HELBECK OF BANNISDALE

by

MRS. HUMPHRY WARD

 ... Metus ille ... Acheruntis ... Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo

In two volumes

Vol. I. 

To

E. De V. 

In Memoriam

CONTENTS

BOOK I

BOOK II

BOOK III

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

"I must be turning back. A dreary day for anyone coming fresh to theseparts!"

So saying, Mr. Helbeck stood still--both hands resting on his thickstick--while his gaze slowly swept the straight white road in front ofhim and the landscape to either side. 

Before him stretched the marsh lands of the Flent valley, a broadalluvial plain brought down by the rivers Flent and Greet on their way tothe estuary and the sea. From the slight rising ground on which he stood, he could see the great peat mosses about the river-mouths, marked hereand there by lines of weather-beaten trees, or by more solid dots ofblack which the eye of the inhabitant knew to be peat stacks. Beyond themosses were level lines of greyish white, where the looping rivers passedinto the sea--lines more luminous than the sky at this particular momentof a damp March afternoon, because of some otherwise invisible radiance, which, miles away, seemed to be shining upon the water, slipping down toit from behind a curtain of rainy cloud. 

Nearer by, on either side of the high road which cut the valley from eastto west, were black and melancholy fields, half reclaimed from the peatmoss, fields where the water stood in the furrows, or a plough drivendeep and left, showed the nature of the heavy waterlogged earth, and thefarmer's despair of dealing with it, till the drying winds should come. Some of it, however, had long before been reclaimed for pasture, so thatstrips of sodden green broke up, here and there, the long stretches ofpurple black. In the great dykes or drains to which the pastures weredue, the water, swollen with recent rain, could be seen hurrying to jointhe rivers and the sea. The clouds overhead hurried like the dykes andthe streams. A perpetual procession from the north-west swept inland fromthe sea, pouring from the dark distance of the upper valley, and blottingout the mountains that stood around its head. 

A desolate scene, on this wild March day; yet full of a sort of beauty, even so far as the mosslands were concerned. And as Alan Helbeck's glancetravelled along the ridge to his right, he saw it gradually rising fromthe marsh in slopes, and scars, and wooded fells, a medley of lovelylines, of pastures and copses, of villages clinging to the hills, eachwith its church tower and its white spreading farms--a laud of homelycharm and comfort, gently bounding the marsh below it, and cut off by theseething clouds in the north-west from the mountains towards which itclimbed. And as he turned homewards with the moss country behind him, thehills rose and fell about him in soft undulation more and more rich inwood, while beside him roared the tumbling Greet, with its flood-voice--avoice more dear and familiar to Alan Helbeck perhaps, at this moment ofhis life, than the voice of any human being. 

He walked fast with his shoulders thrown back, a remarkably tall man, with a dark head and short grizzled beard. He held himself very erect, asa soldier holds himself; but he had never been a soldier. 

Once in his rapid course, he paused to look at his watch, then hurriedon, thinking. 

"She stipulates that she is never to be expected to come to prayers, " herepeated to himself, half smiling. "I suppose she thinks of herself asrepresenting her father--in a nest of Papists. Evidently Augustina has nochance with her--she has been accustomed to reign! Well, we shall let her'gang her gait. '"

His mouth, which was full and strongly closed, took a slight expressionof contempt. As he turned over a bridge, and then into his own gate onthe further side, he passed an old labourer who was scraping the mud fromthe road. 

"Have you seen any carriage go by just lately, Reuben?"

"Noa--" said the man. "Theer's been none this last hour an more--nobbutcarts, an t' Whinthrupp bus. "

Helbeck's pace slackened. He had been very solitary all day, and even thecompany of the old road-sweeper was welcome. 

"If we don't get some drying days soon, it'll be bad for all of us, won'tit, Reuben?"

"Aye, it's a bit clashy, " said the man, with stolidity, stopping to spitinto his hands a moment, before resuming his work. 

The mildness of the adjective brought another half-smile to Helbeck'sdark face. A stranger watching it might have wondered, indeed, whether itcould smile with any fulness or spontaneity. 

"But you don't see any good in grumbling--is that it?"

"Noa--we'se not git ony profit that gate, I reckon, " said the old man, laying his scraper to the mud once more. 

"Well, good-night to you. I'm expecting my sister to-night, you know, mysister Mrs. Fountain, and her stepdaughter. "

"Eh?" said Reuben slowly. "Then yo'll be hevin cumpany, fer shure. Good-neet to ye, Misther Helbeck. "

But there was no great cordiality in his tone, and he touched his capcarelessly, without any sort of unction. The man's manner expressedfamiliarity of long habit, but little else. 

Helbeck turned into his own park. The road that led up to the house woundalongside the river, whereof the banks had suddenly risen into a craggywildness. All recollection of the marshland was left behind. The groundmounted on either side of the stream towards fell-tops, of which thedistant lines could be seen dimly here and there behind the crowdingtrees; while, at some turns of the road, where the course of the Greetmade a passage for the eye, one might look far away to the same mingledblackness of cloud and scar that stood round the head of the estuary. Clearly the mountains were not far off; and this was a border countrybetween their ramparts and the sea. 

The light of the March evening was dying, dying in a stormy greyness thatpromised more rain for the morrow. Yet the air was soft, and the springmade itself felt. In some sheltered places by the water, one mightalready see a shimmer of buds; and in the grass of the wild untendedpark, daffodils were springing. Helbeck was conscious of it all; his eyeand ear were on the watch for the signs of growth, and for the birds thathaunted the river, the dipper on the stone, the grey wagtail slipping toits new nest in the bank, the golden-crested wren, or dark-backed creepermoving among the thorns. He loved such things; though with a silent andjealous love that seemed to imply some resentment towards other thingsand forces in his life. 

As he walked, the manner of the old peasant rankled a little in hismemory. For it implied, if not disrespect, at least a complete absence ofall that the French call "consideration. "

"It's strange how much more alone I've felt in this place of late than Iused to feel, " was Helbeck's reflection upon it, at last. "I reckon it'ssince I sold the Leasowes land. Or is it perhaps----"

He fell into a reverie marked by a frowning expression, and a harshdrawing down of the mouth. But gradually as he swung along, mutteredwords began to escape him, and his hand went to a book that he carried inhis pocket. --"_O dust, learn of Me to obey! Learn of Me, O earth andclay, to humble thyself, and to cast thyself under the feet of all menfor the love of Me. _"--As he murmured the words, which soon becameinaudible, his aspect cleared, his eyes raised themselves again to thelandscape, and became once more conscious of its growth and life. 

Presently he reached a gate across the road, where a big sheepdog sprangout upon him, leaping and barking joyously. Beyond the gates rose a lowpile of buildings, standing round three sides of a yard. They had oncebeen the stables of the Hall. Now they were put to farm uses, and throughthe door of what had formerly been a coachhouse with a coat of armsworked in white pebbles on its floor, a woman could be seen milking. Helbeck looked in upon her. 

"No carriage gone by yet, Mrs. Tyson?"

"Noa, sir, " said the woman. "But I'll mebbe prop t' gate open, for it'saboot time. " And she put down her pail. 

"Don't move!" said Helbeck hastily. "I'll do it myself. "

The woman, as she milked, watched him propping the ruinous gate with astone; her expression all the time friendly and attentive. His ownpeople, women especially, somehow always gave him this attention. 

Helbeck hurried forward over a road, once stately, and now badly worn andill-mended. The trees, mostly oaks of long growth, which had accompaniedhim since the entrance of the park, thickened to a close wood around tillof a sudden he emerged from them, and there, across a wide space, rose agrey gabled house, sharp against a hillside, with a rainy evening lightfull upon it. 

It was an old and weather-beaten house, of a singular character anddignity; yet not large. It was built of grey stone, covered with arough-cast, so tempered by age to the colour and surface of the stone, that the many patches where it had dropped away produced hardly anydisfiguring effect. The rugged "pele" tower, origin and source of all therest, was now grouped with the gables and projections, the broadcasemented windows, and deep doorways of a Tudor manor-house. But thewhole structure seemed still to lean upon and draw towards the tower; andit was the tower which gave accent to a general expression of austerity, depending perhaps on the plain simplicity of all the approaches andimmediate neighbourhood of the house. For in front of it were neitherflowers nor shrubs--only wide stretches of plain turf and gravel; whilebehind it, beyond some thin intervening trees, rose a grey limestonefell, into which the house seemed to withdraw itself, as into the rock, "whence it was hewn. "

There were some lights in the old windows, and the heavy outer door wasopen. Helbeck mounted the steps and stood, watch in hand, at the top ofthem, looking down the avenue he had just walked through. And very soon, in spite of the roar of the river, his ear distinguished the wheels hewas listening for. While they approached, he could not keep himselfstill, but moved restlessly about the little stone platform. He had beensolitary for many years, and had loved his solitude. 

"They're just coomin', sir, " said the voice of his old housekeeper, asshe threw open an inner door behind him, letting a glow of fire andcandles stream out into the twilight. Helbeck meanwhile caught sight foran instant of a girl's pale face at the window of the approachingcarriage--a face thrust forward eagerly, to gaze at the pele tower. 

The horses stopped, and out sprang the girl. 

"Wait a moment--let me help you, Augustina. How do you do, Mr. Helbeck?Don't touch my dog, please--he doesn't like men. Fricka, be quiet!"

For the little black spitz she held in a chain had begun to growl andbark furiously at the first sight of Helbeck, to the evident anger of theold housekeeper, who looked at the dog sourly as she went forward to takesome bags and rugs from her master. Helbeck, meanwhile, and the younggirl helped another lady to alight. She came out slowly with theprecautions of an invalid, and Helbeck gave her his arm. 

At the top of the steps she turned and looked round her. 

"Oh, Alan!" she said, "it is so long----"

Her lips trembled, and her head shook oddly. She was a short woman, witha thin plaintive face and a nervous jerk of the head, always very markedat a moment of agitation. As he noticed it, Helbeck felt times long pastrush back upon him. He laid his hand over hers, and tried to saysomething; but his shyness oppressed him. When he had led her into thebroad hall, with its firelight and stuccoed roof, she said, turning roundwith the same bewildered air--

"You saw Laura? You have never seen her before!"

"Oh yes; we shook hands, Augustina, " said a young voice. "Will Mr. Helbeck please help me with these things?"

She was laden with shawls and packages, and Helbeck hastily went to heraid. In the emotion of bringing his sister back into the old house, whichshe had left fifteen years before, when he himself was a lad oftwo-and-twenty, he had forgotten her stepdaughter. 

But Miss Fountain did not intend to be forgotten. She made him relieveher of all burdens, and then argue an overcharge with the flyman. And atlast, when all the luggage was in and the fly was driving off, shemounted the steps deliberately, looking about her all the time, butprincipally at the house. The eyes of the housekeeper, who with Mr. Helbeck was standing in the entrance awaiting her, surveyed both dog andmistress with equal disapproval. 

But the dusk was fast passing into darkness, and it was not till the girlcame into the brightness of the hall where her stepmother was alreadysitting tired and drooping on a settle near the great wood fire, thatHelbeck saw her plainly. 

She was very small and slight, and her hair made a spot of pale goldagainst the oak panelling of the walls. Helbeck noticed the slendernessof her arms, and the prettiness of her little white neck, then thefreedom of her quick gesture as she went up to the elder lady and with acertain peremptoriness began to loosen her cloak. 

"Augustina ought to go to bed directly, " she said, looking at Helbeck. "The journey tired her dreadfully. "

"Mrs. Fountain's room is quite ready, " said the housekeeper, holdingherself stiffly behind her master. She was a woman of middle age, with apinkish face, framed between two tiers of short grey curls. 

Laura's eye ran over her. 

"_You_ don't like our coming!" she said to herself. Then to Helbeck--

"May I take her up at once? I will unpack, and put her comfortable. Thenshe ought to have some food. She has had nothing to-day but some tea atLancaster. "

Mrs. Fountain looked up at the girl with feeble acquiescence, as thoughdepending on her entirely. Helbeck glanced from his pale sister to thehousekeeper in some perplexity. 

"What will you have?" he said nervously to Miss Fountain. "Dinner, Ithink, was to be at a quarter to eight. "

"That was the time I was ordered, sir, " said Mrs. Denton. 

"Can't it be earlier?" asked the girl impetuously. 

Mrs. Denton did not reply, but her shoulders grew visibly rigid. 

"Do what you can for us, Denton, " said her master hastily, and she wentaway. Helbeck bent kindly over his sister. 

"You know what a small establishment we have, Augustina. Mrs. Denton, arough girl, and a boy--that's all. I do trust they will be able to makeyou comfortable. "

"Oh, let me come down, when I have unpacked, and help cook, " said MissFountain brightly. "I can do anything of that sort. "

Helbeck smiled for the first time. "I am afraid Mrs. Denton wouldn't takeit kindly. She rules us all in this old place. "

"I dare say, " said the girl quietly. "It's fish, of course?" she added, looking down at her stepmother, and speaking in a meditative voice. 

"It's a Friday's dinner, " said Helbeck, flushing suddenly, and looking athis sister, "except for Miss Fountain. I supposed----"

Mrs. Fountain rose in some agitation and threw him a piteous look. 

"Of course you did, Alan--of course you did. But the doctor atFolkestone--he was a Catholic--I took such care about that!--told me Imustn't fast. And Laura is always worrying me. But indeed I didn't wantto be dispensed!--not yet!"

Laura said nothing; nor did Helbeck. There was a certain embarrassment inthe looks of both, as though there was more in Mrs. Fountain's words thanappeared. Then the girl, holding herself erect and rather defiant, drewher stepmother's arm in hers, and turned to Helbeck. 

"Will you please show us the way up?"

Helbeck took a small hand-lamp and led the way, bidding the newcomersbeware of the slipperiness of the old polished boards. Mrs. Fountainwalked with caution, clinging to her stepdaughter. At the foot of thestaircase she stopped, and looked upward. 

"Alan, I don't see much change!"

He turned back, the light shining on his fine harsh face and grizzledhair. 

"Don't you? But it is greatly changed, Augustina. We have shut up half ofit. "

Mrs. Fountain sighed deeply and moved on. Laura, as she mounted thestairs, looked back at the old hall, its ceiling of creamy stucco, itspanelled walls, and below, the great bare floor of shining oak withhardly any furniture upon it--a strip of old carpet, a heavy oak table, and a few battered chairs at long intervals against the panelling. Butthe big fire of logs piled upon the hearth filled it all with cheerfullight, and under her indifferent manner, the girl's sense secretlythrilled with pleasure. She had heard much of "poor Alan's" poverty. Poverty! As far as his house was concerned, at any rate, it seemed to herof a very tolerable sort. 

 * * * * *

In a few minutes Helbeck came downstairs again, and stood absently beforethe fire on the hearth. After a while, he sat down beside it in hisaccustomed chair--a carved chair of black Westmoreland oak--and began toread from the book which he had been carrying in his pocket out of doors. He read with his head bent closely over the pages, because of shortsight; and, as a rule, reading absorbed him so completely that he wasconscious of nothing external while it lasted. To-night, however, heseveral times looked up to listen to the sounds overhead, unwonted soundsin this house, over which, as it often seemed to him, a quiet ofcenturies had settled down, like a fine dust or deposit, muffling all itssteps and voices. But there was nothing muffled in the voice overheadwhich he caught every now and then, through an open door, escaping, eagerand alive, into the silence; or in the occasional sharp bark of the dog. 

"Horrid little wretch!" thought Helbeck. "Denton will loathe it. Augustina should really have warned me. What shall we do if she andDenton don't get on? It will never answer if she tries meddling in thekitchen--I must tell her. "

Presently, however, his inner anxieties grew upon him so much that hisbook fell on his knee, and he lost himself in a multitude of smallscruples and torments, such as beset all persons who live alone. Were allhis days now to be made difficult, because he had followed hisconscience, and asked his widowed sister to come and live with him?

"Augustina and I could have done well enough. But this girl--well, wemust put up with it--we must, Bruno!"

He laid his hand as he spoke on the neck of a collie that had justlounged into the hall, and come to lay its nose upon his master's knee. Suddenly a bark from overhead made the dog start back and prick its ears. 

"Come here, Bruno--be quiet. You're to treat that little brute withproper contempt--do you hear? Listen to all that scuffling and talkingupstairs--that's the new young woman getting her way with old Denton. Well, it won't do Denton any harm. We're put upon sometimes, too, aren'twe?"

And he caressed the dog, his haughty face alive with something halfbitter, half humorous. 

At that moment the old clock in the hall struck a quarter past seven. Helbeck sprang up. 

"Am I to dress?" he said to himself in some perplexity. 

He considered for a moment or two, looking at his shabby serge suit, thensat down again resolutely. 

"No! She'll have to live our life. Besides, I don't know what Dentonwould think. "

And he lay back in his chair, recalling with some amusement thecriticisms of his housekeeper upon a young Catholic friend of hiswho--rare event--had spent a fishing week with him in the autumn, and hadstartled the old house and its inmates with his frequent changes ofraiment. "It's yan set o' cloas for breakfast, an anudther for fishin, ananudther for ridin, an yan for when he cooms in, an a fine suit fordinner--an anudther fer smoakin--A should think he mut be oftener nakednor donned!" Denton had said in her grim Westmoreland, and Helbeck hadoften chuckled over the remark. 

An hour later, half an hour after the usual time, Helbeck, all the tracesof his muddy walk removed, and garbed with scrupulous neatness in the oldblack coat and black tie he always wore of an evening, was sittingopposite to Miss Fountain at supper. 

"You got everything you wanted for Augustina, I hope?" he said to hershyly as they sat down. He had awaited her in the dining-room itself, soas to avoid the awkwardness of taking her in. It was some years since awoman had stayed under his roof, or since he had been a guest in the samehouse with women. 

"Oh yes!" said Miss Fountain. But she threw a sly swift glance towardsMrs. Denton, who was just coming into the room with some coffee, thencompressed her lips and studied her plate. Helbeck detected the glance, and saw too that Mrs. Denton's pink face was flushed, and her mannerdiscomposed. 

"The coffee's noa good, " she said abruptly, as she put it down; "Icouldn't keep to 't. "

"No, I'm afraid we disturbed Mrs. Denton dreadfully, " said Miss Fountain, shrugging her shoulders. "We got her to bring up all sorts of things forAugustina. She was dreadfully tired--I thought she would faint. Thedoctor scolded me before we left, about letting her go without food. Shall I give you some fish, Mr. Helbeck?"

For, to her astonishment, the fish even--a very small portion--was placedbefore herself, side by side with a few fragments of cold chicken; andshe looked in vain for a second plate. 

As she glanced across the table, she caught a momentary shade ofembarrassment in Helbeck's face. 

"No, thank you, " he said. "I am provided. "

His provision seemed to be coffee and bread and butter. She raised hereyebrows involuntarily, but said nothing, and he presently busied himselfin bringing her vegetables and wine, Mrs. Denton having left the room. 

"I trust you will make a good meal, " he said gravely, as he waited uponher. "You have had a long day. "

"Oh, yes!" said Miss Fountain impetuously, "and please don't ever makeany difference for me on Fridays. It doesn't matter to me in the leastwhat I eat. "

Helbeck offered no reply. Conversation between them indeed did not flowvery readily. They talked a little about the journey from London; andLaura asked a few questions about the house. She was, indeed, studyingthe room in which they sat, and her host himself, all the time. "He maybe a saint, " she thought, "but I am sure he knows all the time there arevery few saints of such an old family! His head's splendid--so dark andfine--with the great waves of grey-black hair--and the long features andthe pointed chin. He's immensely tall too--six feet two at least--tallerthan father. He looks hard and bigoted. I suppose most people would beafraid of him--I'm not!"

And as though to prove even to herself she was not, she carried on arattle of questions. How old was the tower? How old was the room in whichthey were sitting? She looked round it with ignorant, girlish eyes. 

He pointed her to the date on the carved mantelpiece--1583. 

"That is a very important date for us, " he began, then checked himself. 

"Why?"

He seemed to find a difficulty in going on, but at last he said:

"The man who put up that chimney-piece was hanged at Manchester later inthe same year. "

"Why?--what for?"

He suddenly noticed the delicacy of her tiny wrist as her hand paused atthe edge of her plate, and the brilliance of her eyes--large andgreenish-grey, with a marked black line round the iris. The veryperception perhaps made his answer more cold and measured. 

"He was a Catholic recusant, under Elizabeth. He had harboured a priest, and he and the priest and a friend suffered death for it together atManchester. Afterwards their heads were fixed on the outside ofManchester parish church. "

"How horrible!" said Miss Fountain, frowning. "Do you know anything moreabout him?"

"Yes, we have letters----"

But he would say no more, and the subject dropped. Not to let theconversation also come to an end, he pointed to some old gilded leatherwhich covered one side of the room, while the other three walls wereoak-panelled from ceiling to floor. 

"It is very dim and dingy now, " said Helbeck; "but when it was fresh, itwas the wonder of the place. The room got the name of Paradise from it. There are many mentions of it in the old letters. "

"Who put it up?"

"The brother of the martyr--twenty years later. "

"The martyr!" she thought, half scornfully. "No doubt he is as proud ofthat as of his twenty generations!"

He told her a few more antiquarian facts about the room, and itsbuilders, she meanwhile looking in some perplexity from the richembossments of the ceiling with its Tudor roses and crowns, from thestately mantelpiece and canopied doors, to the few pieces of shabbymodern furniture which disfigured the room, the half-dozen cane chairs, the ugly lodging-house carpet and sideboard. What had become of the oldfurnishings? How could they have disappeared so utterly?

Helbeck, however, did not enlighten her. He talked indeed with nofreedom, merely to pass the time. 

She perfectly recognised that he was not at ease with her, and shehurried her meal, in spite of her very frank hunger, that she might sethim free. But, as she was putting down her coffee-cup for the last time, she suddenly said:

"It's a very good air here, isn't it, Mr. Helbeck?"

"I believe so, " he replied, in some surprise. "It's a mixture of the seaand the mountains. Everybody here--most of the poor people--live to agreat age. "

"That's all right! Then Augustina will soon get strong here. She can't dowithout me yet--but you know, of course--I have decided--about myself?"

Somehow, as she looked across to her host, her little figure, in itsplain white dress and black ribbons, expressed a curious tension. "Shewants to make it very plain to me, " thought Helbeck, "that if she comeshere as my guest, it is only as a favour, to look after my sister. "

Aloud he said:

"Augustina told me she could not hope to keep you for long. "

"No!" said the girl sharply. "No! I must take up a profession. I have alittle money, you know, from papa. I shall go to Cambridge, or to London, perhaps to live with a friend. Oh! you darling!--you _darling_!"

Helbeck opened his eyes in amazement. Miss Fountain had sprung from herseat, and thrown herself on her knees beside his old collie Bruno. Herarms were round the dog's neck, and she was pressing her cheek againsthis brown nose. Perhaps she caught her host's look of astonishment, forshe rose at once in a flush of some feeling she tried to put down, andsaid, still holding the dog's head against her dress:

"I didn't know you had a dog like this. It's so like ours--you see--likepapa's. I had to give ours away when we left Folkestone. You dear, dearthing!"--(the caressing intensity in the girl's young voice made Helbeckshrink and turn away)--"now you won't kill my Fricka, will you? She'scurled up, such a delicious black ball, on my bed; you couldn't--youcouldn't have the heart! I'll take you up and introduce you--I'll doeverything proper!"

The dog looked up at her, with its soft, quiet eyes, as though it weighedher pleadings. 

"There, " she said triumphantly. "It's all right--he winked. Come along, my dear, and let's make real friends. "

And she led the dog into the hall, Helbeck ceremoniously opening the doorfor her. 

She sat herself down in the oak settle beside the hall fire, where forsome minutes she occupied herself entirely with the dog, talking a sortof baby language to him that left Helbeck absolutely dumb. When sheraised her head, she flung, dartlike, another question at her host. 

"Have you many neighbours, Mr. Helbeck?"

Her voice startled his look away from her. 

"Not many, " he said, hesitating. "And I know little of those there are. "

"Indeed! Don't you like--society?"

He laughed with some embarrassment. "I don't get much of it, " he saidsimply. 

"Don't you? What a pity!--isn't it, Bruno? I like societydreadfully, --dances, theatres, parties, --all sorts of things. Or Idid--once. "

She paused and stared at Helbeck. He did not speak, however. She sat upvery straight and pushed the dog from her. "By the way, " she said, in ashrill voice, "there are my cousins, the Masons. How far are they?"

"About seven miles. "

"Quite up in the mountains, isn't it?"

Helbeck assented. 

"Oh! I shall go there at once, I shall go tomorrow, " said the girl, withemphasis, resting her small chin lightly on the head of the dog, whileshe fixed her eyes--her hostile eyes--upon her host. 

Helbeck made no answer. He went to fetch another log for the fire. 

"Why doesn't he say something about them?" she thought angrily. "Whydoesn't he say something about papa?--about his illness?--ask me anyquestions? He may have hated him, but it would be only decent. He is avery grand, imposing person, I suppose, with his melancholy airs, and hisfamily. Papa was worth a hundred of him! Oh! past a quarter to ten? Timeto go, and let him have his prayers to himself. Augustina told me ten. "

She sprang up, and stiffly held out her hand. 

"Good-night, Mr. Helbeck. I ought to go to Augustina and settle her forthe night. To-morrow I should like to tell you what the doctor said abouther; she is not strong at all. What time do you breakfast?"

"Half-past eight. But, of course----"

"Oh, no! of course Augustina won't come down! I will carry her up hertray myself. Good-night. "

Helbeck touched her hand. But as she turned away, he followed her a fewsteps irresolutely, and then said: "Miss Fountain, "--she looked round insurprise, --"I should like you to understand that everything that can bedone in this poor house for my sister's comfort, and yours, I should wishdone. My resources are not great, but my will is good. "

He raised his eyelids, and she saw the eyes beneath, full, for the firsttime, --eyes grey like her own, but far darker and profounder. She felt amomentary flutter, perhaps of compunction. Then she thanked him and wenther way. 

 * * * * *

When she had made her stepmother comfortable for the night, LauraFountain went back to her room, shielding her candle with difficulty fromthe gusts that seemed to tear along the dark passages of the old house. The March rawness made her shiver, and she looked shrinkingly into thegloom before her, as she paused outside her own door. There, at the endof the passage, lay the old tower; so Mrs. Denton had told her. Thethought of all the locked and empty rooms in it, --dark, coldspaces, --haunted perhaps by strange sounds and presences of the past, seemed to let loose upon her all at once a little whirlwind of fear. Shehurried into her room, and was just setting down her candle beforeturning to lock her door, when a sound from the distant hall caught herear. 

A deep monotonous sound, rising and falling at regular intervals, Mr. Helbeck reading prayers, with the two maids, who represented the onlyservice of the house. 

Laura lingered with her hand on the door. In the silence of the ancienthouse, there was something touching in the sound, a kind of appeal. Butit was an appeal which, in the girl's mind, passed instantly intoreaction. She locked the door, and turned away, breathing fast as thoughunder some excitement. 

The tears, long held down, were rising, and the room, where a large woodfire was burning, --wood was the only provision of which there was aplenty at Bannisdale, --seemed to her suddenly stifling. She went to thecasement window and threw it open. A rush of mild wind came through, andwith it, the roar of the swollen river. 

The girl leant forward, bathing her hot face in the wild air. There was adark mist of trees below her, trees tossed by the wind; then, far down, aray of moonlight on water; beyond, a fell-side, clear a moment beneath asky of sweeping cloud; and last of all, highest of all, amid the clouds, a dim radiance, intermittent and yet steady, like the radiance of moonlitsnow. 

A strange nobility and freedom breathed from the wide scene; from itsmere depth below her; from the spacious curve of the river, the mountainshalf shown, half hidden, the great race of the clouds, the fresh beatingof the wind. The north spoke to her and the mountains. It was like therush of something passionate and straining through her girlish sense, intensifying all that was already there. What was this thirst, thisyearning, this physical anguish of pity that crept back upon her in allthe pauses of the day and night?

It was nine months since she had lost her father, but all the scenes ofhis last days were still so clear to her that it seemed to her oftensheer incredibility that the room, the bed, the helpless form, the noiseof the breathing, the clink of the medicine glasses, the tread of thedoctor, the gasping words of the patient, were all alike fragments andphantoms of the past, --that the house was empty, the bed sold, thepatient gone. Oh! the clinging of the thin hand round her own, thepiteousness of suffering--of failure! Poor, poor papa!--he would not say, even to comfort her, that they would meet again. He had not believed it, and so she must not. 

No, and she would not! She raised her head fiercely and dried her tears. Only, why was she here, in the house of a man who had never spoken to herfather--his brother-in-law--for thirteen years; who had made his sisterfeel that her marriage had been a disgrace; who was all the time, nodoubt, cherishing such thoughts in that black, proud head of his, whileshe, her father's daughter, was sitting opposite to him?

"How am I ever going to bear it--all these months?" she asked herself. 

CHAPTER II

But the causes which had brought Laura Fountain to Bannisdale were verysimple. It had all come about in the most natural inevitable way. 

When Laura was eight years old--nearly thirteen years before thisdate--her father, then a widower with one child, had fallen in with andmarried Alan Helbeck's sister. At the time of their first meeting withthe little Catholic spinster, Stephen Fountain and his child werespending part of the Cambridge vacation at a village on the Cumberlandcoast where a fine air could be combined with cheap lodgings. Fountainhimself was from the North Country. His grandfather had been a smallLancashire yeoman, and Stephen Fountain had an inbred liking for thefells, the farmhouses, and even the rain of his native district. Beforedescending to the sea, he and his child had spent a couple of days withhis cousin by marriage, James Mason, in the lonely stone house among thehills, which had belonged to the family since the Revolution. He left itgladly, however, for the farm life seemed to him much harder and moresqualid than he had remembered it to be, and he disliked James Mason'swife. As he and Laura walked down the long, rough track connecting thefarm with the main road on the day of their departure, Stephen Fountainwhistled so loud and merrily that the skipping child beside him looked athim with astonishment. 

It was his way no doubt of thanking Providence for the happy chance thathad sent his father to a small local government post at Newcastle, andhimself to a grammar school with openings on the University. Yet as arule he thought himself anything but a successful man. He held alectureship at Cambridge in an obscure scientific subject; and was in hisway both learned and diligent. But he had few pupils, and had never caredto have them. They interfered with his own research, and he had thepassionate scorn for popularity which grows up naturally in those whohave no power with the crowd. His religious opinions, or rather themanner in which he chose to express them, divided him from many good men. He was poor, and he hated his poverty. A rather imprudent marriage hadturned out neither particularly well nor particularly ill. His wife hadsome beauty, however, and there was hardly time for disillusion. She diedwhen Laura was still a tottering baby, and Stephen had missed her sorelyfor a while. Since her death he had grown to be a very lonely man, silently discontented with himself and sourly critical of his neighbours. Yet all the same he thanked God that he was not his cousin James. 

Potter's Beach as a watering-place was neither beautiful nor amusing. Laura was happy there, but that said nothing. All her childhood through, she had the most surprising gift for happiness. From morning till nightshe lived in a flutter of delicious nothings. Unless he watched herclosely, Stephen Fountain could not tell for the life of him what she wasabout all day. But he saw that she was endlessly about something; herlittle hands and legs never rested; she dug, bathed, dabbled, raced, kissed, ate, slept, in one happy bustle, which never slackened except forthe hours when she lay rosy and still in her bed. And even then thepretty mouth was still eagerly open, as though sleep had just breathedupon its chatter for a few charmed moments, and "the joy within" wasalready breaking from the spell. 

Stephen Fountain adored her, but his affections were never enough forhim. In spite of the child's spirits he himself found Potter's Beach adesolation, all the more that he was cut off from his books for a time bydoctor's orders and his own common sense. Suddenly, as he took his dailywalk over the sands with Laura, he began to notice a thin lady in black, sitting alone under a bank of sea-thistles, and generally struggling withan umbrella which she had put up to shelter herself and her book from aprevailing and boisterous wind. Sometimes when he passed her in thelittle street, he caught a glimpse of timid eyes, or he saw and pitiedthe slight involuntary jerk of the head and shoulders, which seemed totell of nervous delicacy. Presently they made friends, and he found herlonely and discontented like himself. She was a Catholic, he discovered;but her Catholicism was not that of the convert, but of an old inheritedsort which sat easily enough on a light nature. Then, to hisastonishment, it appeared that she lived with a brother at an old housein North Lancashire--a well-known and even, in its degree, famoushouse--which lay not seven miles distant from his grandfather's littleproperty, and had been quite familiar to him by repute, and even by sightas a child. When he was a small lad staying at Browhead Farm, he had onceor twice found his way to the Greet, and had strayed along its coursethrough Bannisdale Park. Once even, when he was in the act of fishing aparticular pool where the trout were rising in a manner to tempt a veryarchangel, he had been seized and his primitive rod broken over hisshoulder by an old man whom he believed to have been the owner, Mr. Helbeck himself, --a magnificent white-haired person, about whom tales ranfreely in the country-side. 

So this little, shabby old maid was a Helbeck of Bannisdale! As he lookedat her, Fountain could not help thinking with a hidden amusement of allthe awesome prestige the name had once carried with it for his boyishear. Thirty years back, what a gulf had seemed to yawn between theyeoman's grandson and the lofty owners of that stern and ancient houseupon the Greet! And now, how glad was old Helbeck's daughter to sit orwalk with him and his child!--and how plain it grew, as the weeks passedon, that if he, Stephen Fountain, willed it, she would make no difficultyat all about a much longer companionship! Fountain held himself to be themost convinced of democrats, a man who had a reasoned right to hisRadical opinions that commoner folk must do without. Nevertheless, hispride fed on this small turn of fortune, and when he carelessly addressedhis new friend, her name gave him pleasure. 

It seemed that she possessed but little else, poor lady. Even in hisyoung days, Fountain could remember that the Helbecks were reported to bestraitened, to have already much difficulty in keeping up the house andthe estate. But clearly things had fallen by now to a much lower depth. Miss Helbeck's dress, talk, lodgings, all spoke of poverty, greatpoverty. He himself had never known what it was to have a superfluous tenpounds; but the feverish strain that belongs to such a situation as theHelbecks' awoke in him a new and sharp pity. He was very sorry for thelittle, harassed creature; that physical privation should touch a womanhad always seemed to him a monstrosity. 

What was the brother about?--a great strong fellow by all accounts, capable, surely, of doing something for the family fortunes. Instinctively Fountain held him responsible for the sister's fatigue anddelicacy. They had just lost their mother, and Augustina had come toPotter's Beach to recover from long months of nursing. And presentlyFountain discovered that what stood between her and health was not somuch the past as the future. 

"You don't like the idea of going home, " he said to her once, abruptly, after they had grown intimate. She flushed, and hesitated; then her eyesfilled with tears. 

Gradually he made her explain herself. The brother, it appeared, wastwelve years younger than herself, and had been brought up first atStonyhurst, and afterwards at Louvain, in constant separation from therest of the family. He had never had much in common with his home, since, at Stonyhurst, he had come under the influence of a Jesuit teacher, who, in the language of old Helbeck, had turned him into "a fond sort offellow, " swarming with notions that could only serve to carry the familydecadence a step further. 

"We have been Catholics for twenty generations, " said Augustina, in herquavering voice. "But our ways--father's ways--weren't good enough forAlan. We thought he was making up his mind to be a Jesuit, and father wasmad about it, because of the old place. Then father died, and Alan camehome. He and my mother got on best; oh! he was very good to her. But heand I weren't brought up in the same way; you'd think he was alreadyunder a rule. I don't--know--I suppose it's too high for me----"

She took up a handful of sand, and threw it, angrily, from her thinfingers, hurrying on, however, as if the unburdenment, once begun, musthave its course. 

"And it's hard to be always pulled up and set right by some one you'venursed in his cradle. Oh! I don't mean he says anything; he and I neverhad words in our lives. But it's the way he has of doing things--thechanges he makes. You feel how he disapproves of you; he doesn't like myfriends--our old friends; the house is like a desert since he came. Andthe money he gives away! The priests just suck us dry--and he hasn't gotit to give. Oh! I know it's all very wicked of me; but when I think ofgoing back to him--just us two, you know, in that old house--and all thetrouble about money----"

Her voice failed her. 

"Well, don't go back, " said Fountain, laying his hand on her arm. 

 * * * * *

And twenty-four hours later he was still pleased with himself and her. Nodoubt she was stupid, poor Augustina, and more ignorant than he hadsupposed a human being could be. Her only education seemed to have beensupplied by two years at the "Couvent des Dames Anglaises" at St. -Omer, and all that she had retained from it was a small stock of French idioms, most of which she had forgotten how to use, though she did use themfrequently, with a certain timid pretension. Of that habit Fountain, thefastidious, thought that he should break her. But for the rest, herreligion, her poverty, --well, she had a hundred a year, so that he andLaura would be no worse off for taking her in, and the child's prospects, of course, should not suffer by a halfpenny. And as to the Catholicism, Fountain smiled to himself. No doubt there was some inherited feeling. But even if she did keep up her little mummeries, he could not see thatthey would do him or Laura any harm. And for the rest she suited him. Shesomehow crept into his loneliness and fitted it. He was getting too oldto go farther, and he might well fare worse. In spite of her love oftalk, she was not a bad listener; and longer experience showed her to bein truth the soft and gentle nature that she seemed. She had a curiouskind of vanity which showed itself in her feeling towards her brother. But Fountain did not find it disagreeable; it even gave him pleasure toflatter it; as one feeds or caresses some straying half-starved creature, partly for pity, partly that the human will may feel its power. 

