wn, which were trembling. "Gifford has
sent a dispatch. I--I came to bring it to you, Helen."

Her cousin put out her hand for the telegram.

"I'm afraid John is ill," Lois said, the quick tears springing to her
eyes.

"Give it to me," said Helen.

Reluctantly Lois gave her the dispatch, but she scarcely looked at it.
"Uncle Henry," she said, for Mr. Dale had followed her, and stood in
speechless sympathy, his white hair blowing about in the keen wind, "I
will go to Mercer now. I can make the train. Will you let me have your
carriage?"

Her voice was so firm and her manner so calm Lois was deceived. "She does
not understand how ill John is," she thought.

But Mr. Dale knew better. "How love's horror of death sweeps away all
small things," he said, as he sat alone in his study that night,--"time,
hope, fear, even grief itself!"

His wife did not enter into such analysis; she had been summoned, and had
seen to wraps and money and practical things, and then had gone crying
up-stairs. "Poor child," she said, "poor child! She doesn't feel it yet."

A calamity like this Mrs. Dale could understand; she had known the sorrow
of death, and all the impatience which had stood between Helen and
herself was swept away in her pitying sympathy.

As for Lois, Helen had not forbidden her, and she too had gone to Mercer.
Helen had not seemed even to notice her presence in the carriage, and she
dared not speak. She thought, in a vague way, that she had never known
her cousin before. Helen, with white, immovable face, sat leaning
forward, her hand on the door, her tearless eyes straining into the
distance, and a tense, breathless air of waiting about her.

"May I go to Lockhaven with you?" Lois asked softly; but Helen did not
answer until she had repeated the question, and then she turned with the
start of one suddenly wakened, and looked at her.

"Oh, you are here?" she said. "You were good to come, but you must not go
further than Mercer." Then she noticed that the window beside Lois was
open, and leaned forward to close it. After that, she lapsed again into
her stony silence.

When they reached the station, it was she who bought the ticket, and then
again seemed startled to find the girl by her side. "Good-by," she said,
as Lois kissed her, but there was no change in her face, either of relief
or regret, when her cousin left her.

How that long slow journey passed Helen never knew. She was not even
conscious of its length