what he is coming down to Ashurst for. Yes, he is coming to
ask you. You see, I know all his secrets; he tells me everything,--such
a good boy, he is. But I've told you, because I cannot die, oh, I cannot
die, unless I know how it will be for him. If you could say yes, Lois,
if you could!"

Her voice had faltered again, and the pallor of weariness which spread
grayly over her face frightened Lois. She shivered, and wrung her hands
sharply together.

"Oh," she said, "I would do anything in the world for you--but--but"--

"But this is all I want," interrupted the other eagerly. "Promise this,
and I am content to die. When he asks you--oh, my dear, my dear, promise
me to say yes!"

Lois had hidden her face in the pillow. "It was all my fault," she was
saying to herself; "it is the only atonement I can make."

"I will do anything you want me to," she said at last.

Mrs. Forsythe, laid her shaking hand on the girl's bowed head. "Oh, look
at me! You give me life when you say that. Will you promise to say yes,
Lois?"

She lifted her head, but she would not look into Mrs. Forsythe's eyes.

"Yes," she answered, twisting her fingers nervously together. "I promise
if--if he wants me."

"Oh, my dear, my dear!" Mrs. Forsythe said, and then, to Lois's horror,
she burst into tears. She tried to say it was joy, and Lois must not be
frightened, but the young girl fled for Mrs. Dale, and then ran up to the
garret, and locked the door.

She went over to the western window and threw herself upon the floor, her
face hidden in her arms.

"He made me do it," she said between her sobs; "he said it was my fault.
Well, I have made up for it now. I have atoned. I have promised."

She was too miserable even to take the satisfaction which belongs to
youth, of observing its own wretchedness. She sobbed and cried without
consciousness of tears. At last, for very weariness and exhaustion, she
fell asleep, and was wakened by hearing Mrs. Dale rap sharply at the
door.

"Come, Lois, come!" she cried. "What's the matter? Dick Forsythe is here.
Do have politeness enough to come down-stairs. I don't know but that his
mother is a shade better, but she has had a chance to die twice over, the
time he's been getting here!"

CHAPTER XXI.

The news of the anxiety in Ashurst hurried Helen's visit. She might be of
use, she thought, and she had better go now than a week later.

Perhaps, too, she felt the necessity of calm. She had been f