"I wonder how much fuss that young man will make?" Fountain askedhimself, when at last it became necessary to write to Bannisdale. 

Augustina, however, was thirty-five, in full possession of her littlemoneys, and had no one to consult but herself. Fountain enjoyed thewriting of the letter, which was brief, if not curt. 

Alan Helbeck appeared without an hour's delay at Potter's Beach. Fountainfelt himself much inclined beforehand to treat the tall dark youth, sixteen years his junior, as a tutor treats an undergraduate. Oddlyenough, however, when the two men stood face to face, Fountain was oncemore awkwardly conscious of that old sense of social distance which thesister had never recalled to him. The sting of it made him rougher thanhe had meant to be. Otherwise the young man's very shabby coat, hissuperb good looks, and courteous reserve of manner might almost havedisarmed the irritable scholar. 

As it was, Helbeck soon discovered that Fountain had no intention ofallowing Augustina to apply for any dispensation for the marriage, thathe would make no promise of Catholic bringing-up, supposing there werechildren, and that his idea was to be married at a registry office. 

"I am one of those people who don't trouble themselves about the affairsof another world, " said Fountain in a suave voice, as he stood in thelodging-house window, a bearded, broad-shouldered person, his handsthrust wilfully into the very baggy pockets of his ill-fitting lightsuit. "I won't worry your sister, and I don't suppose there'll be anychildren. But if there are, I really can't promise to make Catholics ofthem. And as for myself, I don't take things so easy as it's the fashionto do now. I can't present myself in church, even for Augustina. "

Helbeck sat silent for a few minutes with his eyes on the ground. Then herose. 

"You ask what no Catholic should grant, " he said slowly. "But that ofcourse you know. I can have nothing to do with such a marriage, and myduty naturally will be to dissuade my sister from it as strongly aspossible. "

Fountain bowed. 

"She is expecting you, " he said. "I of course await her decision. "

His tone was hardly serious. Nevertheless, during the time that Helbeckand Augustina were pacing the sands together, Fountain went through agood deal of uneasiness. One never knew how or where this damned poisonin the blood might break out again. That young fanatic, a Jesuit alreadyby the look of him, would of course try all their inherited Mumbo Jumboupon her; and what woman is at bottom anything more than the prey of thelast speaker?

When, however, it was all over, and he was allowed to see his Augustinain the evening, he found her helpless with crying indeed, but asobstinate as only the meek of the earth can be. She had broken whollywith her brother and with Bannisdale; and Fountain gathered that, afterall Helbeck's arguments and entreaties, there had flashed a moment ofstorm between them, when the fierce "Helbeck temper, " traditional throughmany generations, had broken down the self-control of the ascetic, andAugustina must needs have trembled. However, there she was, frightenedand miserable, but still determined. And her terror was much moreconcerned with the possibility of any return to live with Alan and hisall-exacting creed than anything else. Fountain caught himself wonderingwhether indeed she had imagination enough to lay much hold on thosespiritual terrors with which she had no doubt been threatened. In this, however, he misjudged her, as will be seen. 

Meanwhile he sent for an elderly Evangelical cousin of his wife's, whowas accustomed to take a friendly interest in his child and himself. She, in Protestant jubilation over this brand snatched from the burning, camein haste, very nearly departing, indeed, in similar haste as soon as theunholy project of the secular marriage was mooted. However, under muchpersuasion she remained, lamenting; Augustina sent to Bannisdale for herfew possessions, and the scanty ceremony was soon over. 

Meanwhile Laura had but found in the whole affair one more amusement andexcitement added to the many that, according to her, Potter's Beachalready possessed. The dancing elfish child--who had no memory of her ownmother--had begun by taking the little old maid under her patronisingwing. She graciously allowed Augustina to make a lap for all the brinytreasures she might accumulate in the course of a breathless morning; sherushed to give her first information whenever that encroaching monsterthe sea broke down her castles. And as soon as it appeared that her papaliked Augustina, and had a use for her, Laura at the age of eightpromptly accepted her as part of the family circle, without the smallesttouch of either sentiment or opposition. She walked gaily hand in handwith her father to the registry office at St. Bees. The jealously hidden, stormy little heart knew well enough that it had nothing to fear. 

Then came many quiet years at Cambridge. Augustina spoke no more of herbrother, and apparently let her old creed slip. She conformed herselfwholly to her husband's ways, --a little colourless thread on the streamof academic life, slightly regarded, and generally silent out of doors, but at home a gentle, foolish, and often voluble person, very easily madehappy by some small kindness and a few creature comforts. 

Laura meanwhile grew up, and no one exactly knew how. Her education was athing of shreds and patches, managed by herself throughout, andexpressing her own strong will or caprice from the beginning. She putherself to school--a day school only; and took herself away as soon asshe was tired of it. She threw herself madly into physical exercises likedancing or skating; and excelled in most of them by virtue of a certainwild grace, a tameless strength of spirits and will. And yet she grew upsmall and pale; and it was not till she was about eighteen that shesuddenly blossomed into prettiness. 

"Carrotina--why, what's happened to you?" said her father to her one day. 

She turned in astonishment from her task of putting some books tidy onhis study shelves. Then she coloured half angrily. 

"I must put my hair up some time, I suppose, " she said resentfully. Therewas something in the abruptness of her father's question, no less than inthe new closeness and sharpness of eye with which he was examining her, that annoyed her. 

"Well! you've made a young lady of yourself. I dare say I mustn't callyou nicknames any more!"

"I don't mind, " she said indifferently, going on with her work, while helooked at the golden-red mass she had coiled round her little head, withan odd half-welcome sense of change, a sudden prescience of the future. 

Then she turned again. 

"If--if you make any absurd changes, " she said, with a frown, "I'll--I'llcut it all off!"

"You'd better not; there'd be ructions, " he said laughing. "It's notyours till you're twenty-one. "

And to himself he said, "Gracious! I didn't bargain for a prettydaughter. What am I to do with her? Augustina'll never get her married. "

And certainly during this early youth, Laura showed no signs of gettingherself married. She did not apparently know when a young man was by; andher bright vehement ways, her sharp turns of speech, went on just thesame; she neither quivered nor thrilled; and her chatter, when she didchatter, spent itself almost with indifference on anyone who came nearher. She was generally gay, generally in spirits; and her girl companionsknew well that there was no one so reserved, and that the inmost self ofher, if such a thing existed, dwelt far away from any ken of theirs. Every now and then she would have vehement angers and outbreaks whichcontrasted with the nonchalance of her ordinary temper; but it was hardto find the clue to them. 

Altogether she passed for a clever girl, even in a University town, wherecleverness is weighed. But her education, except in two points, was, intruth, of the slightest. Any mechanical drudgery that her father couldset her, she did without a murmur; or, rather, she claimed it jealously, with a silent passion. But, with an obstinacy equally silent, she setherself against the drudgery that would have made her his intellectualcompanion. 

His rows of technical books, the scholarly and laborious details of hiswork, filled her with an invincible repugnance. And he did not attempt topersuade her. As to women and their claims, he was old-fashioned andcontemptuous; he would have been much embarrassed by a learned daughter. That she should copy and tidy for him; that she should sit curled up forhours with a book or a piece of work in a corner of his room; that sheshould bring him his pipe, and break in upon his work at the right momentwith her peremptory "Papa, come out!"--these things were delightful, nay, necessary to him. But he had no dreams beyond; and he never thought ofher, her education or her character, as a whole. It was not his way. Besides, girls took their chance. With a boy, of course, one plans andlooks ahead. But Laura would have 200_l_. A year from her mother whateverhappened, and something more at his own death. Why trouble oneself?

No doubt indirectly he contributed very largely to her growing up. Thesight of his work and his methods; the occasional talks she overheardbetween him and his scientific comrades; the tones of irony and denial inthe atmosphere about him; his antagonisms, his bitternesses, workedstrongly upon her still plastic nature. Moreover she felt to her heart'score that he was unsuccessful; there were appointments he should havehad, but had failed to get, and it was the religious party, the "clericalcrew" of Convocation, that had stood in the way. From her childhood itcame natural to her to hate bigoted people who believed in ridiculousthings. It was they stood between her father and his deserts. Thereloomed up, as it were, on her horizon, something dim and majestic, whichwas called Science. Towards this her father pressed, she clinging to him;while all about them was a black and hindering crowd, through which theyclove their way--contemptuously. 

In one direction, indeed, Fountain admitted her to his mind. Like Mill, he found the rest and balm of life in poetry; and here he took Laura withhim. They read to each other, they spurred each other to learn by heart. He kept nothing from her. Shelley was a passion of his own; it becamehers. She taught herself German, that she might read Heine and Goethewith him; and one evening, when she was little more than sixteen, herushed her through the first part of "Faust, " so that she lay awake thewhole night afterwards in such a passion of emotion, that it seemed, forthe moment, to change her whole existence. Sometimes it astonished him tosee what capacity she had, not only for the feeling, but for the sensuouspleasure, of poetry. Lines--sounds--haunted her for days, the beauty ofthem would make her start and tremble. 

She did her best, however, to hide this side of her nature even from him. And it was not difficult. She remained childishly immature and backwardin many things. She was a personality; that was clear; one could hardlysay that she was or had a character. She was a bundle of loves and hates;a force, not an organism; and her father was often as much puzzled by heras anyone else. 

Music perhaps was the only study which ever conquered her indolence. Hereit happened that a famous musician, who settled in Cambridge for a time, came across her gift and took notice of it. And to please him she workedwith industry, even with doggedness. Brahms, Chopin, Wagner--these greatromantics possessed her in music as Shelley or Rossetti did in poetry. "You little demon, Laura! How do you come to play like that?" a girlfriend--her only intimate friend--said to her once in despair. "It's theexpression. Where do you get it? And I practise, and you don't; it's notfair. "

"Expression!" said Laura, with annoyance, "what does that matter? That'sthe amateur all over. Of course I play like that because I can't do itany better. If I could _play the notes_"--she clenched her little hand, with a curious, almost a fierce energy--"if I had any technique--or wasever likely to have any, what should I want with expression? Any cat cangive you expression! There was one under my window last night--you shouldjust have heard it!"

Molly Friedland, the girl friend, shrugged her shoulders. She was assoft, as normal, as self-controlled, as Laura was wilful and irritable. But there was a very real affection between them. 

Years passed. Insensibly Augustina's health began to fail; and with itthe new cheerfulness of her middle life. Then Fountain himself fellsuddenly and dangerously ill. All the peaceful habits and small pleasuresof their common existence broke down after a few days, as it were, into amiserable confusion. Augustina stood bewildered. Then a convulsion ofsoul she had expected as little as anyone else, swept upon her. A numberof obscure, inherited, half-dead instincts revived. She lived in terror;she slept, weeping; and at the back of an old drawer she found a rosaryof her childhood to which her fingers clung night and day. 

Meanwhile Fountain resigned himself to death. During his last days hisdimmed senses did not perceive what was happening to his wife. But hetroubled himself about her a good deal. 

"Take care of her, Laura, " he said once, "till she gets strong. Lookafter her. --But you can't sacrifice your life. --It may be Christian, " headded, in a murmur, "but it isn't sense. "

Unconsciousness came on. Augustina seemed to lose her wits; and at lastonly Laura, sitting pale and fierce beside her father, prevented herstepmother from bringing a priest to his death-bed. "You would not_dare_!" said the girl, in her low, quivering voice; and Augustina couldonly wring her hands. 

 * * * * *

The day after her husband died Mrs. Fountain returned to her Catholicduties. When she came back from confession, she slipped as noiselessly asshe could into the darkened house. A door opened upstairs, and Laura cameout of her father's room. 

"You have done it?" she said, as her stepmother, trembling with agitationand weariness, came towards her. "You have gone back to them?"

"Oh, Laura! I had to follow the call--my conscience--Laura! oh! your poorfather!"

And with a burst of weeping the widow held out her hands. 

Laura did not move, and the hands dropped. 

"My father wants nothing, " she said. 

The indescribable pride and passion of her accent cowed Augustina, andshe moved away, crying silently. The girl went back to the dead, and satbeside him, in an anguish that had no more tears, till he was taken fromher. 

Mr. Helbeck wrote kindly to his sister in reply to a letter from herinforming him of her husband's death, and of her own reconciliation withthe Church. He asked whether he should come at once to help them throughthe business of the funeral, and the winding up of their Cambridge life. "Beg him, please, to stay away, " said Laura, when the letter was shownher. "There are plenty of people here. "

And indeed Cambridge, which had taken little notice of the Fountainsduring Stephen's lifetime, was even fussily kind after his death to hiswidow and child. It was at all times difficult to be kind to Laura indistress, but there was much true pity felt for her, and a good deal ofcuriosity as to her relations with her Catholic stepmother. Only from theFriedlands, however, would she accept, or allow her stepmother to accept, any real help. Dr. Friedland was a man of middle age, who had retired onmoderate wealth to devote himself to historical work by the help of theCambridge libraries. He had been much drawn to Stephen Fountain, andFountain to him. It was a recent and a brief friendship, but there hadbeen something in it on Dr. Friedland's side--something respectful andcordial, something generous and understanding, for which Laura loved theinfirm and grey-haired scholar, and would always love him. She shed somestormy tears after parting with the Friedlands, otherwise she leftCambridge with joy. 

On the day before they left Cambridge Augustina received a parcel ofbooks from her brother. For the most part they were kept hidden fromLaura. But in the evening, when the girl was doing some packing in herstepmother's room, she came across a little volume lying open on itsface. She lifted it, saw that it was called "Outlines of CatholicBelief, " and that one page was still wet with tears. An angry curiositymade her look at what stood there: "A believer in one God who, withoutwilful fault on his part, knows nothing of the Divine Mystery of theTrinity, is held capable of salvation by many Catholic theologians. Andthere is the 'invincible ignorance' of the heathen. What else is possibleto the Divine mercy let none of us presume to know. Our part in thesematters is obedience, not speculation. "

In faint pencil on the margin was written: "My Stephen _could_ notbelieve. Mary--pray----"

The book contained the Bannisdale book-plate, and the name "AlanHelbeck. " Laura threw it down. But her face trembled through its scorn, and she finished what she was doing in a kind of blind passion. It was asthough she held her father's dying form in her arms, protecting himagainst the same meddling and tyrannical force that had injured him whilehe lived, and was still making mouths at him now that he was dead. 

She and Augustina went to the sea--to Folkestone, for Augustina's health. Here Mrs. Fountain began to correspond regularly with her brother, and itwas soon clear that her heart was hungering for him, and for her old homeat Bannisdale. But she was still painfully dependent on Laura. Laura washer maid and nurse; Laura managed all her business. At last one day shemade her prayer. Would Laura go with her--for a little while--toBannisdale? Alan wished it--Alan had invited them both. "He would be sogood to you, Laura--and I'm sure it would set me up. "

Laura gave a gulp. She dropped her little chin on her hands and thought. Well--why not? It would be all hateful to her--Mr. Helbeck and his housetogether. She knew very well, or guessed what his relation to her fatherhad been. But what if it made Augustina strong, if in time she could beleft with her brother altogether, to live with him?--In one or two of hisletters he had proposed as much. Why, that would bring Laura'sresponsibility, her sole responsibility, at any rate, to an end. 

She thought of Molly Friedland--of their girlish plans--of travel, ofmusic. 

"All right, " she said, springing up. "We will go, Augustina. I suppose, for a little while, Mr. Helbeck and I can keep the peace. You must tellhim to let me alone. "

She paused, then said with sudden vehemence, like one who takes herstand--"And tell him, please, Augustina--make it very plain--that I shallnever come in to prayers. "

CHAPTER III

The sun was shining into Laura's room when she awoke. She lay still for alittle while, looking about her. 

Her room--which formed part of an eighteenth-century addition to theTudor house--was rudely panelled with stained deal, save on the fireplacewall, where, on either side of the hearth, the plaster had been coveredwith tapestry. The subject of the tapestry was Diana hunting. Diana, white and tall, with her bow and quiver, came, queenly, through a greenforest. Two greyhounds ranged beside her, and in the dim distance of thewood her maidens followed. On the right an old castle, with pillars likea Greek temple, rose stately but a little crooked on the edge of a bluesea; the sea much faded, with the wooden handle of a cupboard thrustrudely through it. Two long-limbed ladies, with pulled patched faces, stood on the castle steps. In front was a ship, with a waiting warriorand a swelling sail; and under him, a blue wave worn very threadbare, shamed indeed by that intruding handle, but still blue enough, stillwindy enough for thoughts of love and flight. 

Laura, half asleep still, with her hands under her cheek, lay staring ina vague pleasure at the castle and the forest. "Enchantedcasements"--"perilous seas"--"in fairy lands forlorn. " The lines ransleepily, a little jumbled, in her memory. 

But gradually the morning and the freshness worked; and her spirits, emerging from their half-dream, began to dance within her. When shesprang up to throw the window wide, there below her was the sparklingriver, the daffodils waving their pale heads in the delicate Westmorelandgrass, the high white clouds still racing before the wind. How heavenlyto find oneself in this wild clean country!--after all the ugly squalorsof parade and lodging-house, after the dingy bow-windowed streets withthe March dust whirling through them. 

She leant across the broad window-sill, her chin on her hands, absorbed, drinking it in. The eastern sun, coming slanting-ways, bathed her tumbledmasses of fair hair, her little white form, her bare feet raised tiptoe. 

Suddenly she drew back. She had seen the figure of a man crossing thepark on the further side of the river, and the maidenly instinct droveher from the window; though the man in question was perhaps a quarter ofa mile away, and had he been looking for her, could not possibly havemade out more than a pale speck on the old wall. 

"Mr. Helbeck, "--she thought--"by the height of him. Where is he off tobefore seven o'clock in the morning? I hate a man that can't keeprational hours like other people! Fricka, come here!"

For her little dog, who had sprung from the bed after its mistress, wasnow stretching and blinking behind her. At Laura's voice it jumped up andtried to lick her face. Laura caught it in her arms and sat down on thebed, still hugging it. 

"No, Fricka, I don't like him--I don't, I don't, I _don't!_ But you and Ihave just got to behave. If you annoy that big dog downstairs, he'llbreak your neck, --he will, Fricka. As for me, "--she shrugged her smallshoulders, --"well, Mr. Helbeck can't break _my_ neck, so I'm dreadfullyafraid I shall annoy him--dreadfully, dreadfully afraid! But I'll trynot. You see, what we've got to do, is just to get Augustina well--standover her with a broomstick and pour the tonics down her throat. Then, Fricka, we'll go our way and have some fun. Now look at us!----"

She moved a little, so that the cracked glass on the dressing-tablereflected her head and shoulders, with the dog against her neck. 

"You know we're not at all bad-looking, Fricka--neither of us. I've seenmuch worse. (Oh, Fricka! I've told you scores of times I can wash myface--without you--thank you!) There's all sorts of nice things thatmight happen if we just put ourselves in the way of them. Oh! I do wantsome fun--I do!--at least sometimes!"

But again the voice dropped suddenly; the big greenish eyes filled in amoment with inconsistent tears, and Laura sat staring at the sunshine, while the drops fell on her white nightgown. 

Meanwhile Fricka, being half throttled, made a violent effort andescaped. Laura too sprang up, wiped away her tears as though she werefurious with them, and began to look about her for the means of dressing. Everything in the room was of the poorest and scantiest--the cottagewashstand with its crockery, the bare dressing-table and dilapidatedglass. 

"A bath!--my kingdom for a bath! I don't mind starving, but one mustwash. Let's ring for that rough-haired girl, Fricka, and try and getround her. Goodness!--no bells?"

After long search, however, she discovered a tattered shred of tapestryhanging in a corner, and pulled it vigorously. Many efforts, however, were needed before there was a sound of feet in the passage outside. Laura hastily donned a blue dressing-gown, and stood expectant. 

The door was opened unceremoniously and a girl thrust in her head. Laurahad made acquaintance with her the night before. She was thehousekeeper's underling and niece. 

"Mrs. Denton says I'm not to stop. She's noa time for answerin bells. Andyou'll have some hot water when t' kettle boils. "

The door was just shutting again when Laura sprang at the speaker andcaught her by the arm. 

"My dear, " she said, dragging the girl in, "that won't do at all. Nowlook here"--she held up her little white hand, shaking the forefingerwith energy--"I don't--want--to give--any trouble, and Mrs. Denton maykeep her hot water. But I must have a bath--and a big can--and somebodymust show me where to go for water--and then--_then_, my dear--if youmake yourself agreeable, I'll--well, I'll teach you how to do your hairon Sundays--in a way that will surprise you!"

The girl stared at her in sudden astonishment, her dark stupid eyeswavering. She had a round, peasant face, not without comeliness, and alustreless shock of black hair. Laura laughed. 

"I will, " she said, nodding; "you'll see. And I'll give you notions foryour best frock. I'll be a regular elder sister to you--if you'll just doa few things for me--and Mrs. Fountain. What's your name--Ellen?--that'sall right. Now, is there a bath in the house?"

The girl unwillingly replied that there was one in the big room at theend of the passage. 

"Show it me, " said Laura, and marched her off there. The rough-headed oneled the way along the panelled passage and opened a door. 

Then it was Laura's turn to stare. 

Inside she saw a vast room with finely panelled walls and a decoratedceiling. The sunlight poured in through an uncurtained window upon theonly two objects in the room, --a magnificent bed, carved and gilt, withhangings of tarnished brocade, --and a round tin bath of a common, old-fashioned make, propped up against the wall. The oak boards wereabsolutely bare. The bed and the bath looked at each other. 

"What's become of all the furniture?" said Laura, gazing round her inastonishment. 

"The gentleman from Edinburgh had it all, lasst month, " said the girl, still sullenly. "He's affther the bed now. "

"Oh!--Does he often come here?"

The girl hesitated. 

"Well, he's had a lot o' things oot o' t' house, sen I came. "

"Has he?" said Laura. "Now, then--lend a hand. "

Between them they carried off the bath; and then Laura informed herselfwhere water was to be had, and when breakfast would be ready. 

"T' Squire's gone oot, " said Ellen, still watching the newcomer fromunder a pair of very black and beetling brows; "and Mrs. Denton said shesupposed yo'd be wantin a tray for Mrs. Fountain. "

"Does the Squire take no breakfast?"

"Noa. He's away to Mass--ivery mornin, an' he gets his breakfast wi'Father Bowles. "

The girl's look grew more hostile. 

"Oh, does he?" said Laura in a tone of meditation. "Well, then, lookhere. Put another cup and another plate on Mrs. Fountain's tray, and I'llhave mine with her. Shall I come down to the kitchen for it?"

"Noa, " said the girl hastily. "Mrs. Denton doan't like foak i' t'kitchen. "

At that moment a call in Mrs. Denton's angriest tones came pealing alongthe passage outside. Laura laughed and pushed the girl out of the room. 

 * * * * *

An hour later Miss Fountain was ministering to her stepmother in the mostcomfortable bedroom that the house afforded. The furniture, indeed, was amedley. It seemed to have been gathered out of many other rooms. But atany rate there was abundance of it; a carpet much worn, but still useful, covered the floor; and Ellen had lit the fire without being summoned todo it. Laura recognised that Mr. Helbeck must have given a certain numberof precise orders on the subject of his sister. 

Poor Mrs. Fountain, however, was not happy. She was sitting up in bed, wrapped in an unbecoming flannel jacket--Augustina had no taste inclothes--and looking with an odd repugnance at the very passablebreakfast that Laura placed before her. Laura did not quite know what tomake of her. In old days she had always regarded her stepmother as aneasy-going, rather self-indulgent creature, who liked pleasant food andstuffed chairs, and could be best managed or propitiated through someattention to her taste in sofa-cushions or in tea-cakes. 

No doubt, since Mrs. Fountain's reconciliation with the Church of herfathers, she had shown sometimes an anxious disposition to practise theusual austerities of good Catholics. But neither doctor nor director hadbeen able to indulge her in this respect, owing to the feebleness of herhealth. And on the whole she had acquiesced readily enough. 

But Laura found her now changed and restless. 

"Oh! Laura, I can't eat all that!"

"You must, " said Laura firmly. "Really, Augustina, you _must_. "

"Alan's gone out, " said Augustina, with a wistful inconsequence, straining her eyes as though to look through the diamond panes of thewindow opposite, at the park and the persons walking in it. 

"Yes. He seems to go to Whinthorpe every morning for Mass. Ellen says hebreakfasts with the priest. "

Augustina sighed and fidgeted. But when she was half-way through hermeal, Laura standing over her, she suddenly laid a shaking hand onLaura's arm. 

"Laura!--Alan's a saint!--he always was--long ago--when I was so blindand wicked. But now--oh! the things Mrs. Denton's been telling me!"

"Has she?" said Laura coolly. "Well, make up your mind, Augustina"--sheshook her bright head--"that you can't be the same kind of saint that heis--anyway. "

Mrs. Fountain withdrew her hand in quick offence. 

"I should be glad if you could talk of these things without flippancy, Laura. When I think how incapable I have been all these years, ofunderstanding my dear brother----"

"No--you see you were living with papa, " said Laura slowly. 

She had left her stepmother's side, and was standing with her back to anold cabinet, resting her elbows upon it. Her brows were drawn together, and poor Mrs. Fountain, after a glance at her, looked still moremiserable. 

"Your poor papa!" she murmured with a gulp, and then, as though topropitiate Laura, she drew her breakfast back to her, and again tried toeat it. Small and slight as they both were, there was a very sharpcontrast between her and her stepdaughter. Laura's features were alldelicately clear, and nothing could have been more definite, morebrilliant than the colour of the eyes and hair, or the whiteness--whichwas a beautiful and healthy whiteness--of her skin. Whereas everythingabout Mrs. Fountain was indeterminate; the features with their slighttwist to the left; the complexion, once fair, and now reddened by yearsand ill-health; the hair, of a yellowish grey; the head and shoulderswith their nervous infirmity. Only the eyes still possessed some purityof colour. Through all their timidity or wavering, they were still blueand sweet; perhaps they alone explained why a good manypersons--including her stepdaughter--were fond of Augustina. 

"What has Mrs. Denton been telling you about Mr. Helbeck?" Laurainquired, speaking with some abruptness, after a pause. 

"You wouldn't have any sympathy, Laura, " said Mrs. Fountain, in someagitation. "You see, you don't understand our Catholic principles. I wishyou did!--oh! I wish you did! But you don't. And so perhaps I'd betternot talk about it. "

"It might interest me to know the facts, " said Laura, in a little hardvoice. "It seems to me that I'm likely to be Mr. Helbeck's guest for agood while. "

"But you won't like it, Laura!" cried Mrs. Fountain--"and you'llmisunderstand Alan. Your poor dear father always misunderstood him. "(Laura made a restless movement. ) "It is not because we think we can saveour souls by such things--of course not!--that's the way you Protestantsput it----"

"I'm not a Protestant!" said Laura hotly. Mrs. Fountain took no notice. 

"But it's what the Church calls 'mortification, '" she said, hurrying on. "It's keeping the body under--as St. Paul did. That's what makessaints--and it does make saints--whatever people say. Your poor fatherdidn't agree, of course. But he didn't know!--oh! dear, dear Stephen!--hedidn't know. And Alan isn't cross, and it doesn't spoil his health--itdoesn't, really. "

"What does he do?" asked Laura, trying for the point. 

But poor Augustina, in her mixed flurry of feeling, could hardly explain. 

"You see, Laura, there's a strict way of keeping Lent, and--well--justthe common way--doing as little as you can. It used to be all muchstricter, of course. "

"In the Dark Ages?" suggested Laura. Augustina took no notice. 

"And what the books tell you now, is much stricter than what anybodydoes. --I'm sure I don't know why. But Alan takes it strictly--he wants togo back to quite the old ways. Oh! I wish I could explain it----"

Mrs. Fountain stopped bewildered. She was sure she had heard once that inthe early Church people took no food at all till the evening--not even adrink. But Alan was not going to do that?

Laura had taken Fricka on her knee, and was straightening the ribbonround the dog's neck. 

"Does he eat _anything_?" she asked carelessly, looking up. "If it's_nothing_--that would be interesting. "

"Laura! if you only would try and understand!--Of course Alan doesn'tsettle such a thing for himself--nobody does with us. That's only in theEnglish Church. "

Augustina straightened herself, with an unconscious arrogance. Lauralooked at her, smiling. 

"Who settles it, then?"

"Why, his director, of course. He must have leave. But they have givenhim leave. He has chosen a rule for himself"--Augustina gave a visiblegulp--"and he called Mrs. Denton to him before Lent, and told her aboutit. Of course he'll hide it as much as he can. Catholics must never besingular--never! But if we live in the house with him he can't hide it. And all Lent, he only eats meat on Sundays, and other days--he wrote downa list---- Well, it's like the saints--that's all!--I just cried overit!"

Mrs. Fountain shook with the emotion of saying such things to Laura, buther blue eyes flamed. 

"What! fish and eggs?--that kind of thing?" said Laura. "As if there wasany hardship in that!"

"Laura! how can you be so unkind?--I must just keep it all to myself. --Iwon't tell you anything!" cried Augustina in exasperation. 

Laura walked away to the window, and stood looking out at the March budson the sycamores shining above the river. 

"Does he make the servants fast too?" she asked presently, turning herhead over her shoulder. 

"No, no, " said her stepmother eagerly; "he's never hard on them--only tohimself. The Church doesn't expect anything more than 'abstinence, ' youunderstand--not real fasting--from people like them--people who work hardwith their hands. But--I really believe--they do very much as he does. Mrs. Denton seems to keep the house on nothing. Oh! and, Laura--I reallycan't be always having extra things!"

Mrs. Fountain pushed her breakfast away from her. 

"Please remember--nobody settles anything for themselves--in yourChurch, " said Laura. "You know what that doctor--that Catholicdoctor--said to you at Folkestone. "

Mrs. Fountain sighed. 

"And as to Mrs. Denton, I see--that explains the manners. Noimprovement--till Lent's over?"

"Laura!"

But her stepdaughter, who was at the window again looking out, paid noheed, and presently Augustina said with timid softness:

"Won't you have your breakfast, Laura? You know it's here--on my tray. "

Laura turned, and Augustina to her infinite relief saw not frowns, but aface all radiance. 

"I've been watching the lambs in the field across the river. Suchridiculous enchanting things!--such jumps--and affectations. And theriver's heavenly--and all the general _feel_ of it! I really don't know, Augustina, how you ever came to leave this country when you'd once beenborn in it. "

Mrs. Fountain pushed away her tray, shook her head sadly, and saidnothing. 

"What is it?--and who is it?" cried Laura, standing amazed before apicture in the drawing-room at Bannisdale. 

In front of her, on the panelled wall, hung a dazzling portrait of a girlin white, a creature light as a flower under wind; eyes upraised andeager, as though to welcome a lover; fair hair bound turban-like with awhite veil; the pretty hands playing with a book. It shone from the brownwall with a kind of natural sovereignty over all below it and around it, so brilliant was the picture, so beautiful the woman. 

Augustina looked up drearily. She was sitting shrunk together in a largechair, deep in some thoughts of her own. 

"That's our picture--the famous picture, " she explained slowly. 

"Your Romney?" said Laura, vaguely recalling some earlier talk of herstepmother's. 

Augustina nodded. She stared at the picture with a curious agitation, asthough she were seeing its long familiar glories for the first time. Laura was much puzzled by her. 

"Well, but it's magnificent!" cried the girl. "One needn't know much toknow that. How can Mr. Helbeck call himself poor while he possesses sucha thing?"

Augustina started. 

"It's worth thousands, " she said hastily. "We know that. There was a manfrom London came once, years ago. But papa turned him out--he would neversell his things. And she was our great-grandmother. "

An idea flashed through Laura's mind. 

"You don't mean to say that Mr. Helbeck is going to sell her?" said Lauraimpetuously. "It would be a shame!"

"Alan can do what he likes with anything, " said Augustina in a quickresentment. "And he wants money badly for one of his orphanages--some ofit has to be rebuilt. Oh! those orphanages--how they must have weighed onhim--poor Alan!--poor dear Alan!--all these years!"

Mrs. Fountain clasped her thin hands together, with a sigh. 

"Is it they that have eaten up the house bit by bit?--poor house!--poordear house!" repeated Laura. 

She was staring with an angry championship at the picture. Its sweetconfiding air--as of one cradled in love, happy for generations in thehomage of her kindred and the shelter of the old house--stood for all thenatural human things that creeds and bigots were always trampling underfoot. 

Mrs. Fountain, however, only shook her head. 

"I don't think Alan's settled anything yet. Only Mrs. Denton'safraid. --There was somebody came to see it a few days ago----"

"He certainly ought not to sell it, " repeated Laura with emphasis. "Hehas to think of the people that come after. What will they care fororphanages? He only holds the picture in trust. "

"There will be no one to come after, " said Augustina slowly. "For ofcourse he will never marry. "

"Is he too great a saint for that too?" cried Laura. "Then all I can say, Augustina, is that--it--would--do him a great deal of good. "

She beat her little foot on the ground impatiently, pointing the words. 

"You don't know anything about him, Laura, " said Mrs. Fountain, with anattempt at spirit. Then she added reproachfully: "And I'm sure he wantsto be kind to you. "

"He thinks me a little heretical toad, thank you!" said Laura, spinninground on the bare boards, and dropping a curtsey to the Romney. "Butnever mind, Augustina--we shall get on quite properly. Now, aren't therea great many more rooms to see?"

Augustina rose uncertainly. "There is the chapel, of course, " she said, "and Alan's study----"

"Oh! we needn't go there, " said Laura hastily. "But show me the chapel. "

Mr. Helbeck was still absent, and they had been exploring Bannisdale. Itwas a melancholy progress they had been making through a house that hadonce--when Augustina left it--stood full of the hoardings and thetreasures of generations, and was now empty and despoiled. 

It was evident that, for his sister's welcome, Mr. Helbeck had gatheredinto the drawing-room, as into her bedroom upstairs, the best of whatstill remained to him. Chairs and tables, and straight-lined sofas, someof one date, some of another, collected from the garrets and remotecorners of the old house, and covered with the oddest variety of fadedstuffs, had been stiffly set out by Mrs. Denton upon an old Turkeycarpet, whereof the rents and patches had been concealed as much aspossible. Here at least was something of a cosmos--something of order andof comfort. 

The hall too, and the dining-room, in spite of their poor newfurnishings, were still human and habitable. But most of the rooms onwhich Laura and Mrs. Fountain had been making raid were like that firstone Laura had visited, mere homes of lumber and desolation. Blinds drawn;dust-motes dancing in the stray shafts of light that struck across thegloom of the old walls and floors. Here and there some lingering fragmentof fine furniture; but as a rule bareness, poverty, and void--nothingcould be more piteous, or, to Mrs. Fountain's memory, more surprising. For some years before she left Bannisdale, her father had not known whereto turn for a pound of ready money. Yet when she fled from it, the houseand its treasures were still intact. 

The explanation of course was very simple. Alan Helbeck had been livingupon his house, as upon any other capital. Or rather he had been makingalms of it. The house stood gashed and bare that Catholic orphans mightbe put to school--was that it? Laura hardly listened to Augustina'splaintive babble as they crossed the hall. It was all about Alan, ofcourse--Alan's virtues, Alan's charities. As for the orphans, the girlhated the thought of them. Grasping little wretches! She could see themall in a sanctimonious row, their eyes cast up, and rosaries--like theone Augustina was always trying to hide from her--in their ugly littlehands. 

They turned down a long stone passage leading to the chapel. As theyneared the chapel door there was a sound of voices from the hall at theirback. 

"It's Alan, " said Augustina peering, "and Father Bowles!"

She hurried back to meet them, skirts and cap-strings flying. Laura stoodstill. 

But after a few words with his sister, Helbeck came up to his guest withoutstretched hand. 

"I hope we have not kept you waiting for dinner. May I introduce FatherBowles to you?"

Laura bowed with all the stiffness of which a young back is capable. Shesaw an old grey-haired priest, with a round face and a pair of chubbyhands, which he constantly held crossed or clasped upon his breast. Hislong irregular-mouth seemed to fold over at the corners above his verysmall and childish chin. The mouth and the light blue eyes wore anexpression of rather mincing gentleness. His short figure, though bent alittle with years, was still vigorous, and his gait quick and bustling. 

He addressed Miss Fountain with a lisping and rather obsequiouspoliteness, asking a great many unnecessary questions about her journeyand her arrival. 

Laura answered coldly. But when he passed to Mrs. Fountain, Augustina wasall effusion. 

"When I think what has been granted to us since I was here last!" shesaid to the priest as they moved on, --clasping her hands, and flushing. 

"The dear Bishop took such trouble about it, " he said in a littlemurmuring voice. "It was not easy--but the Church loves to content herchildren. "

Involuntarily Laura glanced at Helbeck. 

"My sister refers to the permission which has been granted to us toreserve the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel, " he said gravely. "It is aprivilege we never enjoyed till last year. "

Laura made no reply. 

"Shall I slip away?" she thought, looking round her. 

But at that moment Mr. Helbeck lifted the heavy latch of the chapel door;and her young curiosity was too strong for her. She followed the others. 

Mr. Helbeck held the door open for her. 

