her breath came quick, and Mr. Forsythe saw it, "Yes," he said, stammering with embarrassment, "I--I fear I shall have to go--ah--important business." Just then both these unhappy young people caught sight of Helen coming serenely across the lawn. "There's my cousin," said Lois; "let us go and meet her." "Oh, yes, do!" Dick answered fervently; and presently greeted Helen with a warmth which made her give Lois a quick, questioning look from under her straight brows, and sent her thoughts with a flash of sympathy to Gifford Woodhouse. When the young man had gone, Helen said to her cousin, "Lois, dear--?" But Lois only threw herself into her arms with such floods of tears Helen could do nothing but try to calm her. Lois was not the only one who heard of Dick's plan of leaving Ashurst with mingled joy and dread. Gifford knew that Mr. Forsythe was going away, and seeing the distress in Lois's face, in these sad days, he put it down to grief at his departure. It was easier to give himself this pain than to reflect that Lois was trembling with anxiety about Mr. Denner, and was still full of alarm for Mrs. Forsythe. "If that puppy neglects her," he thought, "if she cares for him, and if he grieves her, I vow I'll have a word to say to him! Now why should she cry, if it isn't because he's going away?"