"Does he go abroad ?" Gifford felt her excitement and suspense without seeing it, and he began to clip the phlox with a recklessness which would have wrung Dr.Howe's soul.
"I--I believe so.

I supposed you knew it." "How do you know it ?" she demanded.
"He told me," Gifford admitted.
"Are you sure ?" she said in a quavering voice.
Gifford had turned, and was stepping carefully back among the plants, sinking at every step into the soft fresh earth.

He did not look at her, as he reached the path.
"Are you sure ?" she said again.
"Yes," he answered reluctantly, "yes, he is going; I don't know about his mother." Here, to his dismay, he saw the color come and go on Lois's sad little face, and her lip tremble, and her eyes fill, and then, dropping her roses, she began to cry heartily.
"Oh, Lois!" he exclaimed, aghast, and was at her side in a moment.

But she turned away, and, throwing her arm about an old locust-tree in the path, laid her cheek against the rough bark, and hid her eyes.
"Oh, don't cry, Lois," he besought her.

"What a brute I was to have told you in that abrupt way! Don't cry." "Oh, no," she said, "no, no, no! you must not say that--you--you do not understand"-- "Don't," he said tenderly, "don't--Lois!" Lois put one hand softly on his arm, but she kept her face covered.
Gifford was greatly distressed.
"I ought not to have told you in that way,"-- Lois shook her head,--"and--and I have no doubt he--they'll come to Ashurst and tell you of their plans before they start." Lois seemed to listen.
"Yes," Gifford continued, gaining conviction from his desire to help her, "of course he will return." Lois had ceased to cry.