Business, which never reached Mr.
Denner in Mercer, had been offered the young lawyer, and he had been willing to stay in Ashurst a little longer, though he had told himself he was a fool.
Lois looked forward to the visit with feverish anxiety.

Mr.Forsythe, perhaps to please his mother, but certainly with rather an ill grace, had lingered in Ashurst.

But he had not been very much at the rectory; perhaps because it was not a time to make visits, or be careless and light-hearted, while little Mr.Denner was fading out of life, and his mother felt herself trembling on the edge of the grave.

This, at least, was what Mrs.Forsythe said to Lois more than once, with an anxious, troubled look, which perhaps explained more than her words did.
She had accepted very complacently Lois's protestations of joy and gratitude that she was no longer, as she expressed it, in immediate danger, but she did not apparently feel that that altered at all the conditions of the promise Lois had given her, which was evidently a very precious thing.

Nor did Lois remonstrate against being held by it.