"You will perhaps care to look at the frescoes, " he said to her as shehurried past him. She nodded, and walked quickly away to the left, byherself. Then she turned and looked about her. 

It was the first time that she had entered a Catholic church, and everydetail was new to her. She watched the other three sign themselves withholy water and drop low on one knee before the altar. So that was thealtar. She stared at it with a scornful repugnance; yet her pulsequickened as though what she saw excited her. What was that erectionabove it, with a veil of red silk drawn round it--and why was that lampburning in front of it?

She recalled Mr. Helbeck's words--"permission to reserve the BlessedSacrament. " Then, in a flash, a hundred vague memories, the deposit of ahearsay knowledge, enlightened her. She knew and remembered much lessthan any ordinary girl would have done. But still, in the main, sheguessed at what was passing. That of course was the Sacrament, beforewhich Mr. Helbeck and the others were kneeling!--for instinctively shefelt that it was to no empty shrine the adoration of those silent figureswas being offered. 

Fragments from Augustina's talk at Folkestone came back to her. Once shehad overheard some half-whispered conversation between her stepmother anda Catholic friend, from which she had vaguely understood that the"Blessed Sacrament" was kept in the Catholic churches, was always there, and that the faithful "visited" it--that these "visits" were indeedspecially recommended as a means to holiness. And she recalled how, asthey came home from their daily walk to the beach, Mrs. Fountain woulddisappear from her, through the shadowy door of a Catholic church thatstood in the same street as their lodgings--how she would come home halfan hour afterwards, shaken with fresh ardours, fresh remorse. 

But how could such a thing be allowed, be possible, in a privatechapel--in a room that was really part of a private house? GOD--theChrist of Calvary--in that gilt box, upon that altar!

The young girl's arms fell by her side in a sudden rigidity. A wave ofthe most passionate repulsion swept through her. What a gross, what anintolerable superstition!--how was she to live with it, beside it? Thenext instant it was as though her hand clasped her father's--clinging tohim proudly, against this alien world. Why should she feel lonely?--thelittle heretic, left standing there alone in her distant corner. Let herrather rejoice that she was her father's daughter!

She drew herself up, and coolly looked about her. The worshippers hadrisen; long as the time had seemed to Laura, they had only been two orthree minutes on their knees; and she could see that Augustina wastalking eagerly to her brother, pointing now to the walls, now to thealtar. 

It seemed as though Augustina were no less astonished than herstepdaughter by the magnificence of the chapel. Was it all new, --thefrescoes, the altar with its marble and its gold, the white figure of theVirgin, which gleamed above the small side-altar to the left? It had theair of newness and of costliness, an air which struck the eye all themore sharply because of the contrast between it and the penury, thestarvation, of the great house that held the chapel in its breast. 

But while Laura was still wondering at the general impression of richbeauty, at the Lenten purple of the altar, at the candelabra, and theperfume, certain figures and colours on the wall close to her seized her, thrusting the rest aside. On either side of the altar, the walls to rightand left, from the entrance up to the sanctuary, were covered with whatappeared to be recent painting--painting, indeed, that was still in theact. On either hand, long rows of life-sized saints, men and women, turned their adoring faces towards the Christ looking down upon them froma crucifix above the tabernacle. On the north wall, about half the rowwas unfinished; faces, haloes, drapery, strongly outlined in red, stillwaited for the completing hand of the artist. The rest glowed and burnedwith colour--colour the most singular, the most daring. The carnationsand rose colours, the golds and purples, the blues and lilacs andgreens--in the whole concert of tone, in spite of its general simplicityof surface, there was something at once ravishing and troubling, something that spoke as it were from passion to passion. 

Laura's nature felt the thrill of it at once, just as she had felt thethrill of the sunshine lighting up the tapestry of her room. 

"Why isn't it crude and hideous?" she asked herself, in a marvel. "But itisn't. One never saw such blues--except in the sea--or such greens--androse! And the angels between!--and the flowers under theirfeet!--Heavens! how lovely! Who did it?"

"Do you admire the frescoes?" said a little voice behind her. 

She turned hastily, and saw Father Bowles smiling upon her, his plumpwhite hands clasped in front of him, as usual. It was an attitude whichseemed to make the simplest words sound intimate and possessive. Laurashrank from, it in quick annoyance. 

"They are very strange, and--and startling, " she said stiffly, moving asfar away from the grey-haired priest as possible. "Who painted them?"

"Mr. Helbeck first designed them. But they were carried out for a time bya youth of great genius. " Father Bowles dwelt softly upon the word"_ge_-nius, " as though he loved it. "He was once a lad from these parts, but has now become a Jesuit. So the work was stopped. "

"What a pity!" said Laura impetuously. "He ought to have been a painter. "

The priest smiled, and made her an odd little bow. Then, without sayinganything more about the artist, he chattered on about the frescoes andthe chapel, as though he had beside him the most sympathetic oflisteners. Nothing that he said was the least interesting or striking;and Laura, in a passion of silent dislike, kept up a steady movementtowards the door all the time. 

In the passage outside Mrs. Fountain was lingering alone. And when Lauraappeared she caught hold of her stepdaughter and detained her while thepriest passed on. Laura looked at her in surprise, and Mrs. Fountain, inmuch agitation, whispered in the girl's ear:

"Oh, Laura--do remember, dear!--don't ask Alan about thosepictures--those frescoes--by young Williams. I can tell you sometime--and you might say something to hurt him--poor Alan!"

Laura drew herself away. 

"Why should I say anything to hurt him? What's the mystery?"

"I can't tell you now"--Mrs. Fountain looked anxiously towards the hall. "People have been so hard on Alan--_so_ unkind about it! It's been aregular persecution. And you wouldn't understand--wouldn'tsympathise----"

"I really don't care to know about it, Augustina! And I'm sohungry--famished! Look, there's Mr. Helbeck signing to us. Joy!--that'sdinner. "

 * * * * *

Laura expected the midday meal with some curiosity. But she saw no signsof austerity. Mr. Helbeck pressed the roast chicken on Father Bowles, took pains that he should enjoy a better bottle of wine than usual, andas to himself ate and drank very moderately indeed, but like anybodyelse. Laura could only imagine that it was not seemly to outdo yourpriest. 

The meal of course was served in the simplest way, and all the waitingwas done by Mr. Helbeck, who would allow nobody to help him in the task. 

The conversation dragged. Laura and her host talked a little about thecountry and the weather. Father Bowles and Augustina tried to pick up thedropped threads of thirteen years; and Mrs. Fountain was alternatelyeager for Whinthorpe gossip, or reduced to an abrupt unhappy silence bysome memory of the past. 

Suddenly Father Bowles got up from his chair, ran across the room to thewindow with his napkin in his hand, and pounced eagerly upon a fly thatwas buzzing on the pane. Then he carefully opened the window, and flickedthe dead thing off the sill. 

"I beg your pardon, " he said humbly to Mrs. Fountain as he returned tohis seat. "It was a nasty fly. I can't abide 'em. I always think ofBeelzebub, who was the prince of the flies. "

Laura's mouth twitched with laughter. She promised herself to make astudy of Father Bowles. 

And, indeed, he was a character in his own small way. He was a priest ofan old-fashioned type, with no pretensions to knowledge or to manners. Wherever he went he was a meek and accommodating guest, for hisrecollection went back to days when a priest coming to a private house tosay Mass would as likely as not have his meals in the pantry. And he wasnaturally of a gentle and yielding temper--though rather sly. 

But he had several tricks as curious as they were persistent. Not eventhe presence of his bishop could make him spare a bluebottle. And he had, on the other hand, a peculiar passion for the smell of wax. He would blowout a candle on the altar before the end of Mass that he might enjoy thesmell of it. He disliked Jesuits, and religious generally, if the truthwere known; excepting only the orphanage nuns, who knew his weaknessesand were kind to them. He had no love for modern innovations, or moderndevotions; there was a hidden Gallican strain in him; and he firmlybelieved that in the old days before Catholic emancipation, and beforethe Oxford movement, the Church made more converts than she did now. 

 * * * * *

Towards the end of the lunch Laura inquired of Mr. Helbeck whether anyconveyance was to be got in the village. 

"I wish to go to Browhead Farm this afternoon, " she said rather shortly. 

"Certainly, " said Helbeck. "Certainly. I will see that something is foundfor you. "

But his voice had no cordiality, and Laura at once thought himungracious. 

"Oh, pray don't give yourself any trouble, " she said, flushing, "I canwalk to the village. "

Helbeck paused. 

"If you could wait till to-morrow, " he said after a moment, "I couldpromise you the pony. Unfortunately he is busy this afternoon. "

"Oh, do wait, Laura!" cried Augustina. "There is so much unpacking todo. "

"Very well, " said the girl unwillingly. 

As she turned away from him Helbeck's look followed her. She was in adress of black serge, which followed the delicate girlish frame withperfect simplicity, and was relieved at the neck and wrists with theplainest of white collars and cuffs. But there was something so brilliantin the hair, so fawnlike in the carriage of the head, that she seemed toHelbeck to be all elegance; had he been asked to describe her, he wouldhave said she was in _grande toilette_. Little as he spoke to her, hefound himself perpetually conscious of her. Her evident--childishlyevident--dislike of her new surroundings half amused, half embarrassedhim. He did not know what topic to start with her; soon, perhaps, hemight have a difficulty in keeping the peace! It was all very absurd. 

After luncheon they gathered in the hall for a while, Father Bowlestalking eagerly with Helbeck and Augustina about "orphans" and "newbuildings. " Laura stood apart awhile--then went for her hat. 

When she reappeared, in walking dress--with Fricka at her heels--Helbeckopened the heavy outer door for her. 

"May I have Bruno?" she said. 

Helbeck turned and whistled. 

"You are not afraid?" he said, smiling, and looking at Fricka. 

"Oh, dear no! I spent an hour this morning introducing them. "

At that moment Bruno came bounding up. He looked from his master to Laurain her hat, and seemed to hesitate. Then, as she descended the steps, hesprang after her. Laura began to run; the two dogs leapt about her; herlight voice, checking or caressing, came back to Helbeck on the springwind. He watched her and her companions so long as they were insight--the golden hair among the trees, the dancing steps of the girl, the answering frolic of the dogs. 

Then he turned back to his sister, his grave mouth twitching. 

"How thankful she is to get rid of us!"

He laughed out. The priest laughed, too, more softly. 

"It was the first time, I presume, that Miss Fountain had ever beenwithin a Catholic church?" he said to Augustina. 

Augustina flushed. 

"Of course it is the first time. Oh! Alan, you can't think how strange itis to her. "

She looked rather piteously at her brother. 

"So I perceive, " he said. "You told me something, but I had notrealised----"

"You see, Alan--" cried Augustina, watching her brother's face, --"it waswith the greatest difficulty that her mother got Stephen to consent evento her being baptized. He opposed it for a long time. "

Father Bowles murmured something under his breath. 

Helbeck paused for a moment, then said:

"What was her mother like?"

"Everyone at Cambridge used to say she was 'a sweet woman'--but--butStephen, --well, you know, Alan, Stephen always had his way! I alwayswonder she managed to persuade him about the baptism. "

She coloured still more deeply as she spoke, and her nervous infirmitybecame more pronounced. Alas! it was not only with the first wife thatStephen had had his way! Her own marriage had begun to seem to her a meresinful connection. Poor soul--poor Augustina!

Her brother must have divined something of what was passing in her mind, for he looked down upon her with a peculiar gentleness. 

"People are perhaps more ready to talk of that responsibility than totake it, " he said kindly. "But, Augustina, --" his voice changed, --"howpretty she is!--You hardly prepared me----"

Father Bowles modestly cast down his eyes. These were not questions thatconcerned him. But Helbeck went on, speaking with decision, and lookingat his sister:

"I confess--her great attractiveness makes me a little anxious--about theconnection with the Masons. Have you ever seen any of them, Augustina?"

No--Augustina had seen none of them. She believed Stephen hadparticularly disliked the mother, the widow of his cousin, who now ownedthe farm jointly with her son. 

"Well, no, " said Helbeck dryly, "I don't suppose he and she would havehad much in common. "

"Isn't she a dreadful Protestant--Alan?"

"Oh, she's just a specimen of the ordinary English Bible-worship runmad, " he said, carelessly. "She is a strange woman, very well known abouthere. And there's a foolish parson living near them, up in the hills, whomakes her worse. But it's the son I'm thinking of. "

"Why, Alan--isn't he respectable?"

"Not particularly. He's a splendid athletic fellow--doing his best tomake himself a blackguard, I'm afraid. I've come across him once ortwice, as it happens. He's not a desirable cousin for Miss Fountain--thatI can vouch for! And unluckily, " he smiled, "Miss Fountain won't hear anygood of this house at Browhead Farm. "

Even Augustina drew herself up proudly. 

"My dear Alan, what does it matter what that sort of people think?"

He shook his head. 

"It's a queer business. They were mixed up with young Williams. "

Augustina started. 

"Mrs. Mason was a great friend of his mother, who died. They hate me likepoison. However----"

The priest interposed. 

"Mrs. Mason is a very violent, a most unseemly woman, " he said, in hismincing voice. "And the father--the old man--who is now dead, wasconcerned in the rioting near the bridge----"

"When Alan was struck? Mrs. Denton told me! How _abominable_!"

Augustina raised her hands in mingled reprobation and distress. 

Helbeck looked annoyed. 

"That doesn't matter one brass farthing, " he said, in some haste. "FatherBowles was much worse treated than I on that occasion. But you see thewhole thing is unlucky--it makes it difficult to give Miss Fountain thehints one would like to give her. "

He threw himself down beside his sister, talking to her in low tones. Father Bowles took up the local paper. 

Presently Augustina broke out--with another wringing of the hands. 

"Don't put it on me, my dear Alan! I tell you--Laura has always doneexactly what she liked since she was a baby. "

Mr. Helbeck rose. His face and air already expressed a certainhaughtiness; and at his sister's words there was a very definitetightening of the shoulders. 

"I do not intend to have Hubert Mason hanging about the house, " he saidquietly, as he thrust his hands into his pockets. 

"Of course not!--but she wouldn't expect it, " cried Augustina in dismay. "It's the keeping her away from them, that's the difficulty. She thinksso much of her cousins, Alan. They're her father's only relations. I knowshe'll want to be with them half her time!"

"For love of them--or dislike of us? Oh! I dare say it will be allright, " he added abruptly. "Father Bowles, shall I drive you half-way?The pony will be round directly. "

CHAPTER IV

It was a Sunday morning--bright and windy. Miss Fountain was driving ashabby pony through the park of Bannisdale--driving with a haste and gleethat sent the little cart spinning down the road. 

Six hours--she calculated--till she need see Bannisdale again. Hercousins would ask her to dinner and to tea. Augustina and Mr. Helbeckmight have all their Sunday antics to themselves. There were severalpriests coming to luncheon--and a function in the chapel that afternoon. Laura flicked the pony sharply as she thought of it. Seven miles betweenher and it? Joy!

Nevertheless, she did not get rid of the old house and its suggestionsquite as easily as she wished. The park and the river had many windings. Again and again the grey gabled mass thrust itself upon her attention, recalling each time, against her will, the face of its owner. 

A high brow--hollows in the temples, deep hollows in the cheeks--paleblue eyes--a short and pointed beard, greyish-black like the hair--theclose whiskers black, too, against the skin--a general impression ofpallor, dark lines, strong shadows, melancholy force--

She burst out laughing. 

A pose!--nothing in the world but a pose. There was a wretched picture ofCharles I. In the dining-room--a daub "after" some famous thing, shesupposed--all eyes and hair, long face, and lace collar. Mr. Helbeck was"made up" to that--she was sure of it. He had found out the likeness, andimproved upon it. Oh! if one could only present him with the collar andblue ribbon complete!

"--Cut his head off, and have done with him!" she said aloud, whipping upthe pony, and laughing at her own petulance. 

Who could live in such a house--such an atmosphere?

As she drove along, her mind was all in a protesting whirl. On her returnfrom her walk with the dogs the day before, she had found a service goingon in the chapel, Father Bowles officiating, and some figures in blackgowns and white-winged coifs assisting. She had fled to her own room, butwhen she came down again, the black-garbed "Sisters" were still there, and she had been introduced to them. Ugh! what manners! Must one always, if one was a Catholic, make that cloying, hypocritical impression? "Threeof them kissed me, " she reminded herself, in a quiver of wrath. 

They were Sisters from the orphanage apparently, or one of theorphanages, and there had been endless talk of new buildings and money, while she, Laura, sat dumb in her corner looking at old photographs ofthe house. Helbeck, indeed, had not talked much. While the black womenwere chattering with Augustina and Father Bowles, he had stood, mostlysilent, under the picture of his great-grandmother, only breaking throughhis reverie from time to time to ask or answer a question. Was hepondering the sale of the great-grandmother, or did he simply know thathis silence and aloofness were picturesque, that they compelled otherpeople's attention, and made him the centre of things more effectivelythan more ordinary manners could have done? In recalling him the girl hadan impatient sense of something commanding; of something, moreover, thatheld herself under observation. "One thinks him shy at first, orawkward--nothing of the sort! He is as proud as Lucifer. Very soon onesees that he is just looking out for his own way in everything. 

"And as for temper!----"

After the Sisters departed, a young architect had appeared at supper. Apoint of difference had arisen between him and Mr. Helbeck. He was to beemployed, it appeared, in the enlargement of this blessed orphanage. Mr. Helbeck, no doubt, with a view to his pocket--to do him justice, thereseemed to be no other pocket concerned than his--was of opinion thatcertain existing buildings could be made use of in the new scheme. Thearchitect--a nervous young fellow, with awkward manners, and theambitions of an artist--thought not, and held his own, insistently. Thediscussion grew vehement. Suddenly Helbeck lost his temper. 

"Mr. Munsey! I must ask you to give more weight, if you please, to mywishes in this matter! They may be right or wrong--but it would savetime, perhaps, if we assumed that they would prevail. "

The note of anger in the voice made every one look up. The Squire stooderect a moment; crumpled in his hand a half-sheet of paper on which youngMunsey had been making some calculations, and flung it into the fire. Augustina sat cowering. The young man himself turned white, bowed, andsaid nothing. While Father Bowles, of course, like the old tabby that hewas, had at once begun to purr conciliation. 

"Would I have stood meek and mum if _I'd_ been the young man!" thoughtLaura. "Would I! Oh! if I'd had the chance! And he should not have madeup so easily, either. "

For she remembered, also, how, after Father Bowles was gone, she had comein from the garden to find Mr. Helbeck and the architect pacing the longhall together, on what seemed to be the friendliest of terms. For nearlyan hour, while she and Augustina sat reading over the fire, the colloquywent on. 

Helbeck's tones then were of the gentlest; the young man too spoke lowand eagerly, pressing his plans. And once when Laura looked up from herbook, she had seen Helbeck's arm resting for a moment on the youngfellow's shoulder. Oh! no doubt Mr. Helbeck could make himself agreeablewhen he chose--and struggling architects must put up with the tempers oftheir employers. 

All the more did Miss Fountain like to think that the Squire could compelno court from her. 

She recalled that when Mr. Munsey had said good-night, and they threewere alone in the firelit hall, Helbeck had come to stand beside her. Hehad looked down upon her with an air which was either kindness orweariness; he had been willing--even, she thought, anxious to talk withher. But she did not mean to be first trampled on, then patronised, likethe young man. So Mr. Helbeck had hardly begun--with that occasionaltimidity which sat so oddly on his dark and strong physique--to speak toher of the two Sisters of Charity who had been his guests in theafternoon, when she abruptly discovered it was time to say good-night. She winced a little as she remembered the sudden stiffening of his look, the careless touch of his hand. 

 * * * * *

The day was keen and clear. A nipping wind blew beneath the bright sun, and the opening buds had a parched and hindered look. But to Laura theair was wine, and the country all delight. She was mounting the flank ofa hill towards a straggling village. Straight along the face of the hilllay her road, past the villages and woods that clothed the hill slope, till someone should show her the gate beyond which lay the rough ascentto Browhead Farm. 

Above her, now, to her right, rose a craggy fell with great screesplunging sheer down into the woods that sheltered the village; below, inthe valley-plain, stretched the purples and greens of the moss; therivers shone in the sun as they came speeding from the mountains to thesea; and in the far distance the heights of Lakeland made one pageantwith the sun and the clouds--peak after peak thrown blue against thewhite, cloud after cloud breaking to show the dappled hills below, insuch a glory of silver and of purple, such a freshness of atmosphere andlight, that mere looking soon became the most thrilling, the mostpalpable of joys. Laura's spirits began to sing and soar, with the larksand the blackcaps!

Then, when the village was gone, came a high stretch of road, lookingdown upon the moss and all its bounding fells, which ran out upon itspurple face like capes upon a sea. And these nearer fields--what werethese thick white specks upon the new-made furrows? Up rose the gulls foranswer; and the girl felt the sea-breath from their dazzling wings, andturned behind her to look for that pale opening in the south-west throughwhich the rivers passed. 

And beyond the fields a wood--such a wood as made Laura's south-countryeyes stand wide with wonder! Out she jumped, tied the pony's rein to agate beside the road, and ran into the hazel brushwood with little criesof pleasure. A Westmoreland wood in daffodil time--it was nothing moreand nothing less. But to this child with the young passion in her blood, it was a dream, an ecstasy. The golden flowers, the slim stalks, rosefrom a mist of greenish-blue, made by their speary leaf amid theencircling browns and purples, the intricate stem and branch-work of thestill winter-bound hazels. Never were daffodils in such a wealth before!They were flung on the fell-side through a score of acres, in sheets andtapestries of gold, --such an audacious, unreckoned plenty as wentstrangely with the frugal air and temper of the northern country, withthe bare walled fields, the ruggedness of the crags above, and themelancholy of the treeless marsh below. And within this commonlavishness, all possible delicacy, all possible perfection of theseparate bloom and tuft--each foot of ground had its own glory. For belowthe daffodils there was a carpet of dark violets, so dim and close thatit was their scent first bewrayed them; and as Laura lay gathering withher face among the flowers, she could see behind their gold, and betweenthe hazel stems, the light-filled greys and azures of the mountaindistance. Each detail in the happy whole struck on the girl's eager senseand made there a poem of northern spring--spring as the fell-country seesit, pure, cold, expectant, with flashes of a blossoming beauty amid therocks and pastures, unmatched for daintiness and joy. 

Presently Laura found herself sitting--half crying!--on a mossy tuft, looking along the wood to the distance. What was it in this exquisitecountry that seized upon her so--that spoke to her in this intimate, thisappealing voice?

Why, she was of it--she belonged to it--she felt it in her veins! Oldinherited things leapt within her--or it pleased her to think so. It wasas though she stretched out her arms to the mountains and fields, cryingto them, "I am not a stranger--draw me to you--my life sprang fromyours!" A host of burning and tender thoughts ran through her. Theirfirst effect was to remind her of the farm and of her cousins; and shesprang up, and went back to the cart. 

On they rattled again, downhill through the wood, and up on the furtherside--still always on the edge of the moss. She loved the villages, andtheir medley of grey houses wedged among the rocks; she loved the stonefarms with their wide porches, and the white splashes on their greyfronts; she loved the tufts of fern in the wall crannies, the limestoneribs and bonework of the land breaking everywhere through the pastures, the incomparable purples of the woods, and the first brave leafing of thelarches and the sycamores. Never had she so given her heart to any newworld; and through her delight flashed the sorest, tenderest thoughts ofher father. "Oh! papa--oh, papa!" she said to herself again and again ina little moan. Every day perhaps he had walked this road as a child, andshe could still see herself as a child, in a very dim vision, trottingbeside him down the Browhead Road. She turned at last into the fell-gateto which a passing boy directed her, with a long breath that was almost asob. 

She had given them no notice; but surely, surely they would be glad tosee her!

_They_? She tried to split up the notion, to imagine the three people shewas going to see. Cousin Elizabeth--the mother? Ah! she knew her, forthey had never liked Cousin Elizabeth. She herself could dimly remember ahard face; an obstinate voice raised in discussion with her father. Yetit was Cousin Elizabeth who was the Fountain born, who had carried thelittle family property as her dowry to her husband James Mason. For thegrandfather had been free to leave it as he chose, and on the death ofhis eldest son--who had settled at the farm after his marriage, and takenthe heavy work of it off his father's shoulders--the old man hadpassionately preferred to leave it to the strong, capable granddaughter, who was already provided with a lover, who understood the land, moreover, and could earn and "addle" as he did, rather than to his bookish milksopof a second son, so richly provided for already, in his father'scontemptuous opinion, by the small government post at Newcastle. 

"Let us always thank God, Laura, that my grandfather was a brute toyours!" Stephen Fountain would say to his girl on the rare occasions whenhe could be induced to speak of his family at all. "But for that I mightbe a hedger and ditcher to this day. "

Well, but Cousin Elizabeth's children? Laura herself had some vagueremembrance of them. As the pony climbed the steep lane she shut her eyesand tried hard to recall them. The fair-haired boy--rather fat andmasterful--who had taken her to find the eggs of a truant hen in a hedgebehind the house--and had pushed her into a puddle on the way homebecause she had broken one? Then the girl, the older girl Polly, who hadcleaned her shoes for her, and lent her a pinafore? No! Laura opened hereyes again--it was no good straining to remember. Too many years hadrolled between that early visit and her present self--years during whichthere had been no communication of any sort between Stephen Fountain andhis cousins. 

Why had Augustina been so trying and tiresome about the Masons? Insteadof flying to her cousins on the earliest possible opportunity, here was awhole fortnight gone since her arrival, and it was not till this Sundaymorning that Laura had been able to achieve her visit. Augustina had beenconstantly ailing or fretful; either unwilling to be left alone, orpossessed by absurd desires for useless trifles, only to be satisfied byLaura's going to shop in Whinthorpe. And such melancholy looks wheneverthe Masons were mentioned--coupled with so formal a silence on Mr. Helbeck's part! What did it all mean? No doubt her relations were vulgar, low-born folk!--but she did not ask Mr. Helbeck or her stepmother toentertain them. At last there had been a passage of arms between her andher stepmother. Perhaps Mr. Helbeck had overheard it, for immediatelyafterwards he had emerged from his study into the hall, where she andAugustina were sitting. 

"Miss Fountain--may I ask--do you wish to be sent into Whinthorpe onSunday morning?"

She had fronted him at once. 

"No, thank you, Mr. Helbeck. I don't go to church--I never did withpapa. "

Had she been defiant? He surely had been stiff. 

"Then, perhaps you would like the pony--for your visit? He is quite atyour service for the day. Would that suit you?"

"Perfectly. "

 * * * * *

So here she was--at last!--climbing up and up into the heart of thefells. The cloud-pageant round the high mountains, the valley with itsflashing streams, its distant sands, and widening sea--she had risen asit seemed above them all; they lay beneath her in a map-like unity. Shecould have laughed and sung out of sheer physical joy in the dancingair--in the play of the cloud gleams and shadows as they swept acrossher, chased by the wind. All about her the little mountain sheep werefeeding in the craggy "intaks" or along the edges of the tiny tumblingstreams; and at intervals amid the reds and yellows of the still wintrygrass rose great wind-beaten hollies, sharp and black against the bluedistance, marching beside her, like scattered soldiers, up the height. 

Not a house to be seen, save on the far slopes of distant hills--not asound, but the chink of the stone-chat, or the fall of lonely water. 

Soon the road, after its long ascent, began to dip; a few trees appearedin a hollow, then a gate and some grey walls. 

Laura jumped from the cart. Beyond the gate, the road turned downward alittle, and a great block of barns shut the farmhouse from view till shewas actually upon it. 

But there it was at last--the grey, roughly built house, that she stillvaguely remembered, with the whitewashed porch, the stables and cowshedsopposite, the little garden to the side, the steep fell behind. 

She stood with her hand on the pony, looking at the house in someperplexity. Not a soul apparently had heard her coming. Nothing moved inthe farmhouse or outside it. Was everybody at church? But it was nearlyone o'clock. 

The door under the deep porch had no knocker, and she looked in vain fora bell. All she could do was to rap sharply with the handle of her whip. 

No answer. She rapped again--louder and louder. At last in the intervalsof knocking, she became conscious of a sound within--something deep andcontinuous, like the buzzing of a gigantic bee. 

She put her ear to the door, listening. Then all her face dissolved inlaughter. She raised her arm and brought the whip-handle down noisily onthe old blistered door, so that it shook again. 

"Hullo!"

There was a sudden sound of chairs overturned, or dragged along a flaggedfloor. Then staggering steps--and the door was opened. 

"I say--what's all this--what are you making such a damned noise for?"

Inside stood a stalwart young man, still half asleep, and drawing hishand irritably across his blinking eyes. 

"How do you do, Mr. Mason?"

The young man drew himself together with a start. Suddenly he perceivedthat the young girl standing in the shade of the porch was not hissister, but a stranger. He looked at her with astonishment, --at theelegance of her dress, and the neatness of her small gloved hand. 

"I beg your pardon, Miss, I'm sure! Did you want anything?"

The visitor laughed. "Yes, I want a good deal! I came up to see mycousins--you're my cousin--though of course you don't remember me. Ithought--perhaps--you'd ask me to dinner. "

The young man's yawns ceased. He stared with all his eyes, instinctivelyputting his hair and collar straight. 

"Well, I'm afraid I don't know who you are, Miss, " he said at last, putting out his hand in perplexity to meet hers. "Will you walk in?"

"Not before you know who I am!"--said Laura, still laughing--"I'm LauraFountain. Now do you know?"

"What--Stephen Fountain's daughter--as married Miss Helbeck?" said theyoung man in wonder. His face, which had been at first vague and heavywith sleep, began to recover its natural expression. 

Laura surveyed him. He had a square, full chin and an upper lip slightlyunderhung. His straight fair hair straggled loose over his brow. Hecarried his head and shoulders well, and was altogether a finely built, rather magnificent young fellow, marred by a general expression that washalf clumsy, half insolent. 

"That's it, " she said, in answer to his question--"I'm staying atBannisdale, and I came up to see you all. --Where's Cousin Elizabeth?"

"Mother, do you mean?--Oh! she's at church. "

"Why aren't you there, too?"

He opened his blue eyes, taken aback by the cool clearness of her voice. 

"Well, I can't abide the parson--if you want to know. Shall I put up yourpony?"

"But perhaps you've not had your sleep out?" said Laura, politelyinterrogative. 

He reddened, and came forward with a slow and rather shambling gait. 

"I don't know what else there is to do up here of a Sunday morning, " hesaid, with a boyish sulkiness, as he began to lead the pony towards thestables opposite. "Besides, I was up half the night seeing to one of thecows. "

"You don't seem to have many neighbours, " said Laura, as she walkedbeside him. 

"There's rooks and crows" (which he pronounced broadly--"craws")--"notmuch else, I can tell you. Shall I take the pony out?"

"Please. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with me for hours!"

She looked at him merrily, and he returned the scrutiny. She wore thesame thin black dress in which Helbeck had admired her the day before, and above it a cloth jacket and cap, trimmed with brown fur. Mason wasdazzled a moment by the milky whiteness of the cheek above the fur, bythe brightness of the eyes and hair; then was seized with fresh shyness, and became extremely busy with the pony. 

"Mother'll be back in about an hour, " he said gruffly. 

"Goodness! what'll you do with me till then?"

They both laughed, he with an embarrassment that annoyed him. He was notat all accustomed to find himself at a disadvantage with a good-lookinggirl. 

"There's a good fire in the house, anyway, " he said; "you'll want to warmyourself, I should think, after driving up here. "

"Oh! I'm not cold--I say, what jolly horses!"

For Mason had thrown open the large worm-eaten door of the stables, andinside could be seen the heads and backs of two cart-horses, huge, majestic creatures, who were peering over the doors of their stalls, asthough they had been listening to the conversation. 

Their owner glanced at them indifferently. 

"Aye, they're not bad. We bred 'em three years ago, and they've takenmore'n one prize already. I dare say old Daffady, now, as looks afterthem, would be sorry to part with them. "

"I dare say he would. But why should he part with them?"

The young man hesitated. He was shaking down a load of hay for the pony, and Laura was leaning against the door of the stall watching hisperformance. 

"Well, I reckon we shan't be farmin here all our lives, " he said at lastwith some abruptness. 

"Don't you like it then?"

"I'd get quit on it to-morrow if I could!"

His quick reply had an emphasis that astonished her. 

"And your mother?"

"Oh! of course it's mother keeps me at it, " he said, relapsing into thesame accent of a sulky child that he had used once before. 

Then he led his new cousin back to the farmhouse. By this time he wasbeginning to find his tongue and use his eyes. Laura was conscious thatshe was being closely observed, and that by a man who was by no meansindifferent to women. She said to herself that she would try to keep himshy. 

As they entered the farmhouse kitchen Mason hastened to pick up thechairs he had overturned in his sudden waking. 

"I say, mother would be mad if she knew you'd come into this scrow!" hesaid with vexation, kicking aside some sporting papers that were litteredover the floors, and bringing forward a carved oak chair with a cushionto place it before the fire for her acceptance. 

"Scrow? What's that?" said Laura, lifting her eyebrows. "Oh, please don'ttidy any more. I really think you make it worse. Besides, it's all right. What a dear old kitchen!"

She had seated herself in the cushioned chair, and was warming a slenderfoot at the fire. Mason wished she would take off her hat--it hid herhair. But he could not flatter himself that she was in the least occupiedwith what he wished. Her attention was all given to her surroundings--tothe old raftered room, with its glowing fire and deep-set windows. 

Bright as the April sun was outside, it hardly penetrated here. Throughthe mellow dusk, as through the varnish of an old picture, one saw thedifferent objects in a golden light and shade--the brass warming-panhanging beside the tall eight-day clock--the table in front of the longwindow-seat, covered with its checked red cloth--the carved door of acupboard in the wall bearing the date 1679--the miscellaneous store ofthings packed away under the black rafters, dried herbs and tools, bundles of list and twine, the spindles of old spinning wheels, cattle-medicines, and the like--the heavy oaken chairs--the settle besidethe fire, with its hard cushions and scrolled back. It was a room forwinter, fashioned by the needs of winter. By the help of that great peatfire, built up year by year from the spoils of the moss a thousand feetbelow, generations of human beings had fought with snow and storm, hadmaintained their little polity there on the heights, self-centred, self-supplied. Across the yard, commanded by the window of thefarm-kitchen, lay the rude byres where the cattle were prisoned fromOctober to April. The cattle made the wealth of the farm, and there mustbe many weeks when the animals and their masters were shut in togetherfrom the world outside by wastes of snow. 

Laura shut her eyes an instant, imagining the goings to and fro--therising on winter dawns to feed the stock; the shepherd on the fell-side, wrestling with sleet and tempest; the returns at night to food and fire. Her young fancy, already played on by the breath of the mountains, warmedto the farmhouse and its primitive life. Here surely was something morehuman--more poetic even--than the tattered splendour of Bannisdale. 

She opened her eyes wide again, as though in defiance, and saw HubertMason looking at her. 

Instinctively she sat up straight, and drew her foot primly under theshelter of her dress. 

"I was thinking of what it must be in winter, " she said hurriedly. "Iknow I should like it. "

"What, this place?" He gave a rough laugh. "I don't see what for, then. It's bad enough in summer. In winter it's fit to make you cut yourthroat. I say, where are you staying?"

"Why, at Bannisdale!" said Laura in surprise. "You knew my stepmother wasstill living, didn't you?"

"Well, I didn't think aught about it, " he said, falling into candour, because the beauty of her grey eyes, now that they were fixed fair andfull upon him, startled him out of his presence of mind. 

"I wrote to you--to Cousin Elizabeth--when my father died, " she saidsimply, rather proudly, and the eyes were removed from him. 

"Aye--of course you did, " he said in haste. "But mother's never yan totalk aboot letters. And you haven't dropped us a line since, have you?"he added, almost with timidity. 

"No. I thought I'd surprise you. We've been a fortnight at Bannisdale. "

His face flushed and darkened. 

"Then you've been a fortnight in a queer place!" he said with a sudden, almost a violent change of tone. "I wonder you can bide so long underthat man's roof!"

She stared. 

"Do you mean because he disliked my father?"

"Oh, I don't know nowt about that!" He paused. His young face wascrimson, his eyes angry and sinister. "He's a _snake_--is Helbeck!" hesaid slowly, striking his hands together as they hung over his knees. 

Laura recoiled--instinctively straightening herself. 

"Mr. Helbeck is quite kind to me, " she said sharply. "I don't know whyyou speak of him like that. I'm staying there till my stepmother getsstrong. "

He stared at her, still red and obstinate. 

"Helbeck an his house together stick in folk's gizzards aboot here, " hesaid. "Yo'll soon find that oot. And good reason too. Did you ever hearof Teddy Williams?"

"Williams?" she said, frowning. "Was that the man that painted thechapel?"

Mason laughed and slapped his knee. 

"Man, indeed? He was just a lad--down at Marsland School. I was theremyself, you understand, the year after him. He was an awful cleverlad--beat every one at books--an he could draw anything. You couldn'tmak' much oot of his drawins, I daur say--they were queer sorts o'things. I never could make head or tail on 'em myself. But old Jackson, our master, thowt a lot of 'em, and so did the passon down at Marsland. An his father an mother--well, they thowt he was going to make all theirfortunes for 'em. There was a scholarship--or soomthin o' that sort--anhe was to get it an go to college, an make 'em all rich. They were justcommon wheelwrights, you understand, down on t' Whinthorpe Road. But myword, Mr. Helbeck spoilt their game for 'em!"

