It was after five when Mary pushed the library door open softly, and looked in, and then beckoned mysteriously to Gifford.
"It is your aunt; she wants to know how he is. You'd better come and tell her."
Mr. Denner heard her, and turned his head feebly towards the door. "Miss Woodhouse, did you say, Mary? Which Miss Woodhouse, if you please?"
"It's the young one," said Mary, who spoke relatively.
"Miss Ruth?" Mr. Denner said, with an eager quaver in his voice. "Gifford, do you think—would you have any objection, Gifford, to permitting me to see your aunt? That is, if she would be so obliging and kind as to step in for a moment?"
"She will be glad to, I know," Gifford answered. "Let me go and bring her."
Miss Ruth was in a flutter of grief and excitement. "I'll come, of course. I—I had rather hoped I might see him; but what will Deborah say? Yet I can't but think it's better for him not to see two people at once."
Mr. Denner greeted her by a feeble flourish of his hand. "Oh, dear me, Mr. Denner," said she, half crying, in spite of Gifford's whispered caution, "I'm so distressed to see you so ill, indeed I am."
"Oh, not at all," responded Mr. Denner, but his voice had a strange, far-away sound in his ears, and he tried to speak louder and more confidently,—"not at all. You are very good to come, ma'am;" and then he stopped to remember what it was he had wished to say.
Miss Ruth was awed into silence, and there was a growing anxiety in Gifford's face.