ouched the little oval velvet case which lay on the
table beside him, and, taking it up, looked long and earnestly at the
childish face inside the rim of blackened pearls.

"I wonder"--he said, and then stopped, laying it down again, with a
little sigh. "Ah, well, I shall know. It is only to wait."

He did not seem to want any answer; it was enough to ramble on, filled
with placid content, between dreams and waking, his hand held firm in
that of his old friend. Afterwards, when Gifford came in, he scarcely
noticed that the rector slipped away. It was enough to fill his mist of
dreams with gentle wonderings and a quiet expectation. Once he said
softly, "'In the hour of death, and in the day of judgment'"--

"'Good Lord, deliver us!'" Gifford finished gently.

Mr. Denner opened his eyes and looked at him. "Good Lord," he said,
"ah--yes--yes--that is enough, my friend. _Good_ Lord; one leaves the
rest."

Dr. Howe walked home with a strange look on his face. He answered his
daughter briefly, that Mr. Denner was failing, and then, going into his
library, he moved a table from in front of the door, which always stood
hospitably open, and shut and locked it.

"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 flas