He lifted another sod of turf from the basket and flung it on the fire. The animus of his tone and manner struck Laura oddly. But she was atleast as curious to hear as he was anxious to tell. She drew her chair alittle nearer to him. 

"What did Mr. Helbeck do?"

Mason laughed. 

"Well, he just made a Papist of Teddy--took him an done him--brown. Hegot hold on him in the park one evening--Teddy was drawing a picture ofthe bridge, you understand--'ticed him up to his place soomhow--an Teddywas set to a job of paintin up at the chapel before you could say JackRobinson. An in six months they'd settled it between 'em. Teddy wouldn'tgo to school no more. And one night he and his father had words; the owdman gie'd him a thrashing, and Teddy just cut and run. Next thing theyheard he was at a Papist school, somewhere over Lancashire way, an hesent word to his mother--she was dyin then, you understan'--and she'sdead since--that he'd gone to be a priest, an if they didn't like it, they might just do the other thing!"

"And the mother died?" said Laura. 

"Aye--double quick! My mother went down to nurse her. An they sent Teddyback, just too late to see her. He come in two-three hours after they'dscrewed her down. An his father chivvyed him oot--they wouldn't have himat the funeral. But folks were a deal madder with Mr. Helbeck, youunderstan', nor with Teddy. Teddy's father and brothers are chapelfolk--Primitive Methodists they call 'em. They've got a big chapel inWhinthorpe--an they raised the whole place on Mr. Helbeck, and one night, coming out of Whinthorpe, he was set on by a lot of fellows, chapelfellows, a bit fresh, you understan'. Father was there--he never deniedit--not he! Helbeck just got into the old mill by the bridge in time, butthey'd marked his face for him all the same. "

"Ah!" said Laura, staring into the fire. She had just remembered a darkscar on Mr. Helbeck's forehead, under the strong ripples of black hair. "Go on--do!"

"Oh! afterwards there was a lot of men bound over--father among 'em. There was a priest with Mr. Helbeck who got it hot too--that old chapBowles--I dare say you've seen him. Aye, he's a _snake_, is Helbeck!" theyoung man repeated. Then he reddened still more deeply, and added withvindictive emphasis--"and an interfering, --hypocritical, --canting sort ofparty into t' bargain. He'd like to lord it over everybody aboot here, ifhe was let. But he's as poor as a church rat--who minds him?"

The language was extraordinary--so was the tone. Laura had been gazing atthe speaker in a growing amazement. 

"Thank you!" she said impetuously, when Mason stopped. "Thank you!--but, in spite of your story, I don't think you ought to speak like that of thegentleman I am staying with!"

Mason threw himself back in his chair. He was evidently trying to controlhimself. 

"I didn't mean no offence, " he said at last, with a return of the sulkyvoice. "Of course I understand that you're staying with the quality, andnot with the likes of us. "

Laura's face lit up with laughter. "What an extraordinary silly thing tosay! But I don't mind--I'll forgive you--like I did years ago, when youpushed me into the puddle!"

"I pushed you into a puddle? But--I never did owt o' t' sort!" criedMason, in a slow crescendo of astonishment. 

"Oh, yes, you did, " she nodded her little head. "I broke an egg, and youbullied me. Of course I thought you were a horrid boy--and I loved Polly, who cleaned my shoes and put me straight. Where's Polly, is she atchurch?"

"Aye--I dare say, " said Mason stupidly, watching his visitor meanwhilewith all his eyes. She had just put up a small hand and taken off hercap. Now, mechanically, she began to pat and arrange the little curlsupon her forehead, then to take out and replace a hairpin or two, so asto fasten the golden mass behind a little more securely. The whitefingers moved with an exquisite sureness and daintiness, the lifted armsshowed all the young curves of the girl's form. 

Suddenly Laura turned to him again. Her eyes had been staring dreamilyinto the fire, while her hands had been busy with her hair. 

"So you don't remember our visit at all? You don't remember papa?"

He shook his head. 

"Ah! well"--she sighed. Mason felt unaccountably guilty. 

"I was always terr'ble bad at remembering, " he said hastily. 

"But you ought to have remembered papa. " Then, in quite a differentvoice, "Is this your sitting-room"--she looked round it--"or--or yourkitchen?"

The last words fell rather timidly, lest she might have hurt hisfeelings. 

Mason jumped up. 

"Why, yon's the parlour, " he said. "I should ha' taken you there fustthing. Will you coom? I'll soon make a fire. "

And walking across the kitchen, he threw open a further doorceremoniously. Laura followed, pausing just inside the threshold to lookround the little musty sitting-room, with its framed photographs, itswoollen mats, its rocking-chairs, and its square of mustard-colouredcarpet. Mason watched her furtively all the time, to see how the placestruck her. 

"Oh, this isn't as nice as the kitchen, " she said decidedly. "What'sthat?" She pointed to a pewter cup standing stately and alone upon thelargest possible wool mat in the centre of a table. 

Mason threw back his head and chuckled. His great chest seemed to fillout; all his sulky constraint dropped away. 

"Of course you don't know anythin aboot these parts, " he said to her withcondescension. "You don't know as I came near bein champion for theCounty lasst year--no, I'll reckon you don't. Oh! that cup's nowt--that'snobbut Whinthorpe sports, lasst December. Maybe there'll be a betterthere, by-and-by. "

The young giant grinned, as he took up the cup and pointed with assumedindifference to its inscription. 

"What--football?" said Laura, putting up her hand to hide a yawn. "Oh! Idon't care about football. But I _love_ cricket. Why--you've got apiano--and a new one!"

Mason's face cleared again--in quite another fashion. 

"Do you know the maker?" he said eagerly. "I believe he's thowt a deal ofby them as knows. I bought it myself out o' the sheep. The lambs had donefust-rate, --an I'd had more'n half the trooble of 'em, ony ways. So Itook no heed o' mother. I went down straight to Whinthrupp, an paid thefirst instalment an browt it up in the cart mesel'. Mr. Castle--do yoknaw 'im?--he's the organist at the parish church--he came with me tochoose it. "

"And is it you that play it, " said Laura wondering, "or your sister?"

He looked at her in silence for a moment--and she at him. His aspectseemed to change under her eyes. The handsome points of the face cameout; its coarseness and loutishness receded. And his manner becamesuddenly quiet and manly--though full of an almost tremulous eagerness. 

"You like it?" she asked him. 

"What--music? I should think so. "

"Oh! I forgot--you're all musical in these northern parts, aren't you?"

He made no answer, but sat down to the piano and opened it. She leantover the back of a chair, watching him, half incredulous, half amused. 

"I say--did you ever hear this? I believe it was some Cambridge fellowmade it--Castle said so. He played it to me. And I can't get further thanjust a bit of it. "

He raised his great hands and brought them down in a burst of chords thatshook the little room and the raftered ceiling. Laura stared. He playedon--played like a musician, though with occasional stumbling--played witha mingled energy and delicacy, an understanding and abandonment thatamazed her--then grew crimson with the effort to remember--wavered--andstopped. 

"Goodness!"--cried Laura. "Why, that's Stanford's music to the Eumenides!How on earth did you hear that? Go away. I can play it. "

She pushed him away and sat down. He hung over her, his face smiling andtransformed, while her little hands struggled with the chords, found theafter melody, pursued it, --with pauses now and then, in which he wouldstrike in, prompting her, putting his hand down with hers--and finally, after modulations which she made her way through, with laughter andhead-shakings, she fell into a weird dance, to which he beat time withhands and limbs, urging her with a rain of comments. 

"Oh! my goody--isn't that rousing? Play that again--just thatchange--just once! Oh! Lord--isn't that good, that chord--and that bitafterwards, what a bass!--I say, _isn't_ it a bass? Don't you likeit--don't you like it _awfully_?"

Suddenly she wheeled round from the piano, and sat fronting him, herhands on her knees. He fell back into a chair. 

"I say"--he said slowly--"you are a grand 'un! If I'd only known youcould play like that!"

Her laugh died away. To his amazement she began to frown. 

"I haven't played--ten notes--since papa died. He liked it so. "

She, turned her back to him, and began to look at the torn music at thetop of the piano. 

"But you will play--you'll play to me again"--he saidbeseechingly. --"Why, it would be a sin if you didn't play! Wouldn't Iplay if I could play like you! I never had more than a lesson, now andagain, from old Castle. I used to steal mother's eggs to pay him--I canplay any thing I hear--and I've made a song--old Castle's writing itdown--he says he'll teach me to do it some day. But of course I'm no goodfor playing--I never shall be any good. Look at those fingers--they'relike bits of stick--beastly things!"

He thrust them out indignantly for her inspection. Laura looked at themwith a professional air. 

"I don't call it a bad hand. I expect you've no patience. "

"Haven't I! I tell you I'd play all day, if it'ld do any good--but itwon't. "

"And how about the poor farm?" said Laura, with a lifted brow. 

"Oh! the farm--the farm--dang the farm!"--said Mason violently, slappinghis knee. 

Suddenly there was a sound of voices outside, a clattering on the stonesof the farmyard. 

Mason sprang up, all frowns. 

"That's mother. Here, let's shut the piano--quick! She can't abide it. "

CHAPTER V

Mason went out to meet his mother, and Laura waited. She stood where shehad risen, beside the piano, looking nervously towards the door. Childishremembrances and alarms seemed to be thronging back into her mind. 

There was a noise of voices in the outer room. Then a handle was roughlyturned, and Laura saw before her a short, stout woman, with grey hair, and the most piercing black eyes. Intimidated by the eyes, and by thesudden pause of the newcomer on the threshold, Miss Fountain could onlylook at her interrogatively. 

"Is it Cousin Elizabeth?" she said, holding out a wavering hand. 

Mrs. Mason scarcely allowed her own to be touched. 

"We're not used to visitors i' church-time, " she said abruptly, in a deepfunereal voice. "Mappen you'll sit down. "

And still holding the girl with her eyes, she walked across to an oldrocking-chair, let herself fall into it, and with a loud sigh loosenedher bonnet strings. 

Laura, in her amazement, had to strangle a violent inclination to laugh. Then she flushed brightly, and sat down on the wooden stool in front ofthe piano. Mrs. Mason, still staring at her, seemed to wait for her tospeak. But Laura would say nothing. 

"Soa--thoo art Stephen Fountain's dowter--art tha?"

"Yes--and you have seen me before, " was the girl's quiet reply. 

She said to herself that her cousin had the eyes of a bird of prey. Soblack and fierce they were, in the greyish white face under the shaggyhair. But she was not afraid. Rather she felt her own temper rising. 

"How long is't sen your feyther deed?"

"Nine months. But you knew that, I think--because I wrote it you. "

Mrs. Mason's heavy lids blinked a moment, then she said with slowlyquickening emphasis, like one mounting to a crisis:

"Wat art tha doin' wi' Bannisdale Hall? What call has thy feyther'sdowter to be visitin onder Alan Helbeck's roof?"

Laura's open mouth showed first wonderment, then laughter. 

"Oh! I see, " she said impatiently--"you don't seem to understand. But ofcourse you remember that my father married Miss Helbeck for his secondwife?"

"Aye, an she cam oot fra amang them, " exclaimed Mrs. Mason; "she put awayfrom her the accursed thing!"

The massive face was all aglow, transformed, with a kind of sombre fire. Laura stared afresh. 

"She gave up being a Catholic, if that's what you mean, " she said after amoment's pause. "But she couldn't keep to it. When papa fell ill, and shewas unhappy, she went back. And then of course she made it up with herbrother. "

The triumph in Mrs. Mason's face yielded first to astonishment, then toanger. 

"The poor weak doited thing, " she said at last in a tone of indescribablecontempt, "the poor silly fule! But naebody need ha' luked for onythingbetther from a Helbeck. --And I daur say"--she lifted her voicefiercely--"I daur say she took yo' wi' her, an it's along o' thattens asyo're coom to spy on us oop here?"

Laura sprang up. 

"Me!" she said indignantly. "You think I'm a Catholic and a spy? How kindof you! But of course you don't know anything about my father, nor how hebrought me up. As for my poor little stepmother, I came here with her toget her well, and I shall stay with her till she is well. I really don'tknow why you talk to me like this. I suppose you have cause to dislikeMr. Helbeck, but it is very odd that you should visit it on me, papa'sdaughter, when I come to see you!"

The girl's voice trembled, but she threw back her slender neck with agesture that became her. The door, which had been closed, stealthilyopened. Hubert Mason's face appeared in the doorway. It was gazingeagerly--admiringly--at Miss Fountain. 

Mrs. Mason did not see him. Nor was she daunted by Laura's anger. 

"It's aw yan, " she said stubbornly. "Thoo ha' made a covenant wi' theAmorite an the Amalekite. They ha' called tha, an thoo art eatin o' theirsacrifices!"

There was an uneasy laugh from the door, and Laura, turning herastonished eyes in that direction, perceived Hubert standing in thedoorway, and behind him another head thrust eagerly forward--the head ofa young woman in a much betrimmed Sunday hat. 

"I say, mother, let her be, wil tha?" said a hearty voice; and, pushingHubert aside, the owner of the hat entered the room. She went up toLaura, and gave her a loud kiss. 

"I'm Polly--Polly Mason. An I know who you are weel enough. Doan't youpay ony attention to mother. That's her way. Hubert an I take it verykind of you to come and see us. "

"Mother's rats on Amorites!" said Hubert, grinning. 

"Rats?--Amorites?"--said Laura, looking piteously at Polly, whose handshe held. 

Polly laughed, a bouncing, good-humoured laugh. She herself was abouncing, good-humoured person, the apparent antithesis of her motherwith her lively eyes, her frizzled hair, her high cheek-bones touchedwith a bright pink. 

"Yo'll have to get oop early to understan' them two, " she declared. "Mother's allus talkin out o' t' Bible, an Hubert picks up a lot o' lowwords out o' Whinthrupp streets--an there 'tis. But now look here--yo'llstay an tak' a bit o' dinner with us?"

"I don't want to be in your way, " said Laura formally. Really, she hadsome difficulty to control the quiver of her lips, though it would havebeen difficult to say whether laughter or tears came nearest. 

At this Polly broke out in voluble protestations, investigating hercousin's dress all the time, fingering her little watch-chain, and eventaking up a corner of the pretty cloth jacket that she might examine thequality of it. Laura, however, looked at Mrs. Mason. 

"If Cousin Elizabeth wishes me to stay, " she said proudly. 

Polly burst into another loud laugh. 

"Yo see, it goes agen mother to be shakin hands wi' yan that's livin wi'Papists--and Misther Helbeck by the bargain. So wheniver mother talksaboot Amorites or Jesubites, or any o' thattens, she nobbut meansPapist--Romanists as our minister coes 'em. He's every bit as bad as her. He would as lief shake hands wi' Mr. Helbeck as wi' the owd 'un!"

"I'll uphowd ye--Mr. Bayley hasn't preached a sermon this ten year wi'ootchivvyin Papists!" said Hubert from the door. "An yo'll not find yan o'them in his parish if yo were to hunt it wi' a lantern for a week o'Sundays. When I was a lad I thowt Romanists were a soart o' varmin. Iawmost looked to see 'em nailed to t' barndoor, same as stöats!"

"But how strange!" cried Laura--"when there are so few Catholics abouthere. And no one _hates_ Catholics now. One may just--despise them. "

She looked from mother to son in bewilderment. Not only Hubert's speech, but his whole manner had broadened and coarsened since his mother'sarrival. 

"Well, if there isn't mony, they make a deal o' talk, " saidPolly--"onyways sence Mr. Helbeck came to t' hall. --Mother, I'll takeMiss Fountain oopstairs, to get her hat off. "

During all the banter of her son and daughter Mrs. Mason had sat in adisdainful silence, turning her strange eyes--the eyes of a fanatic, in asingularly shrewd and capable face--now on Laura, now on her children. Laura looked at her again, irresolute whether to go or stay. Then animpulse seized her which astonished herself. For it was an impulse ofliking, an impulse of kinship; and as she quickly crossed the room toMrs. Mason's side, she said in a pretty pleading voice:

"But you see, Cousin Elizabeth, I'm not a Catholic--and papa wasn't aCatholic. And I couldn't help Mrs. Fountain going back to her oldreligion--you shouldn't visit it on me!"

Mrs. Mason looked up. 

"Why art tha not at church on t' Lord's day?"

The question came stern and quick. 

Laura wavered, then drew herself up. 

"Because I'm not your sort either. I don't believe in your church, oryour ministers. Father didn't, and I'm like him. "

Her voice had grown thick, and she was quite pale. The old woman staredat her. 

"Then yo're nobbut yan o' the heathen!" she said with slow precision. 

"I dare say!" cried Laura, half laughing, half crying. "That's my affair. But I declare I think I hate Catholics as much as you--there, CousinElizabeth! I don't hate my stepmother, of course. I promised father totake care of her. But that's another matter. "

"Dost tha hate Alan Helbeck?" said Mrs. Mason suddenly, her black eyesopening in a flash. 

The girl hesitated, caught her breath--then was seized with thestrangest, most abject desire to propitiate this grim woman with thepassionate look. 

"Yes!" she said wildly. "No, no!--that's silly. I haven't had time tohate him. But I don't like him, anyway. I'm nearly sure I _shall_ hatehim!"

There was no mistaking the truth in her tone. 

Mrs. Mason slowly rose. Her chest heaved with one long breath, thensubsided; her brow tightened. She turned to her son. 

"Art tha goin to let Daffady do all thy work for tha?" she said sharply. "Has t' roan calf bin looked to?"

"Aye--I'm going, " said Hubert evasively, and sheepishly straighteninghimself he made for the front door, throwing back more than one look ashe departed at his new cousin. 

"And you really want me to stay?" repeated Laura insistently, addressingMrs. Mason. 

"Yo're welcome, " was the stiff reply. "Nobbut yo'd been mair welcome ifyo hadna brokken t' Sabbath to coom here. Mappen yo'll goa wi' Polly, antak' your bonnet off. "

Laura hesitated a moment longer, bit her lip, and went. 

 * * * * *

Polly Mason was a great talker. In the few minutes she spent with Lauraupstairs, before she hurried down again to help her mother with theSunday dinner, she asked her new cousin innumerable questions, showing anintense curiosity as to Bannisdale and the Helbecks, a burning desire toknow whether Laura had any money of her own, or was still dependent uponher stepmother, and a joyous appropriative pride in Miss Fountain'sgentility and good looks. 

The frankness of Polly's flatteries, and the exuberance of her wholepersonality, ended by producing a certain stiffness in Laura. Every nowand then, in the intervals of Polly's questions, when she ceased to beinquisitive and became confidential, Laura would wonder to herself. Shewould half shut her eyes, trying to recall the mental image of hercousins and of the farm, with which she had started that morning fromBannisdale; or she would think of her father, his modes of life andspeech--was he really connected, and how, with this place and itsinmates? She had expected something simple and patriarchal. She had founda family of peasants, living in a struggling, penurious way--a grimmother speaking broad dialect, a son with no pretensions to refinement oreducation, except perhaps through his music--and a daughter----

Laura turned an attentive eye on Polly, on her high and red cheek-bones, the extravagant fringe that vulgarised all her honest face, the Sundaydress of stone-coloured alpaca, profusely trimmed with magenta ribbons. 

"I will--I _will_ like her!" she said to herself--"I am a horrid, snobbish, fastidious little wretch. "

But her spirits had sunk. When Polly left her she leant for a moment uponthe sill of the open window, and looked out. Across the dirty, unevenyard, where the manure lay in heaps outside the byre doors, she saw therude farm buildings huddled against each other in a mean, unsightlygroup. Down below, from the house porch apparently, a cracked bell beganto ring, and from some doors opposite three labourers, the "hired men, "who lived and boarded on the farm, came out. The first two were elderlymen, gnarled and bent like tough trees that have fought the winter; thethird was a youth. They were tidily dressed in Sunday clothes, for theirwork was done, and they were ready for the afternoon's holiday. 

They walked across to the farmhouse in silence, one behind the other. Noteven the young fellow raised his eyes to the window and the girl framedwithin it. Behind them came a gust of piercing easterly wind. A cloud hadcovered the sun. The squalid farmyard, the bare fell-side beyond it, thedistant levels of the marsh, had taken to themselves a cold forbiddingair. Laura again imagined it in December--a waste of snow, with the farmmaking an ugly spot upon the white, and the little black-bearded sheepshe could see feeding on the fell, crowding under the rocks for shelter. But this time she shivered. All the spell was broken. To live up herewith this madwoman, this strange youth--and Polly! Yet it seemed to herthat something drew her to Cousin Elizabeth--if she were not so mad. Howstrange to find this abhorrence of Mr. Helbeck among these people--sodifferent, so remote! She remembered her own words--"I am sure I _shall_hate him!"--not without a stab of conscience. What had she beendoing--perhaps--but adding her own injustice to theirs?

She stood lost in a young puzzle and heat of feeling--half angry, halfrepentant. 

But only for a second. Then certain phrases of Augustina's rang throughher mind--she saw herself standing in the corner of the chapel while theothers prayed. Every pulse tightened--her whole nature leapt again indefiance. She seemed to be holding something at bay--a tyrannous powerthat threatened humiliation and hypocrisy, that seemed at the same timeto be prying into secret things--things it should never, never know--andnever rule! Yes, she did understand Cousin Elizabeth--she _did_!

 * * * * *

The dinner went sadly. The viands were heavy: so were the faces of thelabourers, and the air of the low-raftered kitchen, heated as it was by ahuge fire, and pervaded by the smell from the farmyard. Laura felt it allvery strange, the presence of the farm servants at the same table withthe Masons and herself--the long silences that no one made an effort tobreak--the relations between Hubert and his mother. 

As for the labourers, Mason addressed them now and then in a bullyingvoice, and they spoke to him as little as they could. It seemed to Laurathat there was an alliance between them and the mother against a lazy andincompetent master; and that the lad's vanity was perpetually alive toit. Again and again he would pull himself together, attempt thegentleman, and devote himself to his young lady guest. But in the midstof their conversation he would hear something at the other end of thetable, and suddenly there would come a burst of fierce unintelligiblespeech between him and the mistress of the house, while the labourers satsilent and sly, and Polly's loud laugh would break in, trying to makepeace. 

Laura's cool grey eyes followed the youth with a constant criticalwonder. In any other circumstances she would not have thought him worthan instant's attention. She had all the supercilious impatience of thepretty girl accustomed to choose her company. But this odd fact ofkinship held and harassed her. She wanted to understand these Masons--herfather's folk. 

"Now he is really talking quite nicely, " she said to herself on oneoccasion, when Hubert had found in the gifts and accomplishments of hisfriend Castle, the organist, a subject that untied his tongue and madehim almost agreeable. Suddenly a question caught his ear. 

"Daffady, did tha turn the coo?" said his mother in a loud voice. Even inthe homeliest question it had the same penetrating, passionate qualitythat belonged to her gaze--to her whole personality indeed. 

Hubert dropped his phrase--and his knife and fork--and stared angrily atDaffady, the old cowman and carter. 

Daffady threw his master a furtive look, then munched through a mouthfulof bread and cheese without replying. 

He was a grey and taciturn person, with a provocative look of patience. 

"What tha bin doin wi' th' coo?" said Hubert sharply. "I left her myselnobbut half an hour sen. "

Daffady turned his head again in Hubert's direction for a moment, thendeliberately addressed the mistress. 

"Aye, aye, missus"--he spoke in a high small voice--"A turned her reetenoof, an a gied her soom fresh straa for her yed. She doin varramiddlin. "

"If she'd been turned yesterday in a proper fashion, she'd ha' bin on herfeet by now, " said Mrs. Mason, with a glance at her son. 

"Nowt o' t' soart, mother, " cried Hubert. He leant forward, flushed withwrath, or beer--his potations had begun to fill Laura with dismay--andspoke with a hectoring violence. "I tell tha when t' farrier cam oop lastnight, he said she'd been managed first-rate! If yo and Daffady had yorway wi' yor fallals an yor nonsense, yo'd never leave a poor sick creeturalone for five minutes; I towd Daffady to let her be, an I'll let himknaa who's mëaster here!"

He glared at the carter, quite regardless of Laura's presence. Pollycoughed loudly, and tried to make a diversion by getting up to clear awaythe plates. The three combatants took no notice. 

Daffady slowly ran his tongue round his lips; then he said, again lookingat the mistress:

"If a hadna turned her I dew believe she'd ha' gien oos t' slip--she wasterr'ble swollen as 'twos. "

"I tell tha to let her be!" thundered Hubert. "If she deas, that's maconsarn; I'll ha' noa meddlin wi' my orders--dost tha hear?"

"Aye, it wor thirrty poond thraan awa lasst month, an it'll be thirrtypoond this, " said his mother slowly; "thoo art fine at shoutin. Bit thyfadther had need ha' addlet his brass--to gie thee summat to thraw oot o'winder. "

Hubert rose from the table with an oath, stood for an instant lookingdown at Laura, --glowering, and pulling fiercely at his moustache, --then, noisily opening the front door, he strode across the yard to the byres. 

There was an instant's silence. Then Mrs. Mason rose with her handsclasped before her, her eyes half closed. 

"For what we ha' received, the Lord mak' us truly thankful, " she said ina loud, nasal voice. "Amen. "

 * * * * *

After dinner, Laura put on an apron of Polly's, and helped her cousin toclear away. Mrs. Mason had gruffly bade her sit still, but when the girlpersisted, she herself--flushed with dinner and combat--took her seat onthe settle, opposite to old Daffady, and deliberately made holiday, watching Stephen's daughter all the time from the black eyes that rovedand shone so strangely under the shaggy brows and the white hair. 

The old cowman sat hunched over the fire, smoking his pipe for a time inbeatific silence. 

But presently Laura, as she went to and fro, caught snatches ofconversation. 

"Did tha go ta Laysgill last Sunday?" said Mrs. Mason abruptly. 

Daffady removed his pipe. 

"Aye, a went, an a preeched. It wor a varra stirrin meetin. Sum o' yorpaid preests sud ha' bin theer. A gien it 'em strang. A tried ta hit 'emall--baith gert an lile. "

There was a pause, then he added placidly:

"A likely suden't suit them varra weel. Theer was a mon beside me, aspooed me down afoor a'd hofe doon. "

"Tha sudna taak o' 'paid preests, ' Daffady, " said Mrs. Mason severely. "Tha doosna understand nowt o' thattens. "

Daffady glanced slyly at his mistress--at the "Church-pride" implied inthe attitude of her capacious form, in the shining of the Sunday alpacaand black silk apron. 

"Mebbe not, " he said mildly, "mebbe not. " And he resumed his pipe. 

On another occasion, as Laura went flitting across the kitchen, drawingto herself the looks of both its inmates, she heard what seemed to be afragment of talk about a funeral. 

"Aye, poor Jenny!" said Mrs. Mason. "They didna mak' mich account on herwhan t' breath wor yanst oot on her. "

"Nay, "--Daffady shook his head for sympathy, --"it wor a varra poorset-oot, wor Jenny's buryin. Nowt but tay, an sic-like. "

Mrs. Mason raised two gaunt hands and let them drop again on her knee. 

"I shud ha' thowt they'd ha' bin ashamed, " she said. "Jenny's brass ulldo 'em noa gude. She wor a fule to leave it to 'un. "

Daffady withdrew his pipe again. His lantern-jawed face, furrowed withslow thought, hung over the blaze. 

"Aye, " he said, "aye. Wal, I've buried three childer--an I'm nobbut alabrin mon--but a thank the Lord I ha buried them aw--wi' ham. "

The last words came out with solemnity. Laura, at the other end of thekitchen, turned open-mouthed to look at the pair. Not a feature moved ineither face. She sped back into the dairy, and Polly looked up inastonishment. 

"What ails tha?" she said. 

"Oh, nothing!" said Laura, dashing the merry tears from her eyes. Sheproceeded to roll up her sleeves, and plunge her hands and arms into thebowl of warm water that Polly had set before her. Meanwhile, Polly, verybig and square, much reddened also by the fuss of household work, stoodjust behind her cousin's shoulder, looking down, half in envy, half inadmiration, at the slimness of the white wrists and pretty fingers. 

A little later the two girls, all traces of their housework removed, cameback into the kitchen. Daffady and Mrs. Mason had disappeared. 

"Where is Cousin Elizabeth?" said Laura rather sharply, as she lookedround her. 

Polly explained that her mother was probably shut up in her bedroomreading her Bible. That was her custom on a Sunday afternoon. 

"Why, I haven't spoken to her at all!" cried Laura. Her cheek hadflushed. 

Polly showed embarrassment. 

"Next time yo coom, mother'll tak' mair noatice. She was takkin stock o'you t' whole time, I'll uphowd yo. "

"That isn't what I wanted, " said Laura. 

She walked to the window and leaned her head against the frame. Pollywatched her with compunction, seeing quite plainly the sudden drop of thelip. All she could do was to propose to show her cousin the house. 

Laura languidly consented. 

So they wandered again through the dark stone-slabbed dairy, with itsmilk pans on the one side and its bacon-curing troughs on the other; andinto the little stuffy bedrooms upstairs, each with its small oakfour-poster and patchwork counterpane. They looked at the home-made quiltof goosedown--Polly's handiwork--that lay on Hubert's bed; at theclusters of faded photographs and coloured prints that hung on the olduneven walls; at the vast meal-ark in Polly's room that held the familystore of meal and oatcake for the year. 

"When we wor little 'uns, fadther used to give me an Hubert a silversaxpence the day he browt home t' fresh melder fro' t' mill, " said Polly;"theer was parlish little nobbut paritch and oatcake to eat when we worsmall. An now I'll uphold yo there isn't a farm servant but wants hiswhite bread yanst a day whativver happens. "

The house was neat and clean, but there were few comforts in it, and noluxuries. It showed, too, a number of small dilapidations that a verylittle money and care would soon have set to rights. Polly pointed tothem sadly. There was no money, and Hubert didn't trouble himself. "Fadther was allus workin. He'd be up at half-past four this time o'year, an he didna go to bed soa early noather. But Hubert'ull do nowt hecan help. Yo can hardly get him to tak' t' peäts i' ter Whinthorpe whent' peät-cote's brastin wi' 'em. An as fer doin a job o' cartin fer t'neebors, t' horses may be eatin their heads off, Hubert woan't stirhissel'. 'Let 'em lead their aan muck for theirsels'--that's what he'llsay. Iver sen fadther deed it's bin janglin atwixt mother an Hubert. Itmakes her mad to see iverything goin downhill. An he's that masterful hewoan't be towd. Yo saw how he went on wi' Daffady at dinner. But if itweren't for Daffady an us, there'd be no stock left. "

And poor Polly, sitting on the edge of the meal-ark and dangling herlarge feet, went into a number of plaintive details, that were mostlyunintelligible, sometimes repulsive, in Laura's ears. 

It seemed that Hubert was always threatening to leave the farm. "Give mea bit of money, and you'll soon be quit of me. I'll go to Froswick, andmake my fortune"--that was what he'd say to his mother. But who was goingto give him money to throw about? And he couldn't sell the farm whileMrs. Mason lived, by the father's will. 

As to her mother, Polly admitted that she was "gey ill to live wi'. "There was no one like her for "addlin a bit here and addlin a bit there. "She was the best maker and seller of butter in the country-side; but shehad been queer about religion ever since an illness that attacked her asa young woman. 

And now it was Mr. Bayley, the minister, who excited her, and made herworse. Polly, for her part, hated him. "My worrd, he do taak!" said she. And every Sunday he preached against Catholics, and the Pope, and suchlike. And as there were no Catholics anywhere near, but Mr. Helbeck atBannisdale, and a certain number at Whinthorpe, people didn't know whatto make of him. And they laughed at him, and left off going--exceptoccasionally for curiosity, because he preached in a black gown, which, so Polly heard tell, was very uncommon nowadays. But mother would listento him by the hour. And it was all along of Teddy Williams. It was thathad set her mad. 

Here, however, Polly broke off to ask an eager question. What had Mr. Helbeck said when Laura told him of her wish to go and see her cousins?

"I'll warrant he wasn't best pleased! Feyther couldn't abide him--becauseof Teddy. He didn't thraw no stones that neet i' Whinthrupp Lane--feytherwas a strict man and read his Bible reg'lar--but he stood wi' t' lads anlooked on--he didn't say owt to stop 'em. Mr. Helbeck called to him--hehad a priest with him--'Mr. Mason!' he ses, 'this is an old man--speak tothose fellows!' But feyther wouldn't. 'Let 'em trounce tha!' heses--'aye, an him too! It'ull do tha noa harm. '--Well, an what did hesay, Mr. Helbeck?--I'd like to know. "

"Say? Nothing--except that it was a long way, and I might have the ponycarriage. "

Laura's tone was rather dry. She was sitting on the edge of Polly's bed, with her arm round one of its oaken posts. Her cheek was laid against thepost, and her eyes had been wandering about a good deal while Pollytalked. Till the mention of Helbeck. Then her attention came back. Andduring Polly's account of the incident in Whinthorpe Lane, she began tofrown. What bigotry, after all! As to the story of young Williams--it wasvery perplexing--she would get the truth of it out of Augustina. But itwas extraordinary that it should be so well known in this uplandfarm--that it should make a kind of link--a link of hatred--between Mr. Helbeck and the Masons. After her movement of wild sympathy with Mrs. Mason, she realised now, as Polly's chatter slipped on, that sheunderstood her cousins almost as little as she did Helbeck. 

Nay, more. The picture of Helbeck stoned and abused by these rough, uneducated folk had begun to rouse in her a curious sympathy. Unwillinglyher mind invested him with a new dignity. 

So that when Polly told a rambling story of how Mr. Bayley, after thestreet fight, had met Mr. Helbeck at a workhouse meeting and had placedhis hands behind his back when Mr. Helbeck offered his own, Laura tossedher head. 

"What a ridiculous man!" she said disdainfully; "what can it matter toMr. Helbeck whether Mr. Bayley shakes hands with him or not?"

Polly looked at her in some astonishment, and dropped the subject. Theelder woman, conscious of plainness and inferiority, was humbly anxiousto please her new cousin. The girl's delicate and characteristicphysique, her clear eyes and decided ways, and a certain look she had inconversation--half absent, half critical--which was inherited from herfather, --all of them combined to intimidate the homely Polly, and shefelt perhaps less at ease with her visitor as she saw more of her. 

Presently they stood before some old photographs on Polly's mantelpiece;Polly looked timidly at her cousin. 

"Doan't yo think as Hubert's verra handsome?" she said. 

And taking up one of the portraits, she brushed it with her sleeve andhanded it to Laura. 

Laura held it up for scrutiny. 

"No--o, " she said coolly, "not really handsome. "

Polly looked disappointed. 

"There's not a mony gells aboot here as doan't coe Hubert handsome, " shesaid with emphasis. 

"It's Hubert's business to call the girls handsome, " said Laura, laughing, and handing back the picture. 

Polly grinned--then suddenly looked grave. 

"I wish he'd leave t' gells alone!" she said with an accent of someenergy, "he'll mappen get into trooble yan o' these days!"

"They don't keep him in his place, I suppose, " said Laura, flushing, shehardly knew why. She got up and walked across the room to the window. What did she want to know about Hubert and "t' gells"? She hated vulgarand lazy young men!--though they might have a musical gift that, so tospeak, did not belong to them. 

Nevertheless she turned round again to ask, with some imperiousness, --

"Where is your brother?--what is he doing all this time?"

"Sittin alongside the coo, I dare say--lest Daffady should be gettin thecredit of her, " said Polly, laughing. "The poor creetur fell three dayssen--summat like a stroke, t' farrier said, --an Hubert's bin that jealouso' Daffady iver sen. He's actually poo'ed hissel' oot o' bed mornins toluke after her!--Lord bless us--I mun goa an feed t' calves!"

And hastily throwing an apron over her Sunday gown, Polly clattered downthe stairs in a whirlwind. 

 * * * * *

Laura followed her more leisurely, passed through the empty kitchen andopened the front door. 

As she stood under the porch looking out, she put up a small hand to hidea yawn. When she set out that morning she had meant to spend the wholeday at the farm. Now it was not yet tea-time, and she was more than readyto go. In truth her heart was hot, and rather bitter. Cousin Elizabeth, certainly, had treated her with a strange coolness. And as forHubert--after that burst of friendship, beside the piano! She drewherself together sharply--she would go at once and ask him for her ponycart. 

Lifting her skirt daintily, she picked her way across the dirty yard, andfumbled at a door opposite--the door whence she had seen old Daffady comeout at dinner-time. 

"Who's there?" shouted a threatening voice from within. 

Laura succeeded in lifting the clumsy latch. Hubert Mason, from inside, saw a small golden head appear in the doorway. 

"Would you kindly help me get the pony cart?" said the light, half-sarcastic voice of Miss Fountain. "I must be going, and Polly'sfeeding the calves. "

Her eyes at first distinguished nothing but a row of dim animal forms, incrowded stalls under a low roof. Then she saw a cow lying on the ground, and Hubert Mason beside her, amid the wreaths of smoke that he waspuffing from a clay pipe. The place was dark, close, and fetid. Shewithdrew her head hastily. There was a muttering and movement inside, andMason came to the door, thrusting his pipe into his pocket. 

"What do you want to go for, just yet?" he said abruptly. 

