ve 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 appetite
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 seem