But he had the conversation quite to himself.
At last, with a desperate desire to find something in which she would be interested, he said, "You must miss your friends very much.

I'm sorry they are gone." "My friends ?" "Yes, Mr.Forsythe--and his mother." "Oh, no!" she answered quickly.
"No ?" Gifford said, wondering if she were afraid he had discovered her secret, and hastening to help her conceal it.

"Oh, of course you feel that the change will be good for Mrs.Forsythe ?" "Oh, I hope it will!" cried Lois, fear trembling in the earnestness of her voice.
Gifford had stepped over the low box border to a stately bunch of milk-white phlox.

"Let's have some of this," he said, beginning to cut the long stems close to the roots; "it always looks so well in the blue jug." His back was toward her, and perhaps that gave him the courage to say, with a suddenness that surprised himself, "Ah--does Mrs.Forsythe go abroad with her son ?" Even as he spoke he wondered why he had said it; certainly it was from no interest in the sick lady.

Was it because he hoped to betray Lois into some expression of opinion concerning Mr.Forsythe's departure?
He despised himself if it were a test, but he did not stop to follow the windings of his own motives.
"Abroad ?" Lois said, in a quick, breathless way.