"I ought to get home. "

"No; you don't care for us, nor our ways. That's it; an I don't wonder. "

She made polite protestations, but he would not listen to them. He strodeon beside her in a stormy silence, till the impulse to prick himovermastered her. 

"Do you generally sit with the cows?" she asked him sweetly. She shot hergrey eyes towards him, all mockery and cool examination. He was notaccustomed to such looks from the young women whom he chose to notice. 

"I was not going to stay and be treated like that before strangers!" hesaid, with a sulky fierceness. "Mother thinks she and Daffady can justhave their own way with me, as they'd used to do when I was nobbut a lad. But I'll let her know--aye, and the men too!"

"But if you hate farming, why don't you let Daffady do the work?"

Her sly voice stung him afresh. 

"Because I'll be mëaster!" he said, bringing his hand violently down onthe shaft of the pony cart. "If I'm to stay on in this beastly hole I'llmake every one knaw their place. Let mother give me some money, an I'llsoon take myself off, an leave her an Daffady to draw their own watertheir own way. But if I'm here I'm _mëaster_!" He struck the cart again. 

"Is it true you don't work nearly as hard as your father?"

He looked at her amazed. If Susie Flinders down at the mill had spoken tohim like that, he would have known how to shut her mouth for her. 

"An I daur say it is, " he said hotly. "I'm not goin to lead the dog'slife my father did--all for the sake of diddlin another sixpence or twooot o' the neighbours. Let mother give me my money oot o' the farm. I'dgo to Froswick fast enough. That's the place to get on. I've gotfriends--I'd work up in no time. "

Laura glanced at him. She said nothing. 

"You doan't think I would?" he asked her angrily, pausing in his handlingof the harness to throw back the challenge of her manner. His wrathseemed to have made him handsomer, better-braced, more alive. Physicallyshe admired him for the first time, as he stood confronting her. 

But she only lifted her eyebrows a little. 

"I thought one had to have a particular kind of brains for business--andbegin early, too?"

"I could learn, " he said gruffly, after which they were both silent tillthe harnessing was done. 

Then he looked up. 

"I'd like to drive you to the bridge--if you're agreeable?"

"Oh, don't trouble yourself, pray!" she said in polite haste. 

His brows knit again. 

"I know how 'tis--you won't come here again. "

Her little face changed. 

"I'd like to, " she said, her voice wavering, "because papa used to stayhere. "

He stared at her. 

"I do remember Cousin Stephen, " he said at last, "though I towd you Ididn't. I can see him standing at the door there--wi' a big hat--an abeard--like straw--an a check coat wi' great bulgin pockets. "

He stopped in amazement, seeing the sudden beauty of her eyes and cheeks. 

"That's it, " she said, leaning towards him. "Oh, that's it!" She closedher eyes a moment, her small lips trembling. Then she opened them with along breath. 

"Yes, you may drive me to the bridge if you like. "

 * * * * *

And on the drive she was another being. She talked to him about music, sosoftly and kindly that the young man's head swam with pleasure. All herown musical enthusiasms and experiences--the music in the collegechapels, the music at the Greek plays, the few London concerts and operasshe had heard, her teachers and her hero-worships--she drew upon it allin her round light voice, he joining in from time to time with a roughpassion and yearning that seemed to transfigure him. In half an hour, asit were, they were friends; their relations changed wholly. He looked ather with all his eyes; hung upon her with all his ears. And she--sheforgot that he was vulgar and a clown; such breathless pleasure, such ahumble absorption in superior wisdom, would have blunted the sterneststandard. 

As for him, the minutes flew. When at last the bridge over the BannisdaleRiver came in sight, he began to check the pony. 

"Let's drive on a bit, " he said entreatingly. 

"No, no--I must get back to Mrs. Fountain. " And she took the reins fromhis hands. 

"I say, when will you come again?"

"Oh, I don't know. " She had put on once more the stand-off town-bredmanner that puzzled his countryman's sense. 

"I say, mother shan't talk that stuff to you next time. I'll tell her--"he said imploringly. --"Halloa! let me out, will you?"

And to her amazement, before she could draw in the pony, he had jumpedout of the cart. 

"There's Mr. Helbeck!" he said to her with a crimson face. "I'm off. Good-bye!"

He shook her hand hastily, turned his back, and strode away. 

She looked towards the gate in some bewilderment, and saw that Helbeckwas holding it open for her. Beside him stood a tall priest--not FatherBowles. It was evident that both of them had seen her parting from hercousin. 

Well, what then? What was there in that, or in Mr. Helbeck's ceremoniousgreeting, to make her cheeks hot all in a moment? She could have beatenherself for a silly lack of self-possession. Still more could she havebeaten Hubert for his clownish and hurried departure. What was he afraidof? Did he think that she would have shown the smallest shame of herpeasant relations?

CHAPTER VI

"Is that Mrs. Fountain's stepdaughter?" said Helbeck's companion, asLaura and her cart disappeared round a corner of the winding road onwhich the two men were walking. 

Helbeck made a sign of assent. 

"You may very possibly have known her father?" He named the Cambridgecollege of which Stephen Fountain had been a Fellow. 

The Jesuit, who was a convert, and had been a distinguished Cambridgeman, considered for a moment. 

"Oh! yes--I remember the man! A strange being, who was only heard of, ifI recollect right, in times of war. If there was any disputegoing--especially on a religious point--Stephen Fountain would rush intoit with broad-sheets. Oh, yes, I remember him perfectly--a great untidy, fair-haired, truculent fellow, to whom anybody that took any thought forhis soul was either fool or knave. How much of him does the daughterinherit?"

Helbeck returned the other's smile. "A large slice, I think. She comeshere in the curious position of having never lived in a Christianhousehold before, and she seems already to have great difficulty inputting up with us. "

Father Leadham laughed, then looked reflective. 

"How often have I known that the best of all possible beginnings! Is sheattached to her stepmother?"

"Yes. But Mrs. Fountain has no influence over her. "

"It is a striking colouring--that white skin and reddish hair. And it isa face of some power, too. "

"Power?" Helbeck demurred. "I think she is clever, " he said dryly. "And, of course, coming from a university town, she has heard of things thatother girls know nothing of. But she has had no training, moral orintellectual. "

"And no Christian education?"

Helbeck shrugged his shoulders. 

"She was only baptized with difficulty. When she was eleven or twelve shewas allowed to go to church two or three times, I understand, on thehelot principle--was soon disgusted--her father of course supplying arunning comment at home--and she has stood absolutely outside religion ofall kinds since. "

"Poor child!" said the priest with heartiness. The paternal note in thewords was more than official. He was a widower, and had lost his wife andinfant daughter two years before his entrance into the Church of Rome. 

Helbeck smiled. "I assure you Miss Fountain spends none of her pity uponherself. "

"I dare say more than you think. The position of the unbeliever in ahouse like yours is always a painful one. You see she is alone. Theremust be a sense of exile--of something touching and profound going onbeside her, from which she is excluded. She comes into a house with achapel, where the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, where everybody iskeeping a strict Lent. She has not a single thought in common with youall. No; I am very sorry for Miss Fountain. "

Helbeck was silent a moment. His dark face showed a shade of disturbance. 

"She has some relations near here, " he said at last, "but unfortunately Ican't do much to promote her seeing them. You remember Williams's story?"

"Of course. You had some local row, didn't you? Ah! I remember. "

And the two men walked on, discussing a case which had been and was stillof great interest to them as Catholics. The hero, moreover--the Jesuitnovice himself--was well known to them both. 

"So Miss Fountain's relations belong to that peasant class?" said theJesuit, musing. "How curious that she should find herself in such adouble relation to you and Bannisdale!"

"Consider me a little, if you please, " said Helbeck, with his slight, rare smile. "While that young lady is under my roof--you see howattractive she is--I cannot get rid, you will admit, of a certainresponsibility. Augustina has neither the will nor the authority of amother, and there is literally no one else. Now there happens to be ayoung man in this Mason family----"

"Ah!" said the priest; "the young gentleman who jumped out at the bridge, with such a very light pair of heels?"

Helbeck nodded. "The old people were peasants and fanatics. They thoughtill of me in the Williams affair, and the mother, who is still alive, would gladly hang and quarter me to-morrow if she could. But that isanother point. The old people had their own dignity, their own mannersand virtues--or, rather, the manners and virtues of their class. The oldman was coarse and boorish, but he was hard-working and honourable, and aChristian after his own sort. But the old man is dead, and the son, whonow works the farm jointly with his mother, is of no class and nocharacter. He has just education enough to despise his father and hisfather's hard work. He talks the dialect with his inferiors, or hiskindred, and drops it with you and me. The old traditions have no holdupon him, and he is just a vulgar and rather vicious hybrid, who drinksmore than is good for him and has a natural affinity for any sort of lowlove-affair. I came across him at our last hunt ball. I never go to suchthings, but last year I went. "

"Good!" ejaculated the Jesuit, turning a friendly face upon the speaker. 

Helbeck paused. The word, still more the emphasis with which it wasthrown out, challenged him. He was about to defend himself against animplied charge, but thought better of it, and resumed:

"And unfortunately, considering the way in which all the clan felttowards me already, I found this youth in the supper-room, misbehavinghimself with a girl of his own sort, and very drunk. I fetched a steward, and he was told to go. After which, you may imagine that it is scarcelyagreeable to me to see my guest--a very young lady, very pretty, verydistinguished--driving about the country in cousinly relations with thiscreature!"

The last words were spoken with considerable vivacity. The aristocrat andthe ascetic, the man of high family and the man of scrupulous andfastidious character, were alike expressed in them. 

The Jesuit pondered a little. 

"No; you will have to keep watch. Why not distract her? You must haveplenty of other neighbours to show her. "

Helbeck shook his head. 

"I live like a hermit. My sister is in the first year of her widowhoodand very delicate. "

"I see. " The Jesuit hesitated, then said, smiling, in the tone of one whomakes a venture: "The Bishop and I allowed ourselves to discuss thesecloistered ways of yours the other day. We thought you would forgive usas a pair of old friends. "

"I know, " was the somewhat quick interruption, "the Bishop is ofManning's temper in these things. He believes in acting on and with theProtestant world--in our claiming prominence as citizens. It was toplease him that I joined one or two committees last year--that I went tothe hunt ball----"

Then, suddenly, in a very characteristic way, Helbeck checked his ownflow of speech, and resumed more quietly: "Well, all that----"

"Leaves you of the same opinion still?" said the Jesuit, smiling. 

"Precisely. I don't belong to my neighbours, nor they to me. We don'tspeak the same language, and I can't bring myself to speak theirs. Theold conditions are gone, I know. But my feeling remains pretty much, whatthat of my forefathers was. I recognise that it is not commonnowadays--but I have the old maxim in my blood: 'Extra ecclesiam nullasalus. '"

"There is none which has done us more deadly harm in England, " cried theJesuit. "We forget that England is a baptized nation, and is therefore inthe supernatural state. "

"I remind myself of it very often, " said Helbeck, with a kind of proudsubmission; "and I judge no man. But my powers, my time, are all limited. I prefer to devote them to the 'household of faith. '"

The two men walked on in silence for a time. Presently Father Leadham'sface showed amusement, and he said:

"Certainly we modern converts have a better time of it than ourpredecessors! The Bishop tells me the most incredible things about theold feeling towards them in this Vicariate. And wherever I go I seem tohear the tale of the old priest who thanked God that he had neverreceived anyone into the Church. Everybody has met someone who knew thatold fellow! He may be a myth--but there is clearly history at the back ofhim!"

"I understand him perfectly, " said Helbeck, smiling; and he addedimmediately, with a curious intensity, "I, too, have never influenced, never tried to influence, anyone in my life. "

The priest looked at him, wondering. 

"Not Williams?"

"Williams! But Williams was born for the faith. Directly he saw what Iwanted to do in the chapel, he prayed to come and help me. It was hissummer holiday--he neglected no duty; it was wonderful to see hishappiness in the work--as I thought, an artistic happiness only. He usedto ask me questions about the different saints; once or twice he borroweda book--it was necessary to get the emblems correct. But I never said asingle controversial word to him. I never debated religious subjects withhim at all, till the night when he took refuge with me after his fatherhad thrashed him so cruelly that he could not stand. Grace taught him, not I. "

"Grace taught him, but through you, " said the priest with quiet emphasis. "Perhaps I know more about that than you do. "

Helbeck flushed. 

"I think you are mistaken. At any rate, I should prefer that you weremistaken. "

The priest raised his eyebrows. 

"A man who holds 'no salvation outside the Church, '" he said slowly, "andrejoices in the thought that he has never influenced anybody?"

"I should hope little from the work achieved by such an instrument. Somemen have enough to do with their own souls, " was the low but vehementanswer. 

The priest threw a wondering glance at his companion, at the signs offeeling--profound and morbid feeling--on the harsh face beside him. 

"Perhaps you have never cared enough for anyone outside to wishpassionately to bring them within, " he said. "But if that ever happens toyou, you will be ready--I think you will be ready--to use any tool, evenyourself. "

The priest's voice changed a little. Helbeck, somewhat startled, recalledthe facts of Father Leadham's personal history, and thought heunderstood. The subject was instantly dropped, and the two men walked onto the house, discussing a great canonisation service at St. Peter's andthe Pope's personal part in it. 

 * * * * *

The old Hall, as Helbeck and Father Leadham approached it, looked downupon a scene of animation to which in these latter days it was but littleaccustomed. The green spaces and gravelled walks in front of it weresprinkled with groups of children in a blue-and-white uniform. Three orfour Sisters of Mercy in their winged white caps moved about among them, and some of the children hung clustered like bees about the Sisters'skirts, while others ran here and there, gleefully picking the scattereddaffodils that starred the grass. 

The invaders came from the Orphanage of St. Ursula, a house founded byMr. Helbeck's exertions, which lay half-way between Bannisdale andWhinthorpe. They had not long arrived, and were now waiting for Rosaryand Benediction in the chapel before they were admitted to the tea whichMrs. Denton and Augustina had already spread for them in the big hall. 

At sight of the children Helbeck's face lit up and his step quickened. They on their side ran to him from all parts; and he had hardly time togreet the Sisters in charge of them, before the eager creatures werepulling him into the walled garden behind the Hall, one small girlhanging on his hand, another perched upon his shoulder. Father Leadhamwent into the house to prepare for the service. 

The garden was old and dark, like the Tudor house that stood between itand the sun. Rows of fantastic shapes carved in living yew and box stoodranged along the straight walks. A bowling-green enclosed in high beechhedges was placed in the exact centre of the whole formal place, whilethe walks and alleys from three sides, west, north, and south, convergedupon it, according to a plan unaltered since it was first laid down inthe days of James II. At this time of the year there were no flowers inthe stiff flower-beds; for Mr. Helbeck had long ceased to spend any butthe most necessary monies upon his garden. Only upon the high stone wallsthat begirt this strange and melancholy pleasure-ground, and in the"wilderness" that lay on the eastern side, between the garden and thefell, were nature and the spring allowed to show themselves. Their jointmagic had covered the old walls with fruit blossom and spread the"wilderness" with daffodils. Otherwise all was dark, tortured, fantastic, a monument of old-world caprice that the heart could not love, thoughpiety might not destroy it. 

The children, however, brought life and brightness. They chased eachother up and down the paths, and in and out of the bowling-green. Helbeckset them to games, and played with them himself. Only for the orphans nowdid he ever thus recall his youth. 

Two Sisters, one comparatively young, the other a woman of fifty, stoodin an opening of the bowling-green, looking at the games. 

The younger one said to her companion, who was the Superior of theorphanage, "I do like to see Mr. Helbeck with the children! It seems tochange him altogether. "

She spoke with eager sympathy, while her eyes, the visionary eyes of thetypical religious, sunk in a face that was at once sweet and peevish, followed the children and their host. 

The other--shrewd-faced and large--had a movement of impatience. 

"I should like to see Mr. Helbeck with some children of his own. For fiveyears now I have prayed our Blessed Mother to give him a good wife. That's what he wants. Ah! Mrs. Fountain----"

And as Augustina advanced with her little languid air, accompanied by herstepdaughter, the Sisters gathered round her, chattering and cooing, showing her a hundred attentions, enveloping her in a homage that waspartly addressed to the sister of their benefactor, and partly--as shewell understood--to the sheep that had been lost and was found. To thestepdaughter they showed a courteous reserve. One or two of them hadalready made acquaintance with her, and had not found her amiable. 

And, indeed, Laura held herself aloof, as before. But she shot a glanceof curiosity at the elderly woman who had wished Mr. Helbeck a good wife. The girl had caught the remark as she and her stepmother turned thecorner of the dense beechen hedge that, with openings to each point ofthe compass, enclosed the bowling-green. 

Presently Helbeck, stopping to take breath in a game of which he had beenthe life, caught sight of the slim figure against the red-brown of thehedge. The next moment he perceived that Miss Fountain was watching himwith an expression of astonishment. 

His first instinct was to let her be. Her manner towards him since herarrival, with hardly a break, had been such as to chill the most sociabletemper. And Helbeck's temper was far from sociable. 

But something in her attitude--perhaps its solitariness--made himuncomfortable. He went up to her, dragging with him a crowd of smallchildren, who tugged at his coat and hands. 

"Miss Fountain, will you take pity on us? My breath is gone. "

He saw her hesitate. Then her sudden smile broke out. 

"What'll you have?" she said, catching hold of the nearest child. "MotherBunch?"

And off she flew, running, twisting, turning with the merriest of them, her loosened hair gleaming in the sun, her small feet twinkling. Now itwas Helbeck's turn to stand and watch. What a curious grace and purposethere was in all her movements! Even in her play Miss Fountain was apersonality. 

At last a little girl who was running with her began to drag and turnpale. Laura stopped to look at her. 

"I can't run any more, " said the child piteously. "I had a bone took outof my leg last year. "

She was a sickly-looking creature, rickety and consumptive, a waif from aLiverpool slum. Laura picked her up and carried her to a seat in a yewarbour away from the games. Then the child studied her with shy-lookingeyes, and suddenly slipped an arm like a bit of stick round the prettylady's neck. 

"Tell me a story, please, teacher, " she said imploringly. 

Laura was taken aback, for she had forgotten the tales of her ownchildhood, and had never possessed any younger brothers or sisters, orpaid much attention to children in general. But with some difficulty shestumbled through Cinderella. 

"Oh, yes, I know that; but it's lovely, " said the child, at the end, witha sigh of content. "Now I'll tell you one. "

And in a high nasal voice, like one repeating a lesson in class, shebegan upon something which Laura soon discovered to be the life of asaint. She followed the phrases of it with a growing repugnance, till atlast the speaker said, with the unction of one sure of her audience:

"And once the good Father went to a hospital to visit some sick people. And as he was hearing a poor sailor's confession, he found out that itwas his own brother, whom he had not seen for a long, long time. Now thesailor was very ill, and going to die, and he had been a bad man, anddone a great many wicked things. But the good Father did not let the poorman know who he was. He went home and told his Superior that he had foundhis brother. And the Superior forbade him to go and see his brotheragain, because, he said, God would take care of him. And the Father wasvery sad, and the devil tempted him sorely. But he prayed to God, and Godhelped him to be obedient. 

"And a great many years afterwards a poor woman came to see the goodFather. And she told him she had seen our Blessed Lady in a vision. Andour Blessed Lady had sent her to tell the Father that because he had beenso obedient, and had not been to see his brother again, our Lady hadprayed our Lord for his brother. And his brother had made a good death, and was saved, all because the good Father had obeyed what his Superiortold him. "

Laura sprang up. The child, who had expected a kiss and a pious phrase, looked up, startled. 

"Wasn't that a pretty story?" she said timidly. 

"No; I don't like it at all, " said Miss Fountain decidedly. "I wonderthey tell you such tales!"

The child stared at her for a moment. Then a sudden veil fell across theclearness of her eyes, which had the preternatural size and brilliance ofdisease. Her expression changed. It became the slyness of the watchinganimal, that feels the enemy. She said not another word. 

Laura felt a pang of shame, even though she was still vibrating with therepulsion the child's story had excited in her. 

"Look!" she said, raising the little one in her arms; "the others are allgoing into the house. Shall we go too?"

But the child struggled resolutely. 

"Let me down. I can walk. " Laura set her down, and the child walked asfast as her lame leg would let her to join the others. Once or twice shelooked round furtively at her companion; but she would not take the handLaura offered her, and she seemed to have wholly lost her tongue. 

"Little bigot!" thought Laura, half angry, half amused; "do they catch itfrom their cradle?"

Presently they found themselves in the tail of a crowd of children andSisters who were ascending the stairs of a doorway opening on the garden. The doorway led, as Laura knew, to the corridor of the chapel. She letherself be carried along, irresolute, and presently she found herselfwithin the curtained doorway, mechanically helping the Sisters andAugustina to put the children in their places. 

One or two of the older children noticed that the young lady with Mrs. Fountain did not sign herself with holy water, and did not genuflect inpassing the altar, and they looked at her with a stealthy surprise. Agentle-looking young Sister came up to her as she was lifting a verysmall child to a seat. 

"Thank you, " murmured the Sister, "It is very good of you. " But thevoice, though so soft, was cold, and Laura at once felt herself theintruder, and withdrew to the back of the crowd. 

Yet again, as at her first visit to the chapel, so now, she was toocurious, for all her soreness, to go. She must see what they would be at. 

 * * * * *

"Rosary" passed, and she hardly understood a word. The voice of theJesuit intoning suggested nothing intelligible to her, and it was sometime before she could even make out what the children were saying intheir loud-voiced responses. "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for ussinners, now and at the hour of our death"--was that it? And occasionallyan "Our Father" thrown in--all of it gabbled as fast as possible, asthough the one object of both priest and people were to get through andmake an end. Over and over again, without an inflection, or achange--with just the one monotonous repetition and the equallymonotonous variation. What a barbarous and foolish business!

Very soon she gave up listening. Her eyes wandered to the frescoes, tothe bare altar with its purple covering, to the tall candles sparklingbefore the tabernacle; and the coloured and scented gloom, pierced withthe distant lights, gave her a vague pleasure. 

Presently there was a pause. The children settled themselves in theirseats with a little clatter. Father Leadham retired, while the Sistersknelt, each bowed profoundly on herself, eyes closed under her coif, hands clasped in front of her. 

What were they waiting for? Ah! there was the priest again, but in achanged dress--a white cope of some splendour. The organ, played by oneof the Sisters, broke out upon the silence, and the voices of the restrose suddenly, small and sweet, in a Latin hymn. The priest went to thetabernacle, and set it open. There was a swinging of incense, and thewaves of fragrant smoke flowed out upon the chapel, dimming the altar andthe figure before it. Laura caught sight for a moment of the young Sisterwho had spoken to her. She was kneeling and singing, with sweet, shuteyes; it was clear that she was possessed by a fervour of feeling. MissFountain thought to herself, with wonder, "She cannot be much older thanI am!"

After the hymn it was the children's turn. What were they singing solustily to so dancing a tune? Laura bent over to look at the book of aSister in front of her. 

"Virgo prudentissima, Virgo veneranda, Virgo praedicanda----"

With difficulty she found the place in another book that lay upon a chairbeside her. Then for a few minutes she lost herself in a first amazementover that string of epithets and adjectives with which the CatholicChurch throughout the world celebrates day by day and Sunday after Sundaythe glories of Mary. The gay music, the harsh and eager voices of thechildren, flowed on, the waves of incense spread throughout the chapel. When she raised her eyes they fell upon Helbeck's dark head in the fardistance, above his server's cotta. A quick change crossed her face, transforming it to a passionate contempt. 

 * * * * *

But of her no one thought--save once. The beautiful "moment" of theceremony had come. Father Leadham had raised the monstrance, containingthe Host, to give the Benediction. Every Sister, every child, except afew small and tired ones, was bowed in humblest adoration. 

Mr. Helbeck, too, was kneeling in the little choir. But his attentionwandered. With the exception of his walk with Father Leadham, he had beenin church since early morning, and even for him response was temporarilyexhausted. His look strayed over the chapel. 

It was suddenly arrested. Above the kneeling congregation a distant faceshowed plainly in the April dusk amid the dimness of incense andpainting--a girl's face, delicately white and set--a face of revolt. 

"Why is she here?" was his first thought. It came with a rush ofannoyance, even resentment. But immediately other thoughts met it: "Sheis lonely; she is here under my roof; she has lost her father; poorchild!"

The last mental phrase was not so much his own as an echo from FatherLeadham. In Helbeck's mind it was spoken very much as the priest hadspoken it--with that strange tenderness, at once so intimate and soimpersonal, which belongs to the spiritual relations of Catholicism. Thegirl's soul--lonely, hostile, uncared for--appealed to the charity of thebeliever. At the same time there was something in her defiance, her crudedisapproval of his house and his faith, that stimulated and challengedthe man. Conscious for the first time of a new conflict of feeling withinhimself, he looked steadily towards her across the darkness. 

It was as though he had sought and found a way to lift himself above heryoung pride, her ignorant enmity. For a moment there was a curiousexaltation and tyranny in his thought. He dropped his head and prayed forher, the words falling slow and deliberate within his consciousness. Andshe could not resent it or stop it. It was an aggression before which shewas helpless; it struck down the protest of her pale look. 

 * * * * *

At supper, when the Sisters and their charges had departed, Father Bowlesappeared, and never before had Helbeck been so lamentably aware of theabsurdities and inferiorities of his parish priest. 

The Jesuit, too, was sharply conscious of them, and even Augustina feltthat something was amiss. Was it that they were all--except FatherBowles--affected by the presence of the young lady on Helbeck's right--bythe cool detachment of her manner, the self-possession that appealed tono one and claimed none of the prerogatives of sex and charm, while everynow and then it made itself felt in tacit and resolute opposition to herenvironment?

"He might leave those things alone!" thought the Jesuit angrily, as heheard Father Bowles giving Mrs. Fountain a gently complacent account of ageological lecture lately delivered in Whinthorpe. 

"What I always say, you know, my dear lady, is this: you must show me theevidence! After all, you geologists have done much--you have dug here andthere, it is true. But dig all over the world--dig everywhere--lay it allbare. Then you may ask me to listen to you!"

The little round-faced priest looked round the table for support. Laurabit her lip and bent over her plate. Father Leadham turned hastily toHelbeck, and began to discuss with him a recent monograph on the RomanWall, showing a plentiful and scholarly knowledge of the subject. Andpresently he drew in the girl opposite, addressing her with aman-of-the-world ease and urbanity which disarmed her. It appeared thathe had just come back from mission-work in British Guiana, that he hadbeen in India, and was in all respects a travelled and accomplishedperson. But the girl did not yield herself, though she listened quitecivilly and attentively while he talked. 

But again through the Jesuit's easy or polished phrases there broke thepurring inanity of Father Bowles. 

"Lourdes, my dear lady? Lourdes? How can there be the smallest doubt ofthe miracles of Lourdes? Why! they keep two doctors on the spot to verifyeverything!"

The Jesuit's sense of humour was uncomfortably touched. He glanced atMiss Fountain, but could only see that she was gazing steadily out ofwindow. 

As for himself, convert and ex-Fellow of a well-known college, he gave astrong inward assent to the judgment of some of his own leaders, that theolder Catholic priests of this country are as a rule lamentably unfit fortheir work. "Our chance in England is broadening every year, " he said tohimself. "How are we to seize it with such tools? But all round we want_men_. Oh! for a few more of those who were 'out in forty-five'!"

 * * * * *

In the drawing-room after dinner Laura, as usual, entrenched herself inone of the deep oriel windows, behind a heavy table: Augustina showed ananxious curiosity as to the expedition of the morning--as to the Masonsand their farm. But Laura would say very little about them. 

When the gentlemen came in, Helbeck sent a searching look round thedrawing-room. He had the air of one who enters with a purpose. 

The beautiful old room lay in a half-light. A lamp at either end could dobut little against the shadows that seemed to radiate from the panelledwalls and from the deep red hangings of the windows. But the wood fire onthe hearth sent out a soft glow, which fastened on the few points ofbrilliance in the darkness--on the ivory of the fretted ceiling, on thedazzling dress of the Romney, on the gold of Miss Fountain's hair. 

Laura looked up with some surprise as Helbeck approached her; then, seeing that he apparently wished to talk, she made a place for him amongthe old "Books of Beauty" with which she had been bestrewing the seatthat ran round the window. 

"I trust the pony behaved himself this morning?" he said, as he sat down. 

Laura answered politely. 

"And you found your way without difficulty?"

"Oh, yes! Your directions were exact. "

Inwardly she said to herself, "Does he want to cross-examine me about theMasons?" Then, suddenly, she noticed the scar under his hair--a jaggedmark, testifying to a wound of some severity--and it made heruncomfortable. Nay, it seemed in some curious way to put her in thewrong, to shake her self-reliance. 

But Helbeck had not come with the intention of talking about the Masons. His avoidance of their name was indeed a pointed one. He drew out heradmiration of the daffodils and of the view from Browhead Lane. 

"After Easter we must show you something of the high mountains. Augustinatells me you admire the country. The head of Windermere will delightyou. "

His manner of offering her these civilities was somewhat stiff andconventional--the manner of one who had been brought up among countrygentry of the old school, apart from London and the _beau monde_. But itstruck Laura that, for the first time, he was speaking to her as a man ofhis breeding might be expected to speak to a lady visiting his house. There was consideration, and an apparent desire to please. It was asthough she had grown all at once into something more in his eyes thanMrs. Fountain's little stepdaughter, who was, no doubt, useful as a nurseand a companion, but radically unwelcome and insignificant none the less. 

Inevitably the girl's vanity was smoothed. She began to answer morenaturally; her smile became more frequent. And gradually an unwonted easeand enjoyment stole over Helbeck also. He talked with so much animationat last as to draw the attention of another person in the room. FatherLeadham, who had been leaning with some languor against the high, carvedmantel, while Father Bowles and Augustina babbled beneath him, began totake increasing notice of Miss Fountain, and of her relation to theBannisdale household. For a girl who had "no training, moral orintellectual, " she was showing herself, he thought, possessed of moreattraction than might have been expected, for the strict master of thehouse. 

Presently Helbeck came to a pause in what he was saying. He had beendescribing the country of Wordsworth, and had been dwelling on Grasmereand Eydal Mount, in the tone, indeed, of one who had no vital concernwhatever with the Lake poets or their poetry, but still with an evidentdesire to interest his companion. And following closely on this firsteffort to make friends with her something further suggested itself. 

He hesitated, looked at Laura, and at last said, in a lower voice than hehad been using, "I believe your father, Miss Fountain, was a great loverof Wordsworth. Augustina has told me so. You and he were accustomed, wereyou not, to read much together? Your loss must be very great. You willnot wonder, perhaps, that for me there are painful thoughts connectedwith your father. But I have not been insensible--I have not been withoutfeeling--for my sister--and for you. "

He spoke with embarrassment, and a kind of appeal. Laura had beenstartled by his first words, and while he spoke she sat very pale andupright, staring at him. The hand on her lap shook. 

When he ceased she did not answer. She turned her head, and he saw herpretty throat tremble. Then she hastily raised her handkerchief; astruggle passed over the face; she wiped away her tears, and threw backher head, with a sobbing breath and a little shake of the bright hair, like one who reproves herself. But she said nothing; and it was evidentthat she could say nothing without breaking down. 

Deeply touched, Helbeck unconsciously drew a little nearer to her. Changing the subject at once, he began to talk to her of the children andthe little festival of the afternoon. An hour before he would haveinstinctively avoided doing anything of the kind. Now, at last, heventured to be himself, or something near it. Laura regained hercomposure, and bent her attention upon him, with a slightly frowningbrow. Her mind was divided between the most contradictory impulses andattractions. How had it come about, she asked herself, after a while, that _she_ was listening like this to his schemes for his children andhis new orphanage?--she, and not his natural audience, the two priestsand Augustina. 

She actually heard him describe the efforts made by himself and one ortwo other Catholics in the county to provide shelter and education forthe county's Catholic orphans. He dwelt on the death and disappearance ofsome of his earlier colleagues, on the urgent need for a new building inthe neighbourhood of the county town, and for the enlargement of the"home" he himself had put up some ten years before, on the WhinthorpeRoad. 

"But, unfortunately, large plans want large means, " he added, with asmile, "and I fear it will come to it--has Augustina said anything to youabout it?--I fear there is nothing for it, but that our beauteous ladythere must provide them. "

He nodded towards the picture that gleamed from the opposite wall. Thenhe added gravely, and with a perfect simplicity:

"It is my last possession of any value. "

Several times during the fortnight that she had known him, Laura hadheard him speak with a similar simplicity about his personal andpecuniary affairs. That anyone so stately should treat himself and hisown worldly concerns with so much _naïveté_ had been a source of frequentsurprise to her. To what, then, did his dignity, his reserve apply?

Nevertheless, because, childishly, she had already taken a side, as itwere, about the picture, his manner, with its apparent indifference, annoyed her. She drew back. 

"Yes, Augustina told me. But isn't it cruel? isn't it unkind? A picturelike that is alive. It has been here so long--one could hardly feel itbelonged only to oneself. It is part of the house, isn't it?--part of thefamily? Won't other people--people who come after--reproach you?"

Helbeck lifted his shoulders, his dark face half amused, half sad. 

"She died a hundred years ago, pretty creature! She has had her turn; sohave we--in the pleasure of looking at her. "

"But she belongs to you, " said the girl insistently. "She is your ownkith and kin. "

He hesitated, then said, with a new emphasis that answered her own:

"Perhaps there are two sorts of kindred----"

The girl's cheek flushed. 

"And the one you mean may always push out the other? I know, because oneof your children told me a story to-day--such a frightful story!--of asaint who would not go to see his dying brother, for obedience' sake. Sheasked me if I liked it. How could I say I liked it! I told her it washorrible! I wondered how people could tell her such tales. "

Her bearing was again all hostility--a young defiance. She was delightedto confess herself. Her crime, untold, had been pressing upon herconscience, hurting her natural frankness. 

Helbeck's face changed. He looked at her attentively, the fine dark eye, under the commanding brow, straight and sparkling. 

"You said that to the child?"

"Yes. "

Her breast fluttered. She trembled, he saw, with an excitement she couldhardly repress. 

He, too, felt a novel excitement--the excitement of a strong willprovoked. It was clear to him that she meant to provoke him--that heryoung personality threw itself wantonly across his own. He spoke with aharsh directness. 

"You did wrong, I think--quite wrong. Excuse the word, but you havebrought me to close quarters. You sowed the seeds of doubt, of revolt, ina child's mind. "

"Perhaps, " said Laura quickly. "What then?"

She wore her half-wild, half-mocking look. Everything soft and touchinghad disappeared. The eyes shone under the golden mass of hair; the smallmouth was close and scornful. Helbeck looked at her in amazement, his ownpulse hurrying. 

"What then?" he echoed, with a sternness that astonished himself. "Askyour own feeling. What has a child--a little child under orders--to dowith doubt, or revolt? For her--for all of us--doubt is misery. "

Laura rose. She forced down her agitation--made herself speak plainly. 

"Papa taught me--it was life--and I believe him. "

The old clock in the farther corner of the room struck a quarter toten--the hour of prayers. The two priests on the farther side of the roomstood up, and Augustina sheathed her knitting-needles. 

Laura turned towards Helbeck and coldly held out her little hand. Hetouched it, and she crossed the room. "Good-night, Augustina. "

She kissed her stepmother, and bowed to the two priests. Father Leadhamceremoniously opened the door for her. Then he and Helbeck, Father Bowlesand Augustina followed across the dark hall on their way to the chapel. Laura took her candle, and her light figure could be seen ascending theJacobean staircase, a slim and charming vision against the shadows of theold house. 

Father Leadham followed it with eyes and thoughts. Then he glancedtowards Helbeck. An idea--and one that was singularly unwelcome--wasforcing its way into the priest's mind. 

BOOK II

CHAPTER I

From that night onwards the relations between Helbeck and his sister'sstepdaughter took another tone. He no longer went his own way, with nomore than a vague consciousness that a curious and difficult girl was inthe house; he watched her with increasing interest; he began to taste, asit were, the thorny charm that was her peculiar possession. 

Not that he was allowed to see much of the charm. After the conversationof Passion Sunday her manner to him was no less cold and distant thanbefore. Their final collision, on the subject of the child, had, hesupposed, undone the effects of his conciliatory words about her father. It must be so, no doubt, since her hostile observation of him and of hisfriends seemed to be in no whit softened. 

That he should be so often conscious of her at this particular timeannoyed and troubled him. It was the most sacred moment of the Catholicyear. Father Leadham, his old Stonyhurst friend, had come to spendPassion Week and Holy Week at Bannisdale, as a special favour to one whomthe Church justly numbered among the most faithful of her sons; while theSociety of Jesus had many links of mutual service and affection, bothwith the Helbeck family in the past and with the present owner of theHall. Helbeck, indeed, was of real importance to Catholicism in thisparticular district of England. It had once abounded in Catholicfamilies, but now hardly one of them remained, and upon Helbeck, with hissmall resources and dwindling estate, devolved a number of labours whichshould have been portioned out among a large circle. Only enthusiasm suchas his could have sufficed for the task. But, for the Church's sake, hehad now remained unmarried some fifteen years. He lived like an asceticin the great house, with a couple of women servants; he spent all hisincome--except a fraction--on the good works of a wide district; whenlarger sums were necessary he was ready, nay, eager, to sell the landnecessary to provide them; and whenever he journeyed to other parts ofEngland, or to the Continent, it was generally assumed that he had gone, not as other men go, for pleasure and recreation, but simply that hemight pursue some Catholic end, either of money or administration, amongthe rich and powerful of the faith elsewhere. Meanwhile, it was believedthat he had bequeathed the house and park of Bannisdale to a distantcousin, also a strict Catholic, with the warning that not much else wouldremain to his heir from the ancient and splendid inheritance of thefamily. 

