"Why, my dear child, how do I know?" cried the rector. "Had his own reasons, I suppose. I never asked him. And you see, Helen, that's what makes it so hard to go and tell Denner that—that he's got to die. Somehow, we never touched on the serious side of life. I think that's apt to be the case with friends in our position. We have gone fishing together since we were out of pinafores, and we have played whist,—at least I've watched him,—and talked politics or church business over our pipes; but never anything like this. We were simply the best of friends. Ah, well, Denner will leave a great vacancy in my life."
They rode in silence for some time, and then Helen said gently, "Yes, but uncle, dear, that is the only way you are going to help him now,—with the old friendship. It is too late for anything else,—any religious aid, I mean,—when a man comes to look death in the face. The getting ready for death has gone, and it is death itself, then. And I should think it would be only the friend's hand and the friend's eyes, just the human sympathy, which would make it easier. I suppose all one can do is to say, 'Let my friendship go with you through it all,—all this unknown to us both.'"
Dr. Howe turned and looked at her sharply; the twilight had fallen, and the carriage was very dark. "That's a heathenish thing to say, Helen, and it is not so. The consolations of religion belong to a man in death as much as in life; they ought not to belong more to death than to life, but they do, sometimes. It isn't that there is not much to say to Denner. It is the—the unusualness of it, if I can so express it. We have never touched on such things, I tell you, old friends as we are; and it is awkward, you understand."
They were very quiet for the rest of the long drive. They stopped a moment at Mr. Denner's gate; the house was dark, except for a dim light in the library and another in the kitchen, where Mary sat poring over her usual volume. Gifford came out to say there was no change, and opened the carriage door to shake hands with Helen.
"He would have prayers to-night," he said to the rector, still talking in a hushed voice, as though the spell of the sick-room were on him out under the stars, in the shadows of the poplar-trees. "He made Willie read them aloud to Mary, he told me; he said it was proper to observe such forms in a family, no matter what the conditions might be. Imagine Willie stumbling through Chronicles, and Mary fast asleep at her end of that big dark dining-room!"
Gifford smiled, but the rector was too much distressed to be amused; he shivered as they drove away.
"Ah," he said sharply, "how I hate that slam of a carriage door! Makes me think of but one thing. Yes, I must see him to-morrow. I must tell him to-morrow."
The rector settled back in his corner, his face darkening with a grieved and troubled frown, and they did not speak until they reached the rectory gate. As it swung heavily back against the group of white lilacs behind it, shaking out their soft, penetrating fragrance into the night air, some one sprang towards the carriage, and almost before it stopped stood on the steps, and rapped with impatient joy at the window.
It was Lois. She had thrown a filmy white scarf about her head, and had come out to walk up and down the driveway, and listen for the sound of wheels. She had not wanted to stay in the house, lest Mr. Forsythe might appear.
Lois had scarcely seen him since he arrived, though this was not because of his devotion to his mother. He spent most of his time lounging about the post-office, and swearing that Ashurst was the dullest, deadest place on the face of the earth. He had not listened to Lois's self-reproaches, and insisted that blame must not even be mentioned. He was quite in earnest, but strangely awkward. Lois, weighed down by the consciousness of her promise, felt it was her fault, yet dared not try to put him at his ease, and fled, at the sound of his step, to her refuge in the garret. She did not feel that her promise to Mrs. Forsythe meant that she must give opportunity as well as consent. But Dick did not force his presence upon her, and he was very uncomfortable and distrait when at the rectory.