"Of course," he said to himself, "she's awfully distressed about Mr. Denner, but there's something more than that. She seems to be watching for something all the time; expecting that fellow, beyond a doubt. And why he is not there oftener Heaven only knows! And to think of his going off on his confounded business at such a time, when she is in such trouble! If only for a week, he has no right to go and leave her. His business is to stay and comfort her. Then, when he is at the rectory, what makes him pay her so little attention? If he wasn't a born cad, somebody ought to thrash him for his rudeness. If Lois had a brother!--But I suppose he does not know any better, and then Lois loves him. Where's Helen's theory now, I wonder? Oh, I suppose she thinks he is all right. I'd like to ask her, if I hadn't promised aunt Deborah." Just here, Gifford heard the garden gate close with a bang, and some one came down the path, holding an umbrella against the pelting rain, so that his face was hidden. But Gifford knew who it was, even before Mary, shuffling asthmatically through the hall, opened the door to say, "Mr. Forsythe's here to see you." "Ask him to come in," he said, pushing his chair back from the secretary, and lifting the flap to lock it as he spoke. Dick Forsythe came in, shaking his dripping umbrella, and saying with a good-natured laugh, "Jove! what a wet day! You need a boat to get through the garden. Your aunt--the old one, I think it was--asked me, if I was passing, to bring you these overshoes. She was afraid you had none, and would take cold." He laughed again, as though he knew how amusing such nonsense was, and then had a gleam of surprise at Gifford's gravity. "I'd gone to her house with a message from my mother," he continued; "you know we get off to-morrow. Mother's decided to go, too, so of course there are a good many things to do, and the old lady is so strict about Ashurst customs I've had to go round and 'return thanks' to everybody." Gifford had taken the parcel from Dick's hand, and thanked him briefly. The young man, however, seemed in no haste to go. "I don't know which is damper, this room or out-of-doors," he said, seating himself in Mr. Denner's big chair,--though Gifford was standing--and looking about in an interested way; "must have been a gloomy house to live in. Wonder he never got married. Perhaps he couldn't find anybody willing to stay in such a hole,--it's so confoundedly damp. He died in here, didn't he?" This was in a lower voice. "Yes," Gifford answered. "Shouldn't think you'd stay alone," Dick went on; "it is awfully dismal. I see he cheered himself once in a while." He pointed to a tray, which held a varied collection of pipes and a dingy tobacco pouch of buckskin with a border of colored porcupine quills. "Yes, Mr. Denner smoked," Gifford was constrained to say.