It was not wonderful, then, that the Jesuits should be glad to do such aman a service; and no service could have been greater in Helbeck's eyesthan a visit from a priest of their order during these weeks of emotionand of penance. Every day Mass was said in the little chapel; everyevening a small flock gathered to Litany or Benediction. Ordinary lifewent on as it could in the intervals of prayer and meditation. The houseswarmed with priests--with old and infirm priests, many of them from aJesuit house of retreat on the western coast, not far away, who found ina visit to Bannisdale one of the chief pleasures of their suffering ormonotonous lives; while the Superiors of Helbeck's own orphanages werealways ready to help the Bannisdale chapel, on days of special sanctity, by sending a party of Sisters and children to provide the singing. 

Meanwhile all else was forgotten. As to food, Helbeck and FatherLeadham--according to the letters describing her experiences which Laurawrote during these weeks to a Cambridge girl friend--lived upon "a cup ofcoffee and a banana" per day, and she had endless difficulty inrestraining her charge, Augustina, from doing likewise. For Augustina, indeed--Stephen Fountain's little black-robed widow--her husband wasdaily receding further and further into a dim and dreadful distance, where she feared and yet wept to think of him. She passed her time in theintoxication of her recovered faith, excited by the people around her, bythe services in the chapel, and by her very terrors over her own unholyunion, lapse, and restoration. The sound of intoning, the scent, ofincense, seemed to pervade the house; and at the centre of all broodedthat mysterious Presence upon the altar, which drew the passion ofCatholic hearts to itself in ever deeper measure as the great days ofHoly Week and Easter approached. 

Through all this drama of an inventive and exacting faith, Laura Fountainpassed like a being from another world, an alien and a mocking spirit. She said nothing, but her eyes were satires. The effect of her presencein the house was felt probably by all its inmates, and by many of itsvisitors. She did not again express herself--except rarely toAugustina--with the vehemence she had shown to the little lame orphan;she was quite ready to chat and laugh upon occasion with Father Leadham, who had a pleasant wit, and now and then deliberately sought her society;and, owing to the feebleness of Augustina, she, quite unconsciously, established certain household ways which spoke the woman, and were new toBannisdale. She filled the drawing-room with daffodils; she made thetea-table by the hall fire a cheerful place for any who might visit it;she flitted about the house in the prettiest and neatest of springdresses; her hair, her face, her white hands and neck shone amid theshadows of the panelling like jewels in a casket. Everyone was consciousof her--uneasily conscious. She yielded herself to no one, was touched byno one. She stood apart, and through her cold, light ways spoke the worldand the spirit that deny--the world at which the Catholic shudders. 

At the same time, like everybody else in the house--even the sulkyhousekeeper--she grew pale and thin from Lenten fare. Mr. Helbeck had ofcourse given orders to Mrs. Denton that his sister and Miss Fountain wereto be well provided. But Mrs. Denton was grudging or forgetful; and itamused Laura to see that Augustina was made to eat, while she herselffared with the rest. The viands of whatever sort were generally scantyand ill-cooked; and neither the Squire nor Father Leadham cared anythingabout the pleasures of the table, in Lent or out of it. Mr. Helbeckhardly noticed what was set before him. Once or twice indeed he woke upto the fact that there was not enough for the ladies and would say anangry word to Mrs. Denton. But on the whole Laura was able to follow herwhim and to try for herself what this Catholic austerity might be like. 

"My dear, " she wrote to her friend, "one thing you learn from a CatholicLent is that food matters 'nowt at aw, ' as they would say in these parts. You can do just as well without it as with it. Why you should thinkyourself a saint for not eating it puzzles me. Otherwise--_vive la faim_!And as we are none of us likely to starve ourselves half so much as thepoor people of the world, the soldiers, and sailors, and explorers, arealways doing, to please themselves or their country, I don't suppose thatanybody will come to harm. 

"You are to understand, nevertheless, that our austerities are ratherunusual. And when anyone comes in from the outside they are concealed asmuch as possible.... The old Helbecks, as far as I can hear, must havebeen very different people from their modern descendant. They were quitegood Catholics, understand. What the Church prescribed they did--but nota fraction beyond. They were like the jolly lazy sort of schoolboy, who_just_ does his lesson, but would think himself a fool if he did a wordmore. Whereas the man who lives here now can never do enough!

"And in general these old Catholic houses--from Augustina's tales--musthave been full of fun and feasting. Well, I can vouch for it, there is nofun in Bannisdale now! It is Mr. Helbeck's personality, I suppose. Itmakes its own atmosphere. He _can_ laugh--I have seen it myself!--but itis an event. "

 * * * * *

As Lent went on, the mingling of curiosity and cool criticism with whichMiss Fountain regarded her surroundings became perhaps more apparent. Father Leadham, in particular, detected the young lady's fastingexperiments. He spoke of them to Helbeck as showing a lack of delicacyand good taste. But the Squire, it seemed, was rather inclined to regardthem as the whims of a spoilt and wilful child. 

This difference of shade in the judgment of the two men may rank as oneof the first signs of all that was to come. 

Certainly Helbeck had never before felt himself so uncomfortable in hisown house as he had done since the arrival of this girl of twenty-one. Nevertheless, as the weeks went on, the half-amused, half-contemptuousembarrassment, which had been the first natural effect of her presenceupon the mind of a man so little used to women and their ways, had passedimperceptibly into something else. His reserved and formal mannerremained the same. But Miss Fountain's goings and comings had ceased tobe indifferent to him. A silent relation--still unknown to her--hadarisen between them. 

When he first noticed the fact in himself, it produced a strong, temporary reaction. He reproached himself for a light and unworthytemper. Had his solitary life so weakened him that any new face andpersonality about him could distract and disturb him, even amid the greatthoughts of these solemn days? His heart, his life were in his faith. Formore than twenty years, by prayer and meditation, by all the ingeniousmeans that the Catholic Church provides, he had developed thesensibilities of faith; and for the Catholic these sensibilities arecentred upon and sustained by the Passion. Now, hour by hour, his Lordwas moving to the Cross. He stood perpetually beside the sacred form inthe streets of Jerusalem, in Gethsemane, on the steps of the Praetorium. A varied and dramatic ceremonial was always at hand to stimulate theimagination, the penitence, and the devotion of the believer. Thatanything whatever should break in upon the sacred absorption of thesedays would have seemed to him beforehand a calamity to be shrunkfrom--nay, a sin to be repented. He had put aside all business that couldbe put aside with one object, and one only--to make "a good Easter. "

And yet, no sooner did he come back from service in the chapel, or fromtalk of Church matters with Catholic friends, than he found himselfsuddenly full of expectation. Was Miss Fountain in the hall, in thegarden? or was she gone to those people at Browhead? If she was not inthe house--above all, if she was with the Masons--he would find it hardto absorb himself again in the thoughts that had held him before. If shewas there, if he found her sitting reading or working by the hall fire, with the dogs at her feet, he seldom indeed went to speak to her. Hewould go into his library, and force himself to do his business, whileFather Leadham talked to her and Augustina. But the library opened on thehall, and he could still hear that voice in the distance. Often, when shecaressed the dogs, her tones had the note in them which had startled himon her very first evening under his roof. It was the emergence ofsomething hidden and passionate; and it awoke in himself a strange andtroubling echo--the passing surge of an old memory long since thrust downand buried. How fast his youth was going from him! It was fifteen yearssince a woman's voice, a woman's presence, had mattered anything at allto him. 

So it came about that, in some way or other, he knew, broadly, all thatMiss Fountain did, little as he saw of her. It appeared that she haddiscovered a pony carriage for hire in the little village near thebridge, and once or twice during this fortnight, he learned fromAugustina that she had spent the afternoon at Browhead Farm, while theBannisdale household had been absorbed in some function of the season. 

Augustina disliked the news as much as he did, and would throw up herhands in annoyance. 

"What _can_ she be doing there? They seem the roughest kind of people. But she says the son plays so wonderfully. I believe she plays duets withhim. She goes out with the cart full of music. "

"Music!" said Helbeck, in frank amazement. "That lout!"

"Well, she says so, " said Augustina crossly, as though it were a personalaffront. "And what do you think, Alan? She talks of going to a dance upthere after Easter--next Thursday, I think. "

"At the farm?" Helbeck's tone was incredulous. 

"No; at the mill--or somewhere. She says the schoolmaster is giving it, or something of that sort. Of course it's most unsuitable. But what am Ito do, Alan? They _are_ her relations!"

"At the same time they are not her class, " said Helbeck decidedly. "Shehas been brought up in a different way, and she cannot behave as thoughshe belonged to them. And a dance, with that young man to look after her!You ought to stop it. "

Augustina said dismally that she would try, but her head shook with morefeebleness than usual as she went back to her knitting. 

 * * * * *

Next day Helbeck made a point of finding his sister alone. But she onlythrew him a deprecatory look. 

"I tried, Alan--indeed I did. She says that she wants someamusement--that it will do her good--and that of course her father wouldhave let her go to a dance with his relations. And when I say anything toher about not being quite like them, she fires up. She says she would beashamed to be thought any better than they, and that Hubert has a greatdeal more good in him than some people think. "

"Hubert!" exclaimed Mr. Helbeck, raising his shoulders in disgust. Aftera little silence he turned round as he was leaving the room, and saidabruptly: "Is she to stay the night at the farm?"

"No! oh, no! She wants to come home. She says she won't be late; shepromises not to be late. "

"And that young fellow will drive her home, of course?"

"Well, she couldn't drive home alone, Alan, at that time of night. Itwouldn't be proper. "

Mr. Helbeck smiled rather sourly. "One may doubt where the proprietycomes in. Well, she seems determined. We must just arrange it. There isthe tower door. Kindly tell her, Augustina, that I will let her have thekey of it. And kindly tell her also--as from yourself, of course--thatshe will be treating us all with courtesy if she does come home at areasonable hour. We have been a very quiet, prim household all theseyears, and Mrs. Denton, for all her virtues, has a tongue. "

"So she has, " said Augustina, sighing. "And she doesn't like Laura--notat all. "

Helbeck raised his head quickly. "She does nothing to make Miss Fountainuncomfortable, I trust?"

"Oh--no, " said Augustina undecidedly. "Besides, it doesn't matter. Laurahas got Ellen under her thumb. "

Helbeck's grave countenance showed a gleam of amusement. 

"How does Mrs. Denton take that?"

"Oh! she has to bear it. Haven't you seen, Alan, how the girl hasbrightened up? Laura has shown her how to do her hair; she helped her tomake a new frock for Easter; the girl would do anything in the world forher. It's like Bruno. Do you notice, Alan--I really thought you would beangry--that the dog will hardly go with you when Laura's there?"

"Oh! Miss Fountain is a very attractive young lady--to those she likes, "said Helbeck dryly. 

And on that he went away. 

On Good Friday afternoon Laura, in a renewed passion of revolt againstall that was going on in the house, went to her room and wrote to herfriend. Litanies were being said in the chapel. The distant, melancholysounds mounted to her now and then. Otherwise the house was wrapped in amourning silence; and outside, trailing clouds hung round the old walls, making a penitential barrier all about it. 

"After this week, " wrote Laura to her friend, "I shall always feel kindlytowards 'sin'--and the 'world'! How they have been scouted and scourged!And what, I ask you, would any of us do without them? The 'world, 'indeed! I seem to hear it go rumbling on, the poor, patient, toilingthing, while these people are praying. It works, and makes it possiblefor them to pray--while they abuse and revile it. 

"And as to 'sin, ' and the gloom in which we all live because of it--whaton earth does it really mean to any decently taught and brought-upcreature? You are greedy, or selfish, or idle, or ill-behaved. Very well, then--nature, or your next-door neighbor, knocks you down for it, andserve you right. Next time you won't do it again, or not so badly, and bydegrees you don't even like to think of doing it--you would be 'ashamed, 'as people say. It's the process that everybody has to go through, Isuppose--being sent into the world the sort of beings we are, and withoutany leave of ours, altogether. But why make such a wailing and woe andhullabaloo about it! Oh--such a waste of time! Why doesn't Mr. Helbeck goand learn geology? I vow he hasn't an idea what the rocks of his ownvalley are made of!

"Of course there are the _very_ great villains--I don't like to thinkabout them. And the people who are born wrong and sick. But by-and-by weshall have weeded them out, or improved the breed. And why not spend yourenergies on doing that, instead of singing litanies, and takingridiculous pains not to eat the things you like?

"... I shall soon be in disgrace with Augustina and Mr. Helbeck, about theMasons--worse disgrace, that is to say. For now that I have found a ponyof my own, I go up there two or three times a week. And really--in spiteof all those first experiences I told you of--I like it! Cousin Elizabethhas begun to talk to me; and when I come home, I read the Bible to seewhat it was all about. And I don't let her say too bad things about Mr. Helbeck--it wouldn't be quite gentlemanly on my part. And I know most ofthe Williams story now, both from her and Augustina. 

"Imagine, my dear!--a son not allowed to come and see his mother beforeshe died, though she cried for him night and day. He was at a Jesuitschool in Wales. They shilly-shallied, and wrote endless letters--and atlast they sent him off--the day she died. He arrived three hours toolate, and his father shut the door in his face. 'Noa yo' shan't see her, 'said the grim old fellow--'an if there's a God above, yo' shan't see herin heaven nayder!' Augustina of course calls it 'holy obedience. '

"The painting in the chapel is really extraordinary. Mr. Helbeck seems tohave taught the young man, to begin with. He himself used to paint longago--not very well, I should think, to judge from the bits of his workstill left in the chapel. But at any rate the youth learnt the rudimentsfrom him, and then of course went far beyond his teacher. He was almosttwo years here, working in the house--tabooed by his family all the time. Then there seems to have been a year in London, when he gave Mr. Helbecksome trouble. I don't know--Augustina is vague. How it was that he joinedthe Jesuits I can't make out. No doubt Mr. Helbeck induced them to takehim. But _why_--I ask you--with such a gift? They say he will be here inthe summer, and one will have to set one's teeth and shake hands withhim. 

"Oh, that droning in the chapel--there it is again! I will open thewindow and let the howl of the rain in to get rid of it. And yet I can'talways keep myself away from it. It is all so new--so horribly intimate. Every now and then the music or a prayer or something sends a stab rightdown to my heart of hearts. --A voice of suffering, of torture--oh! soghastly, so _real_. Then I come and read papa's note-books for an hour toforget it. I wish he had ever taught me anything--strictly! But _ofcourse_ it was my fault. 

"... As to this dance, why shouldn't I go?--just tell me! It is beinggiven by the new schoolmaster, and two or three young farmers, in the bigroom at the old mill. The schoolmaster is the most tiresomely virtuousyoung man, and the whole thing is so respectable, it makes me yawn tothink of it. Polly implores me to go, and I like Polly. (Very soon she'lllet me halve her fringe!) I gave Hubert a preliminary snub, and now hedoesn't dare implore me to go. But that is all the more engaging. I_don't_ flirt with him!--heavens!--unless you call bear-tamingflirtation. But one can't see his music running to waste in such a bog oftantrums and tempers. I must try my hand. And as he is my cousin I canput up with him. "

 * * * * *

After High Mass on Easter Sunday Helbeck walked home from Whinthorpealone, as his companion Father Leadham had an engagement in the town. 

Through the greater part of Holy Week the skies had been as grey andpenitential as the season. The fells and the river flats had beenscourged at night with torrents of rain and wind, and in the palemornings any passing promise of sun had been drowned again before the daywas high. The roofs and eaves, the small panes of the old house, trickledand shone with rain; and at night the wind tore through the gorge of theriver with great boomings and onslaughts from the west. But with Eastereve there had come appeasement--a quiet dying of the long storm. And asHelbeck made his way along the river on Easter morning, mountain andflood, grass and tree, were in a glory of recovered sun. The distantfells were drawn upon the sky in the heavenliest brushings of blue andpurple; the river thundered over its falls and weirs in a foamysplendour; and the deer were feeding with a new zest amid thefast-greening grass. 

He stopped a moment to rest upon his stick and look about him. Somethingin his own movement reminded him of another solitary walk some five weeksbefore. And at the same instant he perceived a small figure sitting on astone seat in front of him. It was Miss Fountain. She had a book on herknee, and the two dogs were beside her. Her white dress and hat seemed tomake the centre of a whole landscape. The river bent inward in a greatsweep at her feet, the crag rose behind her, and the great prospectbeyond the river of dale and wood, of scar and cloud, seemed spread therefor her eyes alone. A strange fancy seized on Helbeck. This was hisworld--his world by inheritance and by love. Five weeks before he hadwalked about it as a solitary. And now this figure sat enthroned, as itwere, at the heart of it. He roughly shook the fancy off and walked on. 

Miss Fountain greeted him with her usual detachment. He stood a minute ortwo irresolute, then threw himself on the slope in front of her. 

"Bruno will hardly look at his master now, " he said to her pleasantly, pointing to the dog's attitude as it lay with its nose upon the hem ofher dress. 

Laura closed her book in some annoyance. He usually returned by the otherside of the river, and she was not grateful to him for his breach ofhabit. Why had he been meddling in her affairs? She perfectly understoodwhy Augustina had been making herself so difficult about the dance, andabout the Masons in general. Let him keep his proprieties to himself. She, Laura, had nothing to do with them. She was hardly his guest--stillless his ward. She had come to Bannisdale against her will, simply andsolely as Augustina's nurse. In return, let Mr. Helbeck leave her aloneto enjoy her plebeian relations as she pleased. 

Nevertheless, of course she must be civil; and civil she intermittentlytried to be. She answered his remark about Bruno by a caress to the dogthat brought him to lay his muzzle against her knee. 

"Do you mind? Some people do mind. I can easily drive him away. "

"Oh, no! I reckon on recovering him--some day, " he said, with a franksmile. 

Laura flushed. 

"Very soon, I should think. Have you noticed, Mr. Helbeck, how muchbetter Augustina is already? I believe that by the end of the summer, atleast, she will be able to do without me. And she tells me that theSuperior at the orphanage has a girl to recommend her as a companion whenI go. "

"Rather officious of the Reverend Mother, I think, " said Helbeck sharply. He paused a moment, then added with some emphasis, "Don't imagine, MissFountain, that anybody else can do for my sister what you do. "

"Ah! but--well--one must live one's life--mustn't one, Fricka?"--Frickawas by this time jealously pawing her dress. "I want to work at mymusic--hard--this winter. "

"And I fear that Bannisdale is not a very gay place for a young ladyvisitor?"

He smiled. And so did she; though his tone, with its shade of proudhumility, embarrassed her. 

"It is as beautiful as a dream!" she said, with sudden energy, throwingup her little hand. And he turned to look, as she was looking, at theriver and the woods. 

"You feel the beauty of it so much?" he asked her, wondering. His ownstrong feeling for his native place was all a matter of old habit andassociation. The flash of wild pleasure in her face astounded him. Therewas in it that fiery, tameless something that was the girl'sdistinguishing mark, her very soul and self. Was it beginning to speakfrom her blood to his?

She nodded, then laughed. 

"But, of course, it isn't my business to live here. I have a greatfriend--a Cambridge girl--and we have arranged it all. We are to livetogether, and travel a great deal, and work at music. "

"That is what young ladies do nowadays, I understand. "

"And why not?"

He lifted his shoulders, as though to decline the answer, and wassilent--so silent that she was forced at last to take the field. 

"Don't you approve of 'new women, ' Mr. Helbeck? Oh! I wish I was a newwoman, " she threw out defiantly. "But I'm not good enough--I don't knowanything. "

"I wasn't thinking of them, " he said simply. "I was thinking of the lifethat women used to live here, in this place, in the past--of my motherand my grandmother. "

She could not help a stir of interest. What might the Catholic women ofBannisdale have been like? She looked along the path that led downward tothe house, and seemed to see their figures upon it--not short and sicklylike Augustina, but with the morning in their eyes and on their whitebrows, like the Romney lady. Helbeck's thoughts meanwhile were peopled bythe more solid forms of memory. 

"You remember the picture?" he said at last, breaking the silence. "Thehusband of that lady was a boor and a gambler. He soon broke her heart. But her children consoled her to some extent, especially the daughters, several of whom became nuns. The poor wife came from a large Lancashirefamily, but she hardly saw her relations after her marriage; she wasashamed of her husband's failings and of their growing poverty. Shebecame very shy and solitary, and very devout. These rock-seats along theriver were placed by her. It is said that she used in summer to spendlong hours on that very seat where you are sitting, doing needlework, orreading the Little Office of the Virgin, at the hours when her daughtersin their French convent would be saying their office in chapel. She diedbefore her husband, a very meek, broken creature. I have a little book ofher meditations, that she wrote out by the wish of her confessor. 

"Then my grandmother--ah! well, that is too long a story. She was aFrenchwoman--we have some of her books in my study. She never got on withEngland and English people--and at last, after her husband's death, shenever went outside the house and park. My father owed much of his shynessand oddity to her bringing up. When she felt herself dying she went overto her family to die at Nantes. She is buried there; and my father wassent to the Jesuit school at Nantes for a long time. Then my mother--ButI mustn't bore you with these family tales. "

He turned to look at his listener. Laura was by this time halfembarrassed, half touched. 

"I should like to hear about your mother, " she said rather stiffly. 

"You may talk to me if you like, but don't, pray, presume upon it!"--thatwas what her manner said. 

Helbeck smiled a little, unseen, under his black moustache. 

"My mother was a great lover of books--the only Helbeck, I think, thatever read anything. She was a friend and correspondent of CardinalWiseman's--and she tried to make a family history out of the papers here. But in her later years she was twisted and crippled by rheumaticgout--her poor fingers could not turn the pages. I used to help hersometimes; but we none of us shared her tastes. She was a very happyperson, however. "

Happy! Why? Laura felt a fresh prick of irritation as he paused. Was shenever to escape--not even here, in the April sun, beside the river bank!For, of course, what all this meant was that the really virtuous andadmirable woman does not roam the world in search of art and friendship;she makes herself happy at home with religion and rheumatic gout. 

But Helbeck resumed. And instantly it struck her that he had dropped asentence, and was taking up the thread further on. 

"But there was no priest in the house then, for the Society could notspare us one; and very few services in the chapel. Through all her youngdays nothing could be poorer or raggeder than English Catholicism. Therewas no church at Whinthorpe. Sunday after Sunday my father used to readthe prayers in the chapel, which was half a lumber-room. I often think noDissent could have been barer; but we heard Mass when we could, and thatwas enough for us. One of the priests from Stonyhurst came when she died. This is her little missal. "

He raised it from the grass--a small volume bound in faded morocco--buthe did not offer to show it to Miss Fountain, and she felt no inclinationto ask for it. 

"Why did they live so much alone?" she asked him, with a little frown. "Isuppose there were always neighbours?"

He shook his head. 

"A difference that has law and education besides religion behind it, goesdeep. Times are changed, but it goes deep still. "

There was a pause. Then she looked at him with a whimsical lifting of herbrows. 

"Bannisdale was not amusing?" she said. 

He laughed good-humouredly. "Not for a woman, certainly. For a man, yes. There was plenty of rough sport and card-playing, and a good deal ofdrinking. The men were full of character, often full of ability. Butthere was no outlet--and a wretched education. My great-grandfather mighthave been saved by a commission in the army. But the law forbade it him. So they lived to themselves and by themselves; they didn't choose to livewith their Protestant neighbours--who had made them outlaws andinferiors! And, of course, they sank in manners and refinement. You maysee the results in all the minor Catholic families to this day--that is, the old families. The few great houses that remained faithful escapedmany of the drawbacks of the position. The smaller ones suffered, andsuccumbed. But they had their compensations!"

As he spoke he rose from the grass, and the dogs, springing up, barkedjoyously about him. 

"Augustina will be waiting dinner for us, I think. "

Laura, who had meant to stay behind, saw that she was expected to walkhome with him. She rose unwillingly, and moved on beside him. 

"Their compensations?" That meant the Mass and all the rest of thistyrannous clinging religion. What did it honestly mean to Mr. Helbeck--toanybody? She remembered her father's rough laugh. "There are twelvehundred men, my dear, belonging to the Athenaeum Club. I give you thebishops. After them, what do you suppose religion has to say to the restof the twelve hundred? How many of them ever give a thought to it?"

She raised her eyes, furtively, to Helbeck's face. In spite of itsmelancholy lines, she had lately begun to see that its fundamentalexpression was a contented one. That, no doubt, came from the"compensations. " But to-day there was more. She was positively startledby his look of happiness as he strode silently along beside her. It wasall the more striking because of the plain traces left upon him by Lentenfatigue and "mortification. "

It was Easter day, and she supposed he had come from Communion. 

A little shiver passed through her, caused by the recollection of wordsshe had heard, acts of which she had been a witness, in the chapel duringthe foregoing week--words and acts of emotion, of abandonment--lovecrying to love. A momentary thirst seized her--an instant's sense ofprivation, of longing, gone almost as soon as it had come. 

Helbeck turned to her. 

"So this dance you are going to is on Thursday?" he said pleasantly. 

She came to herself in a moment. 

"Yes, on Thursday, at eight. I shall go early. I have engaged a fly totake me to the farm--thank you!--and my cousins will see me home. I amobliged to you for the key. It will save my giving any trouble. "

"If you did we should not grudge it, " he said quietly. 

She was silent for a few more steps, then she said:

"I quite understand, Mr. Helbeck, that you do not approve of my going. But I must judge for myself. The Masons are my own people. I am sorrythey should have---- Well--I don't understand--but it seems you havereason to think badly of them. "

"Not of _them_, " he said with emphasis. 

"Of my cousin Hubert, then?"

He made no answer. She coloured angrily, then broke out, her wordstumbling childishly over one another:

"There are a great many things said of Hubert that I don't believe hedeserves! He has a great many good tastes--his music is wonderful. At anyrate, he is my cousin; they are papa's only relations in the world. Hewould have been kind to Hubert; and he would have despised me if I turnedmy back on them because I was staying in a grand house with grandpeople!"

"Grand people!" said Helbeck, raising his eyebrows. "But I am sorry I ledyou to say these things, Miss Fountain. Excuse me--may I open this gatefor you?"

She reached her own room as quickly as possible, and dropped upon thechair beside her dressing-table in a whirl of angry feeling. A small andheated face looked out upon her from the glass. But after the firstinstinctive moment she took no notice of it. With the mind's eye shestill saw the figure she had just parted from, the noble poise of thehead, thrown back on the broad shoulders, the black and greys of thehair, the clear penetrating glance--all the slight signs of age andausterity that had begun to filch away the Squire's youth. It was atleast ten minutes before she could free herself enough from the unwelcomememories of her walk to find a vindictive pleasure in running hastily tolook at her one white dress--all she had to wear at the Browhead dance. 

 * * * * *

On Thursday afternoon Helbeck was fishing in the park. The sea-trout werecoming up, the day was soft, and he had done well. But just as theevening rise was beginning he put up his rod and went home. FatherLeadham had taken his departure. Augustina, Miss Fountain, and he wereagain alone in the house. 

He went into his study, and left the door open, while he busied himselfwith some writing. 

Presently Augustina put her head in. She looked dishevelled, and ratherpinker than usual, as always happened when there was the smallestdisturbance of her routine. 

"Laura has just gone up to dress, Alan. Is it fine?"

"There is no rain, " he said, without turning his head. "Don't shut thedoor, please. This fire is oppressive. "

She went away, and he wrote on a little while--then listened. He heardhurrying feet and movements overhead, and presently a door openedhastily, and a voice exclaimed, "Just two or three, you know, Ellen--fromthat corner under the kitchen-window! Run, there's a good girl!"

And there was a clattering noise as Ellen ran down the front stairs, andthen flew along the corridor to the garden-door. 

In a minute she was back again, and as she passed his room Helbeck sawthat she was carrying a bunch of white narcissus. 

Then more sounds of laughter and chatter overhead. At last Augustinahurried down and looked in upon him again, flurried and smiling. 

"Alan, you really must see her. She looks so pretty. "

"I am afraid I'm busy, " he said, still writing. And she retireddisappointed, careful, however, to follow his wishes about the door. 

"Augustina, hold Bruno!" cried a light voice suddenly. "If he jumps on meI'm done for!"

A swish of soft skirts and she was there--in the hall. Helbeck could seeher quite plainly as she stood by the oak table in her white dress. Therewas just room at the throat of it for a pearl necklace, and at the wristsfor some thin gold bracelets. The narcissus were in her hair, which shehad coiled and looped in a wonderful way, so that Helbeck's eyes weredazzled by its colour and abundance, and by the whiteness of the slenderneck below it. She meanwhile was quite unconscious of his neighbourhood, and he saw that she was all in a happy flutter, hastily putting on hergloves, and chattering alternately to Augustina and to the transformedEllen, who stood in speechless admiration behind her, holding a cloak. 

"There, Ellen, that'll do. You're a darling--and the flowers are perfect. Run now, and tell Mrs. Denton that I didn't keep you more than twentyminutes. Oh, yes, Augustina, I'm quite warm. I can't choke, dear, even toplease you. There now--here goes! If you do lock me out, there's a cornerunder the bridge, quite snug. My dress will mind--I shan't. Good-night. My compliments to Mr. Helbeck. "

Then a hasty kiss to Augustina and she was gone. 

Helbeck went out into the hall. Augustina was standing on the steps, watching the departing fly. At the sight of her brother she turned backto him, her poor little face aglow. 

"She did look so nice, Alan! I wish she had gone to a proper dance, andnot to these odd farmers and people. Why, they'll all go in their highdresses, and think her stuck-up. "

"I assure you I never saw anything so smart as Miss Mason at the huntball, " said Helbeck. "Did you give her the key, Augustina? But I shallprobably sit up. There are some Easter accounts that must be done. "

 * * * * *

The old clock in the hall struck one. Helbeck was sitting in his familiarchair before the log fire, which he had just replenished. In one hand wasa life of St. Philip Neri, the other played absently with Bruno's ears. In truth he was not reading but listening. 

Suddenly there was a sound. He turned his head, and saw that the doorleading from the hall to the tower staircase, and thence to the kitchenregions, had been opened. 

"Who's there?" he said in astonishment. 

Mrs. Denton appeared. 

"You, Denton! What are you up for at this time?"

"I came to see if the yoong lady had coom back, " she said in a low voice, and with her most forbidding manner. "It's late, and I heard nowt. "

"Late? Not at all! Go to bed, Denton, at once; Miss Fountain will be heredirectly. "

"I'm not sleepy; I can wait for her, " said the housekeeper, advancing astep or two into the hall. "You mun be tired, sir, and should take yourrest. "

"I'm not the least tired, thank you. Good-night. Let me recommend you togo to bed as quickly as possible. "

Mrs. Denton lingered for a moment, as though in hesitation, then wentwith a sulky unwillingness that was very evident to her master. 

Helbeck laid down his book on his knee with a little laugh. 

"She would have liked to get in a scolding, but we won't give her thechance. "

The reverie that followed was not a very pleasant one. He seemed to seeMiss Fountain in the large rustic room, with a bevy of young men abouther--young fellows in Sunday coats, with shiny hair and limbs burstingout of their ill-fitting clothes. There would be loud talking andlaughter, rough jokes that would make her wince, compliments that woulddisgust her--they not knowing how to take her, nor she them. She would bewholly out of her place--a butt for impertinence--perhaps worse. Andthere would be a certain sense of dragging a lady from her sphere--ofmaking free with the old house and the old family. 

He thought of it with disgust. He was an aristocrat to his fingers' ends. 

But how could it have been helped? And when he remembered her as shestood there in the hall, so young and pretty, so eager for her pleasure, he said to himself with sudden heartiness:

"Nonsense! I hope the child has enjoyed herself. " It was the first timethat, even in his least formal thoughts, he had applied such a word toher. 

Silence again. The wind breathed gently round the house. He could hearthe river rushing. 

Once he thought there was a sound of wheels and he went to the outerdoor, but there was nothing. Overhead the stars shone, and along thetrack of the river lay a white mist. 

As he was turning back to the hall, however, he heard voices from themist--a loud man's voice, then a little cry as of some one in fright oranger, then a song. The rollicking tune of it shouted into the night, into the stately stillness that surrounded the old house, had theabruptest, unseemliest effect. 

Helbeck ran down the steps. A dog-cart with lights approached the gatewayin the low stone enclosure before the house. It shot through so fast andso awkwardly as to graze the inner post. There was another little cry. Then, with various lurches and lunges, the cart drove round the gravel, and brought up somewhere near the steps. 

Hubert Mason jumped down. 

"Who's that? Mr. Helbeck? O Lord! glad to see yer, I'm sure! There's thatlittle silly--she's been making such a' fuss all the way--thought I wasgoing to upset her into the river, I do believe. She would try and get atthe reins, though I told her it was the worst thing to do, whatever--tobe interfering with the driver. Lord! I thought she'd have used the whipto me!"

And Mason stood beside the shafts, with his arms on the side, laughingloudly and looking at Laura. 

"Stand out of the way, sir!" said Helbeck sternly, "and let me help MissFountain. "

"Oh! I say!--Come now, I'm not going to stand you coming it over me twicein the same sort--not I, " cried the young man with a violent change oftone. "_You_ get out of the way, d--mn you! I brought Miss Fountain home, and she's my cousin--so there!--not yours. "

"Hubert, go away at once!" said Laura's shaking but imperious voice. "Iprefer that Mr. Helbeck should help me. "

She had risen and was clinging to the rail of the dog-cart, while herface drooped so that Helbeck could not see it. 

Mason stepped back with another oath, caught his foot in the reins, whichhe had carelessly left hanging, and fell on his knees on the gravel. 

"No matter, " said Helbeck, seeing that Laura paused in terror. "Give meyour hand, Miss Fountain. "

She slipped on the step in the darkness, and Helbeck caught her and sether on her feet. 

"Go in, please. I will look after him. "

She ran up the steps, then turned to look. 

Mason, still swearing and muttering, had some difficulty in getting up. Helbeck stood by till he had risen and disentangled the reins. 

"If you don't drive carefully down the park in the fog you'll come toharm, " he said, shortly, as Mason mounted to his seat. 

"That's none of your business, " said Mason sulkily. "I brought my cousinall right--I suppose I can take myself. Now, come up, will you!"

He struck the pony savagely on the back with the reins. The tired animalstarted forward; the cart swayed again from side to side. Helbeck heldhis breath as it passed the gate-posts; but it shaved through, and soonnothing but the gallop of retreating hoofs could be heard through thenight. 

He mounted the steps, and shut and barred the outer door. When he enteredthe hall, Laura was sitting by the oak table, one hand supporting andhiding her face, the other hanging listlessly beside her. 

She struggled to her feet as he came in. The hood of her blue cloak hadfallen backwards, and her hair was in confusion round her face and neck. Her cheeks were very white, and there were tears in her eyes. She hadnever seemed to him so small, so childish, or so lovely. 

He took no notice of her agitation or of her efforts to speak. He went toa tray of wine and biscuits that had been left by his orders on aside-table, and poured out some wine. 

"No, I don't want it, " she said, waving it away. "I don't know what tosay----"

"You would do best to take it, " he said, interrupting her. 

His quiet insistence overcame her, and she drank it. It gave her back hervoice and a little colour. She bit her lip, and looked after Helbeck ashe walked away to the farther end of the hall to light a candle for her. 

"Mr. Helbeck, " she began as he came near. Then she gathered force. "Youmust--you ought to let me apologise. "

"For what? I am afraid you had a disagreeable and dangerous drive home. Would you like me to wake one of the servants--Ellen, perhaps--and tellher to come to you?"

"Oh! you won't let me say what I ought to say, " she exclaimed in despair. "That my cousin should have behaved like this--should have insultedyou----"

"No! no!" he said with some peremptoriness. "Your cousin insulted you bydaring to drive with you in such a state. That is all that matters tome--or should, I think, matter to you. Will you have your candle, andshall I call anyone?"

She shook her head and moved towards the staircase, he accompanying her. When he saw how feebly she walked, he was on the point of asking her totake his arm and let him help her to her room; but he refrained. 

At the foot of the stairs she paused. Her "good-night" died in her throatas she offered her hand. Her dejection, her girlish shame, made herinexpressibly attractive to him; it was the first time he had ever seenher with all her arms thrown down. But he said nothing. He bade hergood-night with a cheerful courtesy, and, returning to the hall fire, hestood beside it till he heard the distant shutting of her door. 

Then he sank back into his chair and sat motionless, with knitted brows, for nearly an hour, staring into the caverns of the fire. 

CHAPTER II

Laura awoke very early the following morning, but though the sun wasbright outside, it brought no gaiety to her. The night before she hadhurried her undressing, that she might bury herself in her pillow asquickly as possible, and force sleep to come to her. It was her naturalinstinct in the face of pain or humiliation. To escape from it by anysummary method was always her first thought. "I will, I must go tosleep!" she had said to herself, in a miserable fury with herself andfate; and by the help of an intense exhaustion sleep came. 

