s because of Gifford's gentle reproof, she roused herself to say,
as he had done, "You are very happy, Lois?"

"Oh, I am, I am!" she cried impulsively, "Oh, Helen, I have something to
tell you." A very little sympathy in her cousin's voice brought her eager
confidence to her lips. "Oh, Helen, a letter has come!"

"John?" she hardly breathed. For one exquisite moment, which had yet its
background that he had not been strong, Helen misunderstood her.

"No, it's only something about me," Lois answered humbly.

"Tell me," Helen said gently. "If anything makes you happy, you know I'll
be glad."

Lois twisted her fingers together, with a nervous sort of joy. "I've just
heard," she said; "Mrs. Forsythe has just written to me."

"And she is very well?" Helen asked. She had almost forgotten her
cousin's grief and anxiety about Mrs. Forsythe. It all seemed so long ago
and so unimportant.

"No, no," Lois said, "she says she's very sick; but oh, Helen, Dick
Forsythe is engaged to be married!"

Helen looked puzzled. "I don't understand."

"Never mind," Lois cried joyously, "he is, and I am so happy!"

CHAPTER XXX.

When the summer had faded into autumn, Ashurst had not yet recovered from
the social earthquake of discovering that it had the scandal of an
unhappy marriage within its decorous borders. There had been nothing
which had so shaken the foundation of things since Gertrude Drayton had
run away with her dancing-master, who, it was more than suspected, had
left a wife in France. That sensation lasted a long time, for William
Denner's face was a constant reminder of his grief; but by and by it
faded, and, as Gertrude never came back to Ashurst, people even said very
kindly things about her.

But Helen Ward continued to live among them.

Indeed, the excitement was so great at first that Miss Deborah did not
remember for some time to write to Gifford that Dick Forsythe was engaged
to a New York girl. "She really could scarcely blame him," she had added,
"for he could hardly be expected to keep his engagement with Lois after
this disgraceful affair in her family."

Gifford read that part of the letter again, dizzy with happiness and
pain. "How she must suffer!" he said to himself. "The cur! Ah, she never
could have married him; she must have discovered his contemptible
nature."

His first impulse was to hurry to Ashurst. "Not for my own sake," he
reasoned, "but just to be there. I would never show that I k