But in the morning she could do herself no more violence. Memory took itscourse, and a very disquieting course it was. She sat up in bed, with herhands round her knees, thinking not only of all the wretched and untowardincidents connected with the ball, but of the whole three weeks that hadgone before it. What had she been doing, how had she been behaving, thatthis odious youth should have dared to treat her in such a way?

Fricka jumped up beside her, and Laura held the dog's nose against hercheek for comfort, while she confessed herself. Oh! what a fool she hadbeen. Why, pray, had she been paying all these visits to the farm, andspending all these hours in this young fellow's company? Her quickintelligence unravelled all the doubtful skein. Yearning towards herkindred?--yes, there had been something of that. Recoil from theBannisdale ways, an angry eagerness to scout them and fly them?--yes, that there had always been in plenty. But she dived deeper into herself-disgust, and brought up the real bottom truth, disagreeable andhateful as it was: mere excitement about a young man, as a youngman--mere love of power over a great hulking fellow whom other peoplefound unmanageable! Aye, there it was, in spite of all the glosses shehad put upon it in her letters to Molly Friedland. All through, she hadknown perfectly well that Hubert Mason was not her equal; that on anumber of subjects he had vulgar habits and vulgar ideas; that he oftenexpressed his admiration for her in a way she ought to have resented. There were whole sides of him, indeed, that she shrank fromexploring--that she wanted, nay, was determined, to know nothing about. 

On the other hand, her young daring, for want of any better prey, hadtaken pleasure from the beginning in bringing him under her yoke. Withher second visit to the farm she saw that she could make him herslave--that she had only to show him a little flattery, a littleencouragement, and he would be as submissive and obedient to her as hewas truculent and ill-tempered towards the rest of the world. And hervanity had actually plumed itself on so poor a prey! One excuse--yes, there was the one excuse! With her he had shown the side that she aloneof his kindred could appreciate. But for the fear of Cousin Elizabeth shecould have kept him hanging over the piano hour after hour while sheplayed, in a passion of delight. Here was common ground. Nay, in nativepower he was her superior, though she, with her better musical training, could help and correct him in a thousand ways. She had the woman'spassion for influence; and he seemed like wax in her hands. Why not helphim to education and refinement, to the cultivation of the best that wasin him? She would persuade Cousin Elizabeth--alter and amend his life forhim--and Mr. Helbeck should see that there were better ways of dealingwith people than by looking down upon them and despising them. 

And now the very thought of these vain and silly dreams set her faceaflame. Power over him? Let her only remember the humiliations, throughwhich she had been dragged! All the dance came back upon her--the strangepeople, the strange young men, the strange, raftered room, with the noiseof the mill-stream and the weir vibrating through it, and mingling withthe chatter of the fiddles. But she had been determined to enjoy it, togive herself no airs, to forget with all her might that she was anywaydifferent from these dale-folk, whose blood was hers. And with the olderpeople all had been easy. With the elderly women especially, in theirdark gowns and large Sunday collars, she had felt herself at home; againand again she had put herself under their wing, while in their silent waythey turned their shrewd motherly eyes upon her, and took stock of herand every detail of her dress. And the old men, with their patriarchalmanners and their broad speech--it had been all sweet and pleasant toher. "Noo, Miss, they tell ma as yo'. Are Stephen Fountain's dowter. An Imut meak bold ter cum an speak to thee, for a knew 'un when he was a lilelad. " Or "Yo'll gee ma your hand, Miss Fountain, for we're pleased andproud to git, yo' here. Yer fadther an mea gaed to skule togedther. Myworrd, but he was parlish cliver! An I daursay as you teak afther him. "Kind folk! with all the signs of their hard and simple life about them. 

But the young men--how she had hated them!--whether they were shy, orwhether they were bold; whether they romped with their sweethearts, andlaughed at their own jokes like bulls of Bashan, or whether they woretheir best clothes as though the garments burnt them, and danced thepolka in a perspiring and anguished silence! No; she was not of _their_class, thank Heaven! She never wished to be. One man had asked her to puta pin in his collar; another had spilt a cup of coffee over her whitedress; a third had confided to her that his young lady was "that luvin"to him in public, he had been fair obliged to bid her "keep hersel tohersel afore foak. " The only partner with whom it had given her thesmallest pleasure to dance had been the schoolmaster and principal hostof the evening, a tall, sickly young man, who wore spectacles and talkedthrough his nose. But he talked of things she understood, and he dancedtolerably. Alas! there had come the rub. Hubert Mason had stood sentinelbeside her during the early part of the evening. He had assumed theproudest and most exclusive airs with regard to her, and his chief aimseemed to be to impress upon her the prestige he enjoyed among hisfellows as a football player and an athlete. In the end his patronage andhis boasting had become insupportable to a girl of any spirit. And hisdancing! It seemed to her that he held her before him like a shield, andthen charged the room with her. She had found herself the centre of alleyes, her pretty dress torn, her hair about her ears. So that she hadshaken him off--with too much impatience, no doubt, and too littleconsideration for the touchiness of his temper. And then, whatstormy looks, what mutterings, what disappearances into therefreshment-room--and, finally, what, fierce jealousy of theschoolmaster! Laura awoke at last to the disagreeable fact that she hadto drive home with him--and he had already made her ridiculous. EvenPolly--the bedizened Polly--looked grave, and there had been angryconferences between her and her brother. 

Then came the departure, Laura by this time full of terrors, but notknowing what to do, nor how else she was to get home. And, oh! thatgrinning band of youths round the door--Mason's triumphant leap into thecart and boisterous farewell to his friends--and that first perilousmoment, when the pony had almost backed into the mill stream, and wasonly set right again by half a dozen stalwart arms, amid the laughter ofthe street!

As for the wild drive through the dark, she shivered again, half withanger, half with terror, as she thought of it. How had they ever gothome? She could not tell. He was drunk, of course. He seemed to her tohave driven into everything and over everything, abusing the schoolmasterand Mr. Helbeck and his mother all the time, and turning upon her whenshe answered him, or showed any terror of what might happen to them, nowwith fury, and now with attempts at love-making which it had taken allher power over him to quell. 

Their rush up the park had been like the ride of the wild horseman. Everymoment she had expected to be in the river. And with the approach of thehouse he had grown wilder and more unmanageable than before. "Dang it!let's wake up the old Papist!" he had said to her when she had tried tostop his singing. "What harm'll it do?"

As for the shame of their arrival, the very thought of Mr. Helbeckstanding silent on the steps as they approached, of Hubert's behaviour, of her host's manner to her in the hall, made her shut her eyes and hideher red face against Fricka for sympathy. How was she ever to meet Mr. Helbeck again, to hold her own against him any more!

 * * * * *

An hour later Laura, very carefully dressed, and holding herself veryerect, entered Augustina's room. 

"Oh, Laura!" cried Mrs. Fountain, as the door opened. She was veryflushed, and she stared from her bed at her stepdaughter in an agitatedsilence. 

Laura stopped short. 

"Well, what is it, Augustina? What have you heard?"

"Laura! how _can_ you do such things!"

And Augustina, who already had her breakfast beside her, raised herhandkerchief to her eyes and began to cry. Laura threw up her head andwalked away to a far window, where she turned and confronted Mrs. Fountain. 

"Well, he has been quick in telling you, " she said, in a low but fiercevoice. 

"He? What do you mean? My brother? As if he had said a word! I don'tbelieve he ever would. But Mrs. Denton heard it all. "

"Mrs. Denton?" said Laura. "_Mrs. Denton?_ What on earth had she to dowith it?"

"She heard you drive up. You know her room looks on the front. "

"And she listened? sly old creature!" said Laura, recovering herself. "Well, it can't be helped. If she heard, she heard, and whatever I mayfeel, I'm not going to apologise to Mrs. Denton. "

"But, Laura--Laura--was he----"

Augustina could not finish the odious question. 

"I suppose he was, " said Laura bitterly. "It seems to be the naturalthing for young men of that sort. "

"Laura, do come here. "

Laura came unwillingly, and Augustina took her hands and looked up ather. 

"And, Laura, he was abominably rude to Alan!"

"Yes, he was, and I'm very sorry, " said the girl slowly. "But it can't behelped, and it's no good making yourself miserable, Augustina. "

"Miserable? I? It's you, Laura, who look miserable. I never saw you lookso white and dragged. You must never, never see him again. "

The girl's obstinacy awoke in a moment. 

"I don't know that I shall promise that, Augustina. "

"Oh, Laura! as if you could wish to, " said Augustina, in tears. 

"I can't give up my father's people, " said the girl stiffly. "But heshall never annoy Mr. Helbeck again, I promise you that, Augustina. "

"Oh! you did look so nice, Laura, and your dress was so pretty!"

Laura laughed, rather grimly. 

"There's not much of it left this morning, " she said. "However, as one ofthe gentlemen who kindly helped to ruin it said last night, 'Lor, blessyer, it'll wesh!'"

 * * * * *

After breakfast Laura found herself in the drawing-room, looking throughan open window at the spring green in a very strained and irritable mood. 

"I would not begin if I could not go on, " she said to herself withdisdain. But her lip trembled. 

So Mr. Helbeck had taken offence, after all. Hardly a word at breakfast, except such as the briefest, barest civility required. And he was goingaway, it appeared, for three days, perhaps a week, on business. If he hadgiven her the slightest opening, she had meant to master her pridesufficiently to renew her apologies and ask his advice, subject, ofcourse, to her own final judgment as to what kindred and kindness mightrequire of her. But he had given her no opening, and the subject was not, apparently, to be renewed between them. 

She might have asked him, too, to curb Mrs. Denton's tongue. But no, itwas not to be. Very well. The girl drew her small frame together andprepared, as no one thought for or befriended her, to think for andbefriend herself. 

She passed the next few days in some depression. Mr. Helbeck was absent. Augustina was very ailing and querulous, and Laura was made to feel thatit was her fault. Not a word of regret or apology came from BrowheadFarm. 

Meanwhile Mrs. Denton had apparently made her niece understand that therewas to be no more dallying with Miss Fountain. Whenever she and Lauramet, Ellen lowered her head and ran. Laura found that the girl was notallowed to wait upon her personally any more. Meanwhile the housekeeperherself passed Miss Fountain with a manner and a silence which were inthemselves an insult. 

And two days after Helbeck's departure, Laura was crossing the halltowards tea-time, when she saw Mrs. Denton admitting one of the Sistersfrom the orphanage. It was the Reverend Mother herself, the portlyshrewd-faced woman who had wished Mr. Helbeck a good wife. Laura passedher, and the nun saluted her coldly. "Dear me!--you shall have Augustinato yourself, my good friend, " thought Miss Fountain. "Don't be afraid. "And she turned into the garden. 

An hour later she came back. As she opened the door in the old wall shesaw the Sister on the steps, talking with Mrs. Denton. At sight of herthey parted. The nun drew her long black cloak about her, ran down thesteps, and hurried away. 

And indoors, Laura could not imagine what had happened to her stepmother. Augustina was clearly excited, yet she would say nothing. Herrestlessness was incessant, and at intervals there were furtive tears. Once or twice she looked at Laura with the most tragic eyes, but as soonas Laura approached her she would hastily bury herself in her newspaper, or begin counting the stitches of her knitting. 

At last, after luncheon, Mrs. Fountain suddenly threw down her work witha sigh that shook her small person from top to toe. 

"I wish I knew what was wrong with you, " said Laura, coming up behindher, and dropping a pair of soft hands on her shoulders. "Shall I get youyour new tonic?"

"No!" said Augustina pettishly; then, with a rush of words that she couldnot repress:

"Laura, you must--you positively must give up that young man. "

Laura came round and seated herself on the fender stool in front of herstepmother. 

"Oh! so that's it. Has anybody else been gossiping?"

"I do wish you wouldn't--you wouldn't take things so coolly!" criedAugustina. "I tell you, the least trifle is enough to do a young girl ofyour age harm. Your father would have been so annoyed. "

"I don't think so, " said Laura quietly. "But who is it now? The ReverendMother?"

Augustina hesitated. She had been recommended to keep things to herself. But she had no will to set against Laura's, and she was, in fact, bursting with suppressed remonstrance. 

"It doesn't matter, my dear. One never knows where a story of that kindwill go to. That's just what girls don't remember. "

"Who told a story, and what? I didn't see the Reverend Mother at thedance. "

"Laura! But you never thought, my dear--you never knew--that there was acousin of Father Bowles' there--the man who keeps that little Catholicshop in Market Street. That's what comes, you see, of going to partieswith people beneath you. "

"Oh! a cousin of Father Bowles was there?" said Laura slowly. "Well, didhe make a pretty tale?"

"Laura! you are the most provoking--You don't the least understand whatpeople think. How could you go with him when everybody remonstrated?"

"Nobody remonstrated, " said the girl sharply. 

"His sister begged you not to go. "

"His sister did nothing of the kind. She was staying the night in thevillage, and there was literally nothing for me to do but come home withHubert or to throw myself on some stranger. "

"And such stories as one hears about this dreadful young man!" criedAugustina. 

"I dare say. There are always stories. "

"I couldn't even tell you what they are about!" said Augustina. "Yourfather would _certainly_ have forbidden it altogether. "

There was a silence. Laura held her head as high as ever. She was, infact, in a fever of contradiction and resentment, and the interference ofpeople like Mrs. Denton and the Sisters was fast bringing about Mason'sforgiveness. Naturally, she was likely to hear the worst of him in thathouse. What Helbeck, or what dependent on a Helbeck, would give him thebenefit of any doubt?

Augustina knitted with all her might for a few minutes, and then lookedup. 

"Don't you think, " she said, with a timid change of tone--"don't youthink, dear, you might go to Cambridge for a few weeks? I am sure theFriedlands would take you in. You would come in for all the parties, and--and you needn't trouble about me. Sister Angela's niece could comeand stay here for a few weeks. The Reverend Mother told me so. "

Laura rose. 

"Sister Angela suggested that? Thank you, I won't have my plans settledfor me by Sister Angela. If you and Mr. Helbeck want to turn me out, why, of course I shall go. "

Augustina held out her hands in terror at the girl's attitude and voice. 

"Laura, don't say such things! As if you weren't an angel to me! As if Icould bear the thought of anybody else!"

A quiver ran through Laura's features. "Well, then, don't bear it, " shesaid, kneeling down again beside her stepmother. "You look quite ill andexcited, Augustina. I think we'll keep the Reverend Mother out in future. Won't you lie down and let me cover you up?"

So it ended for the time--with physical weakness on Augustina's part, andcaresses on Laura's. 

But when she was alone, Miss Fountain sat down and tried to think thingsout. 

"What are the Sisters meddling for? Do they find me in their way? I'mflattered! I wish I was. Well!--is drunkenness the worst thing in theworld?" she asked herself deliberately. "Of course, if it goes beyond acertain point it is like madness--you must keep out of its way, for yourown sake. But papa used to say there were many things a great deal worse. So there are!--meanness, and shuffling with truth for the sake of yoursoul. As for the other tales, I don't believe them. But if I did, I amnot going to marry him!"

She felt herself very wise. In truth, as Stephen Fountain had realisedwith some anxiety before his death, among Laura's many ignorances, nonewas so complete or so dangerous as her ignorance of all the ugly groundfacts that are strewn round us, for the stumbling of mankind. She was asdetermined not to know them, as he was invincibly shy of telling them. 

For the rest, her reflections represented, no doubt, many dicta that inthe course of her young life she had heard from her father. To StephenFountain the whole Christian doctrine of sin was "the enemy"; and themystical hatred of certain actions and habits, as such, was the fount ofhalf the world's unreason. 

The following day it was Father Bowles' turn. He came over in what seemedto be his softest and most catlike mood, rubbing his hands over his chestin a constant glee at his own jokes. He was amiability itself to Laura. But he, too, had his twenty minutes alone with Augustina; and afterwardsMrs. Fountain ventured once more to speak to Laura of change andamusement. Miss Fountain smiled, and replied as before--that, in thefirst place she had no invitations, and in the next, she had no dresses. But again, as before, if Mr. Helbeck should express a wish that her visitto Bannisdale should come to an end, that would be another matter. 

 * * * * *

Next morning Laura was taking a walk in the park when a letter wasbrought to her by old Wilson, the groom, cowman, and general factotum. 

She took it to a sheltered nook by the riverside and read it. It was fromHubert Mason, in his best commercial hand, and it ran as follows:

"Dear Miss Fountain, --You would not allow me, I know, to call you CousinLaura any more, so I don't attempt it. And of course I don't deserveit--nor that you should ever shake hands with me again. I can't get overthinking of what I've done. Mother and Polly will tell you that I havehardly slept at nights--for of course you won't believe me. How I canhave been such a blackguard I don't understand. I must have taken toomuch. All I know is it didn't seem much, and but for the agitation of mymind, I don't believe anything would ever have gone wrong. But I couldn'tbear to see you dancing with that man and despising me. And there itis--I can never get over it, and you will never forgive me. I feel Ican't stay here any more, and mother has consented at last to let me havesome money on the farm. If I could just see you before I go, to saygood-bye, and ask your pardon, there would be a better chance for me. Ican't come to Mr. Helbeck's house, of course, and I don't suppose youwould come here. I shall be coming home from Kirby Whardale fairto-morrow night, and shall be crossing the little bridge in thepark--upper end--some time between eight and nine. But I know you won'tbe there. I can't expect it, and I feel it pretty badly, I can tell you. I did hope I might have become something better through knowing you. Whatever you may think of me I am always

"Your respectful and humble cousin, "HUBERT MASON. "

"Well--upon my word!" said Laura. She threw the letter on to the grassbeside her, and sat, with her hands round her knees, staring at theriver, in a sparkle of anger and amazement. 

What audacity!--to expect her to steal out at night--in the dusk, anyway--to meet him--_him_! She fed her wrath on the imagination of allthe details that would belong to such an escapade. It would be aftersupper, of course, in the fast lengthening twilight. Helbeck and hissister would be in the drawing-room--for Mr. Helbeck was expected home onthe following day--and she might perfectly well leave them, as she oftendid, to talk their little Catholic gossip by themselves, and then slipout by the chapel passage and door, through the old garden, to the gatein the wall above the river bank, and so to the road that led along theGreet through the upper end of the park. Nothing, of course, could beeasier--nothing. 

Merely to think of it, for a girl of Laura's temperament, was already bitby bit to incline to it. She began to turn it over, to taste theadventure of it--to talk very fast to Fricka, under her breath, withlittle gusts of laughter. And no doubt there was something mollifying inthe boy's humble expressions. As for his sleepless nights--how salutary!how very salutary! Only the nail must be driven in deeper--must be turnedin the wound. 

It would need a vast amount of severity, perhaps, to undo the effects ofher mere obedience to his call--supposing she made up her mind to obeyit. Well! she would be quite equal to severity. She would speak veryplain things to him--very plain things indeed. It was her first seriousadventure with any of these big, foolish, troublesome creatures of themale sex, and she rose to it much as Helbeck might have risen to theplaying of a salmon in the Greet. Yes! he should say good-bye to her, letpriests and nuns talk what scandal they pleased. Yes! he should go on hisway forgiven and admonished--if he wished it--for kindred's sake. 

Her cheek burned, her heart beat fast. He and she were of one blood--bothof them ill-regarded by aristocrats and holy Romans. As for him, he wasgoing to ruin at home; and there was in him this strange, artistic giftto be thought for and rescued. He had all the faults of the young cub. Was he to be wholly disowned for that? Was she to cast him off for everat the mere bidding of the Helbecks and their friends?

He would never, of course, be allowed to enter the Bannisdaledrawing-room, and she had no intention at present of going to BrowheadFarm. Well, then, under the skies and the clouds! A gracious pardon, anappropriate lecture--and a short farewell. 

 * * * * *

All that day and the next Laura gave herself to her whim. She wasperfectly conscious, meanwhile, that it was a reckless and a wilful thingthat she was planning. She liked it none the less for that. In fact, thescheme was the final crystallisation of all that bitterness of mood thathad poisoned and tormented her ever since her first coming to Bannisdale. And it gave her for the moment the morbid pleasure that all angry peopleget from letting loose the angry word or act. 

Meanwhile she became more and more conscious of a certain network ofblame and discussion that seemed to be closing about her and her actions. It showed itself by a number of small signs. When she went intoWhinthorpe to shop for Augustina she fancied that the assistants in theshop, and even the portly draper himself, looked at her with a slycuriosity. The girl's sore pride grew more unmanageable hour by hour. Ifthere was some ill-natured gossip about her, going the round in the townand the neighbourhood, had she--till now--given the least shadow ofexcuse for it? Not the least shade of a shadow!

 * * * * *

Mr. Helbeck, his sister, and Laura were in the drawing-room after supper. Laura had been observing Mrs. Fountain closely. 

"She is longing to have her talk with him, " thought the girl; "and sheshall have it--as much as she likes. "

The shutters were not yet closed, and the room, with its crackling logs, was filled with a gentle mingled light. The sun, indeed, was gone, butthe west still glowed, and the tall larches in the front enclosure stoodblack against a golden dome of sky. Laura rose and left the room. As sheopened the door she caught Augustina's quick look of relief and the dropof the knitting-needles. 

Fricka was safely prisoned upstairs. Laura slipped on a hat and a darkcloak that were hanging in the hall, and ran down the passage leading tothe chapel. The heavy seventeenth-century door at the end of it took hersome trouble to open without noise, but it was done at last, and she wasin the old garden. 

Her little figure in its cloak, among the dark yews, was hardly to beseen in the dusk. The garden was silence itself, and the gate in the wallwas open. Once on the road beside the river she could hardly restrainherself from running, so keen was the air, so free and wide the eveningsolitude. All things were at peace; nothing moved but a few birds and thetiniest intermittent breeze. Overhead, great thunderclouds kept thesunset; beneath, the blues of the evening were all interwoven with rose;so, too, were the wood and sky reflections in the gently moving water. Insome of the pools the trout were still lazily rising; pigeons and homingrooks were slowly passing through the clear space that lay between thetree-tops and the just emerging stars; and once Laura stopped, holdingher breath, thinking that she saw through the dusk the blue flash of akingfisher making for a nest she knew. Even in this dimmed light thetrees had the May magnificence--all but the oaks, which still dreamed ofa best to come. Here and there a few tufts of primroses, on the bosom ofthe crag above the river, lonely and self-sufficing, like all loveliestthings, starred the dimness of the rock. 

Laura's feet danced beneath her; the evening beauty and her passionateresponse flowed as it were into each other, made one beating pulse;never, in spite of qualms and angers, had she been more physically happy, more alive. She passed the seat where she and Helbeck had lingered onEaster Sunday; then she struck into a path high above the river, underspreading oaks; and presently a little bridge came in sight, with somesteps in the crag leading down to it. 

At the near end of the bridge, thrown out into the river a little way forthe convenience of fishermen, was a small wooden platform, with arailing, which held a seat. The seat was well hidden under the trees andbank, and Laura settled herself there. 

She had hardly waited five minutes, absorbed in the sheer pleasure of therippling river and the soft air, when she heard steps approaching thebank. Looking up, she saw Mason's figure against the sky. He paused atthe top of the rocky staircase, to scan the bridge and its approaches. Not seeing her, he threw up his hand, with some exclamation that shecould not hear. 

She smiled and rose. 

As her small form became visible between the paleness of the woodenplatform and a luminous patch in the river, she heard a cry, then ahurrying down the rock steps. 

He stopped about a yard from her. She did not offer her hand, and afteran instant's pause, during which his eyes tried to search her face in thedarkness, he took off his hat and drew his hand across his brow with adeep breath. 

"I never thought you'd come, " he said huskily. 

"Well, certainly you had no business to ask me! And I can only stay avery few minutes. Suppose you sit down there. "

She pointed to one of the rock steps, while she settled herself again onthe seat, some little distance away from him. 

Then there was an awkward silence, which Laura took no trouble to break. Mason broke it at last in desperation. 

"You know that I'm an awful hand at saying anything, Miss--Miss Fountain. I can't--so it's no good. But I've got my lesson. I've had a pretty roughtime of it, I can tell you, since last week. "

"You behaved about as badly as you could--didn't you?" said Laura's softyet cutting voice out of the dark. 

Mason fidgeted. 

"I can't make it no better, " he said at last. "There's no saying I can, for I can't. And if I did give you excuses, you'd not believe 'em. Therewas a devil got hold of me that evening--that's the truth on't. And itwas only a glass or two I took. Well, there!--I'd have cut my hand offsooner. "

His tone of miserable humility began to affect her rather strangely. Itwas not so easy to drive in the nail. 

"You needn't be so repentant, " she said, with a little shrinking laugh. "One has to forget--everything--in good time. You've given Whinthorpepeople something to talk about at my expense--for which I am not at allobliged to you. You nearly killed me, which doesn't matter. And youbehaved disgracefully to Mr. Helbeck. But it's done--and now you've gotto make up--somehow. "

"Has he made you pay for it--since?" said Mason eagerly. 

"He? Mr. Helbeck?" She laughed. Then she added, with all the severityshe could muster, "He treated me in a most kind and gentlemanlyway--if you want to know. The great pity is that you--and CousinElizabeth--understand nothing at all about him. "

He groaned. She could hear his feet restlessly moving. 

"Well--and now you are going to Froswick, " she resumed. "What are yougoing to do there?"

"There's an uncle of mine in one of the shipbuilding yards there. He'sgot leave to take me into the fitting department. If I suit he'll get meinto the office. It's what I've wanted this two years. "

"Well, now you've got it, " she said impatiently, "don't be dismal. Youhave your chance. "

"Yes, and I don't care a haporth about it, " he said, with sudden energy, throwing his head up and bringing his fist down on his knee. 

She felt her power, and liked it. But she hurried to answer:

"Oh! yes you do! If you're a man, you _must_. You'll learn a lot of newthings--you'll keep straight, because you'll have plenty to do. Why, itwill 'hatch you over again, and hatch, you different, ' as somebody said. You'll see. "

He looked at her, trying hard to catch her expression in the dusk. 

"And if I do come back different, perhaps--perhaps--soom day you'll notbe ashamed to be seen wi' me? Look here, Miss Laura. From the first timeI set eyes on you--from that day you came up--that Sunday--I haven't beenable to settle to a thing. I felt, right enough, I wasn't fit to speak toyou. And yet I'm your--well, your kith and kin, doan't you see? Therecan't be no such tremendous gap atween us as all that. If I can justmanage myself a bit, and find the work that suits me, and get away fromthese fellows here, and this beastly farm----"

"Ah!--have you been quarrelling with Daffady all day?"

She looked for him to fly out. But he only stared, and then turned away. 

"O Lord! what's the good of talking?" he said, with an accent thatstartled her. 

She rose from her seat. 

"Are you sorry I came to talk to you? You didn't deserve it--did you?"

Her voice was the pearliest, most musical, and yet most distant ofthings. He rose, too--held by it. 

"And now you must just go and make a man of yourself. That's what youhave to do--you see? I wish papa was alive. He'd tell you how--I can't. But if you forget your music, it'll be a sin--and if you send me yoursong to write out for you, I'll do it. And tell Polly I'll come and seeher again some day. Now good-night! They'll be locking up if I don'thurry home. "

But he stood on the step, barring the way. 

"I say, give me something to take with me, " he said hoarsely. "What'sthat in your hat?"

"In my hat?" she said, laughing--(but if there had been light he wouldhave seen that her lips had paled). "Why, a bunch of buttercups. I boughtthem at Whinthorpe yesterday. "

"Give me one, " he said. 

"Give you a sham buttercup? What nonsense!"

"It's better than nothing, " he said doggedly, and he held out his hand. 

She hesitated; then she took off her hat and quietly loosened one of theflowers. Her golden hair shone in the dimness. Mason never took his eyesoff her little head. He was keeping a grip on himself that was taxing awhole new set of powers--straining the lad's unripe nature in wholly newways. 

She put the flower in his hand. 

"There; now we're friends again, aren't we? Let me pass, please--andgood-night!"

He moved to one side, blindly fighting with the impulse to throw hispowerful arms round her and keep her there, or carry her across thebridge--at his pleasure. 

But her light fearlessness mastered him. He let her go; he watched herfigure on the steps, against the moonlight between the oaks overhead. 

"Good-night!" she dropped again, already far away--far above him. 

The young man felt a sob in his throat. 

"My God! I shan't ever see her again, " he said to himself in a suddenterror. "She is going to that house--to that man!"

For the first time a wild jealousy of Helbeck awoke in him. He rushedacross the bridge, dropped on a stone half-way up the further bank, thenstrained his eyes across the river. 

... Yes, there she passed, a swift moving whiteness, among the greattrees that stood like watchmen along the high edge of the water. Belowhim flowed the stream, a gulf of darkness, rent here and there by sheetsand jags of silver. And she, that pale wraith--across it--far away--wasflitting from his ken. 

All the fountains of the youth's nature surged up in one great outcry andconfusion. He thought of his boyish loves and sensualities--of the girlswho had provoked them--of some of the ugly facts connected with them. Agreat astonishment, a great sickening, came upon him. He felt the burdenof the flesh, the struggle of the spirit. And through it all, the maddestand most covetous yearning!--welling up through schemes and hopes, thatlike the moonlit ripples on the Greet, dissolved as fast as they tookshape. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile Laura went quickly home. A new tenderness, a new remorsetowards the "cub" was in the girl's mind. Ought she to have gone? Had shebeen kind? Oh! she would be his friend and good angel--without anynonsense, of course. 

She hurried through the trees and along the dimly gleaming path. Suddenlyshe perceived in the distance the sparkle of a lantern. 

How vexatious! Was there no escape for her? She looked in some trouble atthe climbing woods above, at the steep bank below. 

Ah! well, her hat was large, and hid her face. And her dress was allcovered by her cloak. She hastened on. 

It was a man--an old man--carrying a bundle and a lantern. He seemed towaver and stop as she approached him, and at the actual moment of herpassing him, to her amazement, he suddenly threw himself against one ofthe trees on the mountain side of the path, and his lantern showed herhis face for an instant--a white face, stricken with--fear, was it? orwhat?

Fright gained upon herself. She ran on, and as she ran it seemed to herthat she heard something fall with a clang, and, afterwards, a cry. Shelooked back. The old man was still there, erect, but his light was gone. 

Well, no doubt he had dropped his lantern. Let him light it again. It wasno concern, of hers. 

Here was the door in the wall. It opened to her touch. She glidedin--across the garden--found the chapel door ajar, and in a few moreseconds was safe in her own room. 

CHAPTER III

Laura was standing before her looking-glass straightening the curls thather rapid walk had disarranged, when her attention was caught by certainunusual sounds in the house. There was a hurrying of distant feet--calls, as though from the kitchen region--and lastly, the deep voice of Mr. Helbeck. Miss Fountain paused, brush in hand, wondering what hadhappened. 

A noise of fluttering skirts, and a cry for "Laura!"--Miss Fountainopened her door, and saw Augustina, who never ran, hurrying as fast asher feebleness would let her, towards her stepdaughter. 

"Laura!--where is my sal volatile? You gave me some yesterday, youremember, for my headache. There's somebody ill, downstairs. "

She paused for breath. 

"Here it is, " said Laura, finding the bottle, and bringing it. "What'swrong?"

"Oh, my dear, such an adventure! There's an old man fainted in thekitchen. He came to the back door to ask for a light for his lantern. Mrs. Denton says he was shaking all over when she first saw him, and aswhite as her apron. He told her he'd seen the ghost! 'I've often heardtell o' the Bannisdale Lady, ' he said, 'an now I've seen her!' She askedhim to sit down a minute to rest himself, and he fainted straight away. He's that old Scarsbrook, you know, whose wife does our washing. Theylive in that cottage by the weir, the other end of the park. I must go!Mrs. Denton's giving him some brandy--and Alan's gone down. Isn't it anextraordinary thing?"

"Very, " said Laura, accompanying her stepmother along the passage. "Whatdid he see?"

She paused, laying a restraining hand on Augustina's arm--cudgelling herbrains the while. Yes! she could remember now a few contemptuous remarksof Mr. Helbeck to Father Leadham on the subject of a ghost story that hadsprung up during the Squire's memory in connection with the park and thehouse--a quite modern story, according to Helbeck, turning on the commonmotive of a gypsy woman and her curse, started some forty years beforethis date, with a local success not a little offensive, apparently, tothe owner of Bannisdale. 

"What did he see?" repeated the girl. "Don't hurry, Augustina; you knowthe doctor told you not. Shall I take the sal volatile?"

"Oh, no!--they want me. " In any matter of doctoring small or great, Augustina had the happiest sense of her own importance. "I don't knowwhat he saw exactly. It was a lady, he says--he knew it was, by the hatand the walk. She was all in black--with 'a Dolly Varden hat'--fancy theold fellow!--that hid her face--and a little white hand, that shot outsparks as he came up to her! Did you ever hear such, a tale? Now, Laura, I'm all right. Let me go. Come when you like. "

Augustina hurried off; Laura was left standing pensive in the passage. 

"H'm, that's unlucky, " she said to herself. 

Then she looked down at her right hand. An old-fashioned diamond ringwith a large centre stone, which had been her mother's, shone on thethird finger. With an involuntary smile, she drew off the ring, and wentback to her room. 

"What's to be done now?" she thought, as she put the ring in a drawer. "Shall I go down and explain--say I was out for a stroll?"--She shook herhead. --"Won't do now--I should have had more presence of mind a minuteago. Augustina would suspect a hundred things. It's really dramatic. Shall I go down? He didn't see my face--no, that I'll answer for! Here'sfor it!"

She pulled out the golden mass of her hair till it made a denser framethan usual round her brow, looked at her white dress--shook her headdubiously--laughed at her own flushed face in the glass, and calmly wentdownstairs. 

She found an anxious group in the great bare servants' hall. The old man, supported by pillows, was stretched on a wooden settle, with Helbeck, Augustina, and Mrs. Denton standing by. The first things she saw were theold peasant's closed eyes and pallid face--then Helbeck's grave andpuzzled countenance above him. The Squire turned at Miss Fountain's step. Did she imagine it--or was there a peculiar sharpness in his swiftglance?

Mrs. Denton had just been administering a second dose of brandy, and wasapparently in the midst of her own report to her master of Scarsbrook'sstory. 

"'I wor just aboot to pass her, ' he said, 'when I nawticed 'at her feetmade noa noise. She keäm glidin--an glidin--an my hair stood reet oop--itlifted t'whole top o' my yed. An she gaed passt me like a puff o'wind--as cauld as ice--an I wor mair deed nor alive. An I luked aftherher, an she vanisht i' th' varra middle o' t' path. An my leet wentoot--an I durstn't ha gane on, if it wor iver so--so I juist crawled backtet hoose----'"

"The door in the wall!" thought Laura. "He didn't know it was there. "

She had remained in the background while Mrs. Denton was speaking, butnow she approached the settle. Mrs. Denton threw a sour look at her, andflounced out of her way. Helbeck silently made room for her. As shepassed him, she felt instinctively that his distant politeness had becomesomething more pronounced. He left her questions to Augustina to answer, and himself thrust his hands into his pockets and moved away. 

"Have you sent for anyone?" said Laura to Mrs. Fountain. 

"Yes. Wilson's gone in the pony cart for the wife. And if he doesn't comeround by the time she gets here--some one will have to go for the doctor, Alan?"

She looked round vaguely. 

"Of course. Wilson must go on, " said Helbeck from the distance. "Or I'llgo myself. "

"But he is coming round, " said Laura, pointing. 

"If yo'll nobbut move oot o' t' way, Miss, we'll be able to get at 'im, "said Mrs. Denton sharply. Laura hastily obeyed her. The housekeeperbrought more brandy; then signs of returning force grew stronger, and bythe time the wife appeared the old fellow was feebly beginning to moveand look about him. 

Amid the torrent of lamentations, questions, and hypotheses that the wifepoured forth, Laura withdrew into the background. But she could notprevail on herself to go. Daring or excitement held her there, till theold man should be quite himself again. 

He struggled to his feet at last, and said, with a long sigh that wasstill half a shudder, "Aye--noo I'll goa home--Lisbeth. "

He was a piteous spectacle as he stood there, still trembling through allhis stunted frame, his wrinkled face drawn and bloodless, his grey hairin a tragic confusion. Suddenly, as he looked at his wife, he said with aclear solemnity, "Lisbeth--I ha' got my death warrant!"

"Don't say any such thing, Scarsbrook, " said Helbeck, coming forward tosupport him. "You know I don't believe in this ghost business--and neverdid. You saw some stranger in the park--and she passed you too quicklyfor you to see where she went to. You may be sure that'll turn out to bethe truth. You remember--it's a public path--anybody might be there. Justtry and take that view of it--and don't fret, for your wife's sake. We'llmake inquiries, and I'll come and see you to-morrow. And as for deathwarrants, we're all in God's care, you know--don't forget that. "

He smiled with a kindly concern and pity on the old man. But Scarsbrookshook his head. 

"It wur t' Bannisdale Lady, " he repeated; "I've often heerd onher--often--and noo I've seen her. "

"Well, to-morrow you'll be quite proud of it, " said Helbeck cheerfully. "Come, and let me put you into the cart. I think, if we make acomfortable seat for you, you'll be fit to drive home now. "

Supported by the Squire's strong arm on one side, and his wife on theother, Scarsbrook managed to hobble down the long passage leading to thedoor in the inner courtyard, where the pony cart was standing. It wasevident that his perceptions were still wholly dazed. He had notrecognised or spoken to anyone in the room but the Squire--not even tohis old crony Mrs. Denton. 

Laura drew a long breath. 

"Augustina, do go to bed, " she said, going up to her stepmother--"oryou'll be ill next. "

Augustina allowed herself to be led upstairs. But it was long before shewould let her stepdaughter leave her. She was full of supernaturalterrors and excitements, and must talk about all the former appearancesof the ghost--the stories that used to be told in her childhood--the newor startling details in the old man's version, and so forth. "What couldhe have meant by the light on the hand?" she said wondering. "I neverheard of that before. And she used always to be in grey; and now he saysthat she had a black dress from top to toe. "

"Their wardrobes are so limited--poor damp, sloppy things!" said Lauraflippantly, as she brushed her stepmother's hair. "Do you suppose thisnonsense will be all over the country-side to-morrow, Augustina?"

"What do you _really_ think he saw, Laura?" cried Mrs. Fountain, waveringbetween doubt and belief. 

"Goodness!--don't ask me. " Miss Fountain shrugged her small shoulders. "Idon't keep a family ghost. "

 * * * * *

When at last Augustina had been settled in bed, and persuaded to takesome of her sleeping medicine, Laura was bidding her good-night, whenMrs. Fountain said, "Oh! I forgot, Laura--there was a letter brought infor you from the post-office, by Wilson this afternoon--he gave it toMrs. Denton, and she forgot it till after dinner----"

"Of course--because it was mine, " said Laura vindictively. "Where is it?"

"On the drawing-room chimney-piece. "

"All right. I'll go for it. But I shall be disturbing Mr. Helbeck. "

"Oh! no--it's much too late. Alan will have gone to his study. "

Miss Fountain stood a moment outside her stepmother's door, consultingher watch. 

For she was anxious to get her letter, and not at all anxious to fall inwith Mr. Helbeck. At least, so she would have explained herself hadanyone questioned her. In fact, her wishes and intentions were intumultuous confusion. All the time that she was waiting on Augustina, herbrain, her pulse was racing. In the added touch of stiffness which shehad observed in Helbeck's manner, she easily divined the result of thatconversation he had no doubt held with Augustina after dinner, while shewas by the river. Did he think even worse of her than he had before?Well!--if he and Augustina could do without her, let them send heraway--by all manner of means! She had her own friends, her own money, wasin all respects her own mistress, and only asked to be allowed to leadher life as she pleased. 

Nevertheless--as she crossed the darkness of the hall, with her candle inher hand--Laura Fountain was very near indeed to a fit of wild weeping. During the months following her father's death, these agonies of cryinghad come upon her night after night--unseen by any human being. She feltnow the approach of an old enemy and struggled with it. "One mustn't havethis excitement every night!" she said to herself, half mocking. "Nonerves would stand it. "

A light under the library door. Well and good. How--she wondered--did heoccupy himself there, through so many solitary hours? Once or twice shehad heard him come upstairs to bed, and never before one or two o'clock. 

Suddenly she stood abashed. She had thrown open the drawing-room door, and the room lay before her, almost in darkness. One dim lamp stillburned at the further end, and in the middle of the room stood Mr. Helbeck, arrested in his walk to and fro, and the picture ofastonishment. 

Laura drew back in real discomfiture. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Helbeck! I had no notion that anyone was still here. "

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he said advancing. 

"Augustina told me there was a letter for me this evening. "

"Of course. It is here on the mantelpiece. I ought to have rememberedit. "

He took up the letter and held it towards her. Then suddenly he paused, and sharply withdrawing it, he placed it on a table beside him, and laidhis hand upon it. She saw a flash of quick resolution in his face, andher own pulses gave a throb. 

"Miss Fountain, will you excuse my detaining you for a moment? I havebeen thinking much about this old man's story, and the possibleexplanation of it. It struck me in a very singular way. As you know, Ihave never paid much attention to the ghost story here--we have neverbefore had a testimony so direct. Is it possible--that you might throwsome light upon it? You left us, you remember, after dinner. Did you bychance go into the garden?--the evening was tempting, I think. If so, your memory might possibly recall to you some--slight thing. "

"Yes, " she said, after a moment's hesitation, "I did go into the garden. "

His eye gleamed. He came a step nearer. 

"Did you see or hear anything--to explain what happened?"

She did not answer for a moment. She made a vague movement, as though torecover her letter--looked curiously into a glass case that stood besideher, containing a few Stuart relics and autographs. Then, with absoluteself-possession, she turned and confronted him, one hand resting on theglass case. 

"Yes; I can explain it all. I was the ghost!"

There was a moment's silence. A smile--a smile that she winced under, showed itself on Helbeck's lip. 

"I imagined as much, " he said quietly. 

She stood there, torn by different impulses. Then a passion of annoyancewith herself, and anger with him, descended on her. 

"Now perhaps you would like to know why I concealed it?" she said, withall the dignity she could command. "Simply, because I had gone out tomeet and say good-bye to a person--who is my relation--whom I cannot meetin this house, and against whom there is here an unreasonable--" Shehesitated; then resumed, leaning obstinately on the words--"Yes! take itall in all, it _is_ an unreasonable prejudice. "

"You mean Mr. Hubert Mason?"

She nodded. 

"You think it an unreasonable prejudice after what happened the othernight?"

She wavered. 

"I don't want to defend what happened the other night, " she said, whileher voice shook. 

Helbeck observed her carefully. There was a great decision in his manner, and at the same time a fine courtesy. 

"You knew, then, that he was to be in the park? Forgive my questions. They are not mere curiosity. "

"Perhaps not, " she said indifferently. "But I think I have told you allthat needs to be told. May I have my letter?"

She stepped forward. 

"One moment. I wonder, Miss Fountain, "--he chose his words slowly--"if Icould make you understand my position. It is this. My sister brings ayoung lady, her stepdaughter, to stay under my roof. That young ladyhappens to be connected with a family in this neighbourhood, which isalready well known to me. For some of its members I have nothing butrespect--about one I happen to have a strong opinion. I have reasons, formy opinion. I imagine that very few people of any way of thinking wouldhold me either unreasonable or prejudiced in the matter. Naturally, itgives me some concern that a young lady towards whom I feel a certainresponsibility should be much seen with this young man. He is not herequal socially, and--pardon me--she knows nothing at all about the typeto which he belongs. Indirectly I try to warn her. I speak to my sisteras gently as I can. But from the first she rejects all I have to say--shegives me credit for no good intention--and she will have none of myadvice. At last a disagreeable incident happens--and unfortunately theknowledge of it is not confined to ourselves----"

Laura threw him a flashing look. 

"No!--there are people who have taken care of that!" she said. 

Helbeck took no notice. 

"It is known not only to ourselves, " he repeated steadily. "It startsgossip. My sister is troubled. She asks you to put an end to this stateof things, and she consults me, feeling that indeed we are all in someway concerned. "

"Oh, say at once that I have brought scandal on you all!" cried Laura. "That of course is what Sister Angela and Father Bowles have been sayingto Augustina. They are pleased to show the greatest anxiety about me--somuch so, that they most kindly wish to relieve me of the charge ofAugustina. --So I understand! But I fear I am neither docile norgrateful!--that I never shall be grateful----"

Helbeck interrupted. 

"Let us come to that presently. I should like to finish my story. Whilemy sister and I are consulting, trying to think of all that can be doneto stop a foolish talk and undo an unlucky incident, this same younglady"--his voice took a cold clearness--"steals out by night to keep anappointment with this man, who has already done her so great adisservice. Now I should like to ask her, if all this is kind--isreasonable--is generous towards the persons with whom she is at presentliving--if such conduct is not"--he paused--"unwise towardsherself--unjust towards others. "

His words came out with a strong and vibrating emphasis. Laura confrontedhim with crimson cheeks. 

"I think that will do, Mr. Helbeck!" she cried. "You have had yoursay. --Now just let me say this, --these people were my relations--I haveno other kith and kin in the world. "

He made a quick step forward as though in distress. But she put up herhand. 

"I want very much to say this, please. I knew perfectly well when I camehere that you couldn't like the Masons--for many reasons. " Her voicebroke again. "You never liked Augustina's marriage--you weren't likely towant to see anything of papa's people. I didn't ask you to see them. Allmy standards and theirs are different from yours. But I prefertheirs--not yours! I have nothing to do with yours. I was broughtup--well, to _hate_ yours--if one must tell the truth. "

She paused, half suffocated, her chest heaving. Helbeck's glanceenveloped her--took in the contrast between her violent words and theshrinking delicacy of her small form. A great melting stole over theman's dark face. But he spoke dryly enough. 

"I imagine the standards of Protestants and Catholics are pretty muchalike in matters of this kind. But don't let us waste time any more overwhat has already happened. I should like, I confess, to plead with you asto the future. "

He looked at her kindly, even entreatingly. All through this scene shehad been unwittingly, angrily conscious of his personal dignity andcharm--a dignity that seemed to emerge in moments of heightened action orfeeling, and to slip out of sight again under the absent hermit-manner ofhis ordinary life. She was smarting under his words--ready to concentratea double passion of resentment upon them, as soon as she should be aloneand free to recall them. And yet----

"As to the future, " she said coldly. "That is simple enough as far as oneperson is concerned. Hubert Mason is going to Froswick immediately, intobusiness. "

"I am glad to hear it--it will be very much for his good. "

He stopped a moment, searching for the word of persuasion andconciliation. 

"Miss Fountain!--if you imagine that certain incidents which happenedhere long before you came into this neighbourhood had anything to do withwhat I have been saying now, let me assure you--most earnestly--that itis not so! I recognise fully that with regard to a certain case--of whichyou may have heard--the Masons and their friends honestly believed thatwrong and injustice had been done. They attempted personal violence. Ican hardly be expected to think it argument! But I bear them no malice. Isay this because you may have heard of something that happened three orfour years ago--a row in the streets, when Father Bowles and I were setupon. It has never weighed with me in the slightest, and I could haveshaken hands with old Mason--who was in the crowd, and refused to stopthe stone throwing--the day after. As for Mrs. Mason"--he looked up witha smile--"if she could possibly have persuaded herself to come with herdaughter and see you here, my welcome would not have been wanting. But, you know, she would as soon visit Gehenna! Nobody could be more consciousthan I, Miss Fountain, that this is a dreary house for a young lady tolive in--and----"

The colour mounted into his face, but he did not shrink from what hemeant to say. 

"And you have made us all feel that you regard the practices andobservances by which we try to fill and inspire our lives, as merehateful folly and superstition!" He checked himself. "Is that toostrong?" he added, with a sudden eagerness. "If so, I apologise for andwithdraw it!"

Laura, for a moment, was speechless. Then she gathered her forces, andsaid, with a voice she in vain tried to compose:

"I think you exaggerate, Mr. Helbeck; at any rate, I hope you do. But thefact is, I--I ought not to have tried to bear it. Considering all thathad happened at home--it was more than I had strength for! Andperhaps--no good will come of going on with it--and it had better cease. Mr. Helbeck!--if your Superior can really find a good nurse and companionat once, will you kindly communicate with her? I will go to Cambridgeimmediately, as soon as I can arrange with my friends. Augustina, nodoubt, will come and stay with me somewhere at the sea, later on in theyear. "

Helbeck had been listening to her--to the sharp determination of hervoice--in total silence. He was leaning against the high mantelpiece, andhis face was hidden from her. As she ceased to speak, he turned, and hismere aspect beat down the girl's anger in a moment. He shook his headsadly. 

"Dr. MacBride stopped me on the bridge yesterday, as he was coming awayfrom the house. "

Laura drew back. Her eyes fastened upon him. 

"He thinks her in a serious state. We are not to alarm her, or interferewith her daily habits. There is valvular disease--as I think youknow--and it has advanced. Neither he nor anyone can forecast. "

The girl's head fell. She recognised that the contest was over. She couldnot go; she could not leave Augustina; and the inference was clear. Therehad not been a word of menace, but she understood. Mr. Helbeck's willmust prevail. She had brought this humiliating half-hour on herself--andshe would have to bear the consequences of it. She moved towards Helbeck. 

"Well then, I must stay, " she said huskily, "and I must try to--toremember where I am in future. I ought to be able to hide everything Ifeel--of course! But that unfortunately is what I never learnt. And--there are some ways of life--that--that are too far apart. However!"--she raised her hand to her brow, frowned, and thought alittle--"I can't make any promise about my cousins, Mr. Helbeck. _I_ knowperfectly well--whatever may be said--that I have done nothing whateverto be ashamed of. I have wanted to--to help my cousin. He is worthhelping--in spite of everything--and I _will_ help him, if I can! But ifI am to remain your guest, I see that I must consult your wishes----"

Helbeck tried again to stop her with a gesture, but she hurried on. 

"As far as this house and neighbourhood are concerned, no one shall haveany reason--to talk. "

Then she threw her head back with a sudden flush. 

"Of course, if people are born to say and think ill-natured things!--likeMrs. Denton----"

Helbeck exclaimed. 

"I will see to that, " he said. "You shall have no reason to complain, there. "

Laura shrugged her shoulders. 

"Will you kindly give me my letter?"

As he handed it to her, she made him a little bow, walked to the doorbefore he could open it for her, and was gone. 

Helbeck turned back, with a smothered exclamation. He put the lamps out, and went slowly to his study. 

 * * * * *

As the master of Bannisdale closed the door of his library behind him, the familiar room produced upon him a sharp and singular impression. Themost sacred and the most critical hours of his life had been passedwithin its walls. As he entered it now, it seemed to repulse him, to beno longer his. 

The room was not large. It was the old library of the house, and theHelbecks in their palmiest days had never been a literary race. There wasa little seventeenth century theology; and a few English classics. Therewere the French books of Helbeck's grandmother--"Madame, " as she wasalways known at Bannisdale; and amongst them the worn brown volumes ofSt. François de Sales, with the yellowish paper slips that Madame had putin to mark her favourite passages, somewhere in the days of the FirstEmpire. Near by were some stray military volumes, treatises on tacticsand fortification, that had belonged to a dashing young officer in theDillon Regiment, close to some "Epîtres Amoureux, " a translation of"Daphnis and Chloe, " and the like--all now sunk together into the samedusty neglect. 

On the wall above Helbeck's writing-table were ranged the books that hadbeen his mother's, together with those that he himself habitually used. Here every volume was an old friend, a familiar tool. Alan Helbeck wasneither a student nor a man of letters; but he had certain passionateprejudices, instincts, emotions, of which some books were the source andsustenance. 

For the rest--during some years he had been a member of the Third Orderof St. Francis, and in its other features the room was almost the room ofa religious. A priedieu stood against the inner wall, and a crucifix hungabove it. A little further on was a small altar of St. Joseph with itspictures, its statuette, and its candles; and a poor lithograph of PioNono looked down from the mantelpiece. The floor was almost bare, savefor a few pieces of old matting here and there. The worn Turkey carpetthat had formerly covered it had been removed to make the drawing-roomcomfortable for Augustina; so had most of the chairs. Those left were ofthe straightest and hardest. 

In that dingy room, however, Helbeck had known the most blessed, the mostintimate moments of the spiritual life. To-night he entered it with astrange sense of wrench--of mortal discouragement. Mechanically he wentto his writing-table, and, sitting down before it, he took a key from hiswatch-chain and opened a large locked note-book that lay upon it. 

The book contained a number of written meditations, a collection ofpassages and thoughts, together with some faded photographs of hismother, and of his earliest Jesuit teachers at Stonyhurst. 

On the last page was a paragraph that only the night before he had copiedfrom one of his habitual books of devotion--copying it as a spiritualexercise--making himself dwell upon every word of it. 

"_When shall I desire Thee alone--feed on Thee alone--O my Delight, myonly good! O my loving and almighty Lord! free now this wretched heartfrom every attachment, from every earthly affection; adorn it with Thyholy virtues, and with a pure intention of doing all things to pleaseThee, that so I may open it to Thee, and with gentle violence compel Theeto come in, that Thou, O Lord, mayest work therein without resistance allthose effects which from all Eternity Thou hast desired to produce inme. _"

He lingered a little on the words, his face buried in his hands. Thenslowly he turned back to an earlier page--

"_Man must use creatures as being in themselves indifferent. He must notbe under their power, but use them for his own purpose, his own first andchiefest purpose, the salvation of his soul. _"

A shudder passed through him. He rose hastily from his seat, and began topace the room. He had already passed through a wrestle of the same kind, and had gone away to fight down temptation. To-night the struggle washarder. The waves of rising passion broke through him. 

"Little pale, angry face! I gave her a scolding like a child--what joy tohave forgiven her like a child!--to have asked her pardon in return--tohave felt the soft head against my breast. She was very fierce withme--she hates me, I suppose. And yet--she is not indifferent to me!--sheknows when I am there. Downstairs she was conscious of me all through--Iknew it. Her secret was in her face. I guessed it--foolish child--fromthe first moment. Strange, stormy nature!--I see it all--her passion forher father, and for these peasants as belonging to him--her hatred of meand of our faith, because her father hated us--her feeling forAugustina--that rigid sense, of obligation she has, just on the two orthree points--points of natural affection. It is this sense, perhaps, that makes the soul of her struggle with this house--with me. How sheloathes all that we love--humility, patience, obedience! She would soonerdie than obey. Unless she loved! Then what an art, what an enchantment tocommand her! It would tax a lover's power, a lover's heart, to theutmost. Ah!"

He stood still, and with an effort of iron resolution put from him thefancies that were thronging on the brain. If it were possible for him toconquer her, conceivable that he might win her--such a dream wasforbidden to him, Alan Helbeck, a thousandfold! Such a marriage would bethe destruction of innumerable schemes for the good of the Church, forthe perfecting of his own life. It would be the betrayal of great trusts, the abandonment of great opportunities. "My life would centre in her. Shewould come first--the Church second. Her nature would work on mine--notmine on hers. Could I ever speak to her even of what I believe?--the veryalphabet of it is unknown to her. I shrink from proselytism. God forgiveme!--it is her wild pagan self that I love--that I desire----"

The blast of human longing, human pain, was hard to meet--hard to subdue. But the Catholic fought--and conquered. 

"I am not my own--I have taken tasks upon me that no honest man couldbetray. There are vows on me also, that bind me specially to our Lord--tohis Church. The Church frowns on such a love--such marriages. She doesnot forbid them--but they pain her heart. I have accepted her judgmenttill now, without difficulty, without conflict. Now to obey is hard. ButI can obey--we are not asked impossibilities. "

He walked to the crucifix, and threw himself down before it. A midnightstillness brooded over the house. 

 * * * * *

But far away, in an upper room, Laura Fountain had cried herself tosleep--only to wake again and again, with the tears flooding her cheeks. Was it merely a disagreeable and exciting scene she had gone through?What was this new invasion of her life?--this new presence to the inwardeye of a form and look that at once drew her and repulsed her. A hundredalien forces were threatening and pressing upon her--and out from thevery heart of them came this strange drawing--this magnetism--thistroubling misery. 

To be prisoned in Bannisdale--under Mr. Helbeck's roof--for months andmonths longer--this thought was maddening to her. 

But when she imagined herself free to go--and far away once more fromthis old and melancholy house--among congenial friends and scenes--shewas no happier than before. A little moan of anger and pain came, thatshe stifled against her pillow, calling passionately on the sleep thatwould, that must, chase all these phantoms of fatigue or excitement--andgive her back her old free self. 

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

"We shall get there in capital time--that's nice!" said Polly Mason, putting down the little railway guide she had just purchased at MarslandStation, with a general rustle of satisfaction. 

Polly indeed shone with good temper and new clothes. Her fringe--evenhalved--was prodigious. Her cheap lemon-coloured gloves were cracking onher large hands; and round her beflowered hat she had tied clouds onclouds of white tulle, which to some extent softened the tans andcrimsons of her complexion. Her dress was of a stiff white cotton stuff, that fell into the most startling folds and angles; and at every movementof it, the starch rattled. 

On the opposite seat of the railway carriage was Laura Fountain--an openbook upon her knee that she was not reading. She made no answer, however, to Polly's remark; the impression left by her attitude was that she tookno interest in it. Miss Fountain herself hardly seemed to have profitedmuch by that Westmoreland air whereof the qualities were to do so muchfor Augustina. It was now June, the end of June, and Laura was certainlypaler, less blooming, than she had been in March. She seemed moreconscious; she was certainly less radiant. Whether her prettiness hadgained by the slight change, might be debated. Polly's eyes, indeed, asthey sped along, paid her cousin one long covetous tribute. Thedifficulty that she always had in putting on her own clothes, andsoftening her own physical points, made her the more conscious of Laura'sdelicate ease, of all the yielding and graceful lines into which thelittle black and white muslin frock fell so readily, of all that naturalkinship between Laura and her hats, Laura and her gloves, which poorPolly fully perceived, knowing well and sadly that she herself couldnever attain to it. 

Nevertheless--pretty, Miss Fountain might be; elegant she certainly was;but Polly did not find her the best of companions for a festal day. Theywere going to Froswick--the big town on the coast--to meet Hubert andanother young man, one Mr. Seaton, foreman in a large engineeringconcern, whose name Polly had not been able to mention without bridling, for some time past. 

It was more than a fortnight since the sister, driven by Hubert'sincessant letters, had proposed to Laura that they two should spend asummer day at Froswick and see the great steel works on which the fame ofthat place depended, escorted and entertained by the two young men. Lauraat first had turned a deaf ear. Then all at once--a very flare ofeagerness and acceptance!--a sudden choosing of day and train. And nowthat they were actually on their way, with everything arranged, and aglorious June sun above their heads, Laura was so silent, so reluctant, so irritable--you might have thought----

Well!--Polly really did not know what to think. She was not quite happyherself. From time to time, as her look dwelt on Laura, she was consciousof certain guilty reserves and concealments in her own breast. She wishedHubert had more sense--she hoped to goodness it would all go off nicely!But of course it would. Polly was an optimist and took all things simply. Her anxieties for Laura did not long resist the mere pleasure of thejourney and the trip, the flatteries of expectation. What a veryrespectable and, on the whole, good-looking young man was Mr. Seaton!Polly had met him first at the Browhead dance; so that what was a mereblack and ugly spot in Laura's memory shone rosy-red in her cousin's. 

Meanwhile Laura, mainly to avoid Polly's conversation, was looking hardout of window. They were running along the southern shore of a greatestuary. Behind the loitering train rose the hills they had just left, the hills that sheltered the stream and the woods of Bannisdale. Thatrich, dark patch beneath the further brow was the wood in which the housestood. To the north, across the bay, ran the line of high mountains, adim paradise of sunny slopes and steeps, under the keenest and brightestof skies--blue ramparts from which the gently opening valleys floweddownwards, one beside the other, to the estuary and the sea. 

Not that the great plunging sea itself was much to be seen as yet. Immediately beyond the railway line stretched leagues of firm reddishsand, pierced by the innumerable channels of the Greet. The sun lay hotand dazzling on the wide flat surfaces, on the flocks of gulls, on thepools of clear water. The window was open, and through the June heatswept a sharp, salt breath. Laura, however, felt none of the physicalexhilaration that as a rule overflowed in her so readily. Was it becausethe Bannisdale Woods were still visible? What made the significance ofthat dark patch to the girl's restless eye? She came back to it again andagain. It was like a flag, round which a hundred warring thoughts hadcome to gather. 

Why?

Were not she and Mr. Helbeck on the best of terms? Was not Augustinaquite pleased--quite content? "I always knew, my dear Laura, that you andAlan would get on, in time. Why, anyone could get on with Alan--he's sokind!" When these things were said, Laura generally laughed. She did notremind Mrs. Fountain that she, at one time of her existence, had notfound it particularly easy and simple to "get on with Alan"; but the girldid once allow herself the retort--"It's not so easy to quarrel, is it, when you don't see a person from week's end to week's end?" "Week's endto week's end?" Mrs. Fountain repeated vaguely. "Yes--Alan is away agreat deal--people trust him so much--he has so much business. "

Laura was of opinion that his first business might very well have been tosee a little more of his widowed sister! She and Augustina spent days anddays alone, while Mr. Helbeck pursued the affairs of the Church. Oneprecious attempt indeed had been made to break the dulness of Bannisdale. Miss Fountain's cheeks burned when she thought of it. There had been anafternoon party! though Augustina's widowhood was barely a year old! Mrs. Fountain had been sent about the country delivering notes and cards. Andthe result:--oh, such a party!--such an interminable afternoon! Where hadthe people come from?--who were they? If Polly, full of curiosity, askedfor some details, Laura would toss her head and reply that she knewnothing at all about it; that Mrs. Denton had provided bad tea and worsecakes, and the guests had "filled their chairs, " and there was nothingelse to say. Mr. Helbeck's shyness and efforts; the glances of appeal hethrew every now and then towards his sister; his evident depression whenthe thing was done--these things were not told to Polly. There was aplace for them in the girl's sore mind; but they did not come to speech. Anyway she believed--nay, was quite sure--that Bannisdale would not be sotried a second time. For whose benefit was it done?--whose!

One evening----

As the train crossed the bridge of the estuary, from one stretch of hotsand to another, Laura, staring at the view, saw really nothing but animage of the mind, felt nothing except what came through the magic ofmemory. 

The hall of Bannisdale, with the lingering daylight of the north stillcoming in at ten o'clock through the uncurtained oriel windows--herselfat the piano, Augustina on the settle--a scent of night and flowersspreading through the dim place from the open windows of the drawing-roombeyond. One candle is beside her--and there are strange glints ofmoonlight here and there on the panelling. A tall figure enters from thechapel passage. Augustina makes room on the settle--the Squire leans backand listens. And the girl at the piano plays; the stillness and the nightseem to lay releasing hands upon her; bonds that have been stifling andcramping the soul break down; she plays with all her self, as she mighthave talked or wept to a friend--to her father.... And at last, in apause, the Squire puts a new candle beside her, and his deep shy voicecommends her, asks her to go on playing. Afterwards, there is a pleasantand gentle talk for half an hour--Augustina can hardly be made to go tobed--and when at last she rises, the girl's small hand slips into theman's, is lost there, feels a new lingering touch, from which bothwithdraw in almost equal haste. And the night, for the girl, is brokenwith restlessness, with wild efforts to draw the old fetters tight again, to clamp and prison something that flutters--that struggles. 

Then next morning, there is an empty chair at the breakfast table. "TheSquire left early on business. " Without any warning--any courteousmessage? One evening at home, after a long absence, and then--off again!A good Catholic, it seems, lives in the train, and makes himself thecatspaw of all who wish to use him for their own ends!

... As to that old peasant, Scarsbrook, what could be more arbitrary, more absurd, than Mr. Helbeck's behaviour? The matter turns out to beserious. Fright blanches the old fellow's beard and hair; he takes to hisbed, and the doctor talks of severe "nervous shock"--very serious, oftendeadly, at the patient's age. Why not confess everything at once, setthings straight, free the poor shaken mind from its oppression? Who'safraid?--what harm is there in an after-dinner stroll?

But there!--truth apparently is what no one wants, what no one willhave--least of all, Mr. Helbeck. She sees a meeting in the park, underthe oaks--the same tall man and the girl--the girl bound impetuously forconfession, and the soothing of old Scarsbrook's terrors once forall--the man standing in the way, as tough and prickly as one of his ownhawthorns. Courtesy, of course! there is no one can make courtesy sogalling; and then such a shooting out of will and personality, so sudden, so volcanic a heat of remonstrance! And a woman is such a poor ill-strungcreature, even the boldest of them! She yields when she should havepressed forward--goes home to rage, when she should have stayed towrestle. 

Afterwards, another absence--the old house silent as the grave--andAugustina so fretful, so wearisome! But she is better, much better. Howunscrupulous are doctors, and those other persons who make them sayexactly what suits the moment!

The dulness seems to grow with the June heat. Soon it becomesintolerable. Nobody comes, nobody speaks; no mind offers itself to yoursfor confidence and sympathy. Well, but change and excitement of some sortone _must_ have!--who is to blame, if you get it where you can?

A day in Froswick with Hubert Mason? Yes--why not? Polly proposes it--hasproposed it once or twice before to no purpose. For two months now theyoung man has been in training. Polly writes to him often; Laurasometimes wonders whether the cross-examinations through which Polly putsher may not partly be for Hubert's benefit. She herself has written twiceto him in answer to some half-dozen letters, has corrected his song forhim--has played altogether a very moral and sisterly part. Is the youthreally in love? Perhaps. Will it do him any harm?

Augustina of course dislikes the prospect of the Froswick day. But, really, Augustina must put up with it! The Reverend Mother will come forthe afternoon, and keep her company. Such civility of late on the part ofall the Catholic friends of Bannisdale towards Miss Fountain!--a civilityalways on the watch, week by week, day by day--that never yields itselffor an instant, has never a human impulse, an unguarded tone. FatherLeadham is there one day--he makes a point of talking with Miss Fountain. He leads the conversation to Cambridge, to her father--his keen glanceupon her all the time, the hidden life of the convert and the mysticleaping every now and then to the surface, and driven down again by awill that makes itself felt--even by so cool a listener--as a livingtyrannous thing, developed out of all proportion to, nay at the cruelexpense of, the rest of the personality. Yet it is no will of the man'sown--it is the will of his order, of his faith. And why these repeatedstray references to Bannisdale--to its owner--to the owner's goings andcomings? They are hardly questions, but they might easily have done thework of questions had the person addressed been willing. Laura laughs tothink of it. 

Ah! well--but discretion to-day, discretion to-morrow, discretion always, is not the most amusing of diets. How dumb, how tame, has she become!There is no one to fight with, nothing whereon to let loose thesharp-edged words and sayings that lie so close behind the girl's shutlips. How amazing that one should positively miss those fuller activitiesin the chapel that depend on the Squire's presence! Father Bowles saysMass there twice a week; the light still burns before the altar; severaltimes a day Augustina disappears within the heavy doors. But when Mr. Helbeck is at home, the place becomes, as it were, the strong heart ofthe house. It beats through the whole organism; so that no one can ignoreor forget it. 

What is it that makes the difference when he returns? Unwillingly, themind shapes its reply. A sense of unity and law comes back into thehouse--a hidden dignity and poetry. The Squire's black head carries withit stern reminders, reminders that challenge or provoke; but "he nothingcommon does nor mean, " and smaller mortals, as the weeks go by, begin tofeel their hot angers and criticisms driven back upon themselves, torealise the strange persistency and force of the religious life. 

Inhuman force! But force of any kind tends to draw, to conquer. More thanonce Laura sees herself at night, almost on the steps of the chapel, inthe dark shadows of the passage--following Augustina. But she has neveryet mounted the steps--never passed the door. Once or twice she hasangrily snatched herself from listening to the distant voice. 

... Mr. Helbeck makes very little comment on the Froswick plan. One swiftinvoluntary look at breakfast, as who might say--"Our compact?" But therewas no compact. And go she will. 

And at last all opposition clears away. It must be Mr. Helbeck who hassilenced Augustina--for even she complains no more. Trains are lookedout; arrangements are made to fetch Polly from a half-way village; a flyis ordered to meet the 9. 10 train at night. Why does one feel a culpritall through? Absurdity! Is one to be mewed up all one's life, to throwover all fun and frolic at Mr. Helbeck's bidding--Mr. Helbeck, who nowscarcely sets foot in Bannisdale, who seems to have turned his back uponhis own house, since that precise moment when his sister and herstepdaughter came to inhabit it? Never till this year was he restless inthis way--so says Mrs. Denton, whose temper grows shorter and shorter. 

Oh--as to fun and frolic! The girl yawns as she looks out of window. Whata long hot day it is going to be--and how foolish are all expeditions, all formal pleasures! 9. 10 at Marsland--about seven, she supposes, atFroswick? Already her thoughts are busy, hungrily busy with the evening, and the return. 

 * * * * *

The train sped along. They passed a little watering-place under the steepwooded hills--a furnace of sun on this hot June day, in winter a soft andsheltered refuge from the north. Further on rose the ruins of a greatCistercian abbey, great ribs and arches of red sandstone, that still, inruin, made the soul and beauty of a quiet valley; then a few busy townswith mills and factories, the fringe of that industrial district whichlies on the southern and western border of the Lake Country; more widevalleys sweeping back into blue mountains; a wealth of June leaf andblossoming tree; and at last docks and buildings, warehouses and "works, "a network of spreading railway lines, and all the other signs of animportant and growing town. The train stopped amid a crowd, and Pollyhurried to the door. 

"Why, Hubert!--Mr. Seaton!--Here we are!"

She beckoned wildly, and not a few passers-by turned to look at thenodding clouds of tulle. 

"We shall find them, Polly--don't shout, " said Laura behind her, in somedisgust. 

Shout and beckon, however, Polly did and would, till the two young menwere finally secured. 

"Why, Hubert, you never towd me what a big place 'twas, " said Pollyjoyously. "Lor, Mr. Seaton, doant fash yoursel. This is Miss Fountain--mycousin. You'll remember her, I knaw. "

Mr. Seaton began a polite and stilted speech while possessing himself ofPolly's shawl and bag. He was a very superior young man of the clerk orforeman type, somewhat ill put together at the waist, with a flat back tohis head, and a cadaverous countenance. Laura gave him a rapid look. Buther chief curiosity was for Hubert. And at her first glance she saw thesigns of that strong and silent process perpetually going on amongst usthat tames the countryman to the life and habits of the town. It was onlya couple of months since the young athlete from the fells had beenbrought within its sway, and already the marks of it were evident indress, speech, and manner. The dialect was almost gone; the black Sundaycoat was of the most fashionable cut that Froswick could provide; and asthey walked along, Laura detected more than once in the downcast eyes ofher companion, a stealthy anxiety as to the knees of his new greytrousers. So far the change was not an embellishment. The first loss offreedom and rough strength is never that. But it roused the girl'snotice, and a sort of secret sympathy. She too had felt the curb of analien life!--she could almost have held out her hand to him as to acomrade in captivity. 

Outside the station, to Laura's surprise--considering the object of theexpedition--Hubert made a sign to his sister, and they two dropped behinda little. 

"What's the matter with her?" said Hubert abruptly, as soon as he judgedthat they were out of hearing of the couple in front. 

"Who do you mean? Laura? Why, she's well enoof!"

"Then she don't look it. She's fretting. What's wrong with her?"

As Hubert looked down upon his sister, Polly was startled by theimpatient annoyance of look and manner. And how red-rimmed and weary werethe lad's eyes! You might have thought he had not slept for a week. Polly's mind ran through a series of conjectures; and she broke out withWestmoreland plainness--

"Hubert, I do wish tha wouldn't be sich a fool! I've towd tha so timesand times. "

"Aye, and you may tell me so till kingdom come--I shan't mind you, " hesaid doggedly. "There's something between her and the Squire, I knowthere is. I know it by the look of her. "

Polly laughed. 

"How you jump! I tell tha she never says a word aboot him. "

Hubert looked moodily at Laura's little figure in front. 

"All the more reason!" he said between his teeth. "She'd talk about himwhen she first came. But I'll find out--never fear. "

"For goodness' sake, Hubert, let her be!" said Polly, entreating. "Sichwild stuff as thoo's been writin me! Yan might ha thowt yo'd be fercuttin yor throat, if yo' didn't get her doon here. --What art tha thinkinof, lad? She'll never marry tha! She doan't belong to us--and there's noaundoin it. "

Hubert made no reply, but unconsciously his muscular frame took apassionate rigidity; his face became set and obstinate. 

"Well, you keep watch, " he said. "You'll see--I'll make it worth yourwhile. "

Polly looked up--half laughing. She understood his reference to herselfand her new sweetheart. Hubert would play her game if she would play his. Well--she had no objection whatever to help him to the sight of Laurawhen she could. Polly's moral sense was not over-delicate, and as to theupshot and issues of things, her imagination moved but slowly. She didnot like to let herself think of what might have been Hubert's relationsto women--to one or two wild girls about Whinthorpe for instance. ButLaura--Laura who was so much their social better, whose manners andself-possession awed them both, what smallest harm could ever come to herfrom any act or word of Hubert's? For this rustic Westmoreland girl, Laura Fountain stood on a pedestal robed and sceptred like a littlequeen. Hubert was a fool to fret himself--a fool to go courting some onetoo high for him. What else was there to say or think about it?

At the next street corner Laura made a resolute stop. Polly should notany longer be defrauded of her Mr. Seaton. Besides she, Laura, wished totalk to Hubert. Mr. Beaton's long words, and way of mouthing his highlycorrect phrases, had already seemed to take the savour out of themorning. 

When the exchange was made--Mr. Seaton alas! showing less eagerness thanmight have been expected--Laura quietly examined her companion. It seemedto her that he was taller than ever; surely she was not much higher thanhis elbow! Hubert, conscious that he was being scrutinised, turned red, looked away, coughed, and apparently could find nothing to say. 

"Well--how are you getting on?" said the light voice, sending itsvibration through all the man's strong frame. 

"I suppose I'm getting on all right, " he said, switching at the railingsbeside the road with his stick. 

"What sort of work do you do?"

He gave her a stumbling account, from which she gathered that he was forthe time being the factotum of an office, sent on everybody's errands, and made responsible for everybody's shortcomings. 

She threw him a glance of pity. This young Hercules, with his open-airtraditions, and his athlete's triumphs behind him, turned into the buttand underling of half a dozen clerks in a stuffy office!

"I don't mind, " he said hastily. "All the others paid for their places; Ididn't pay for mine. I'll be even with them all some day. It was thechance I wanted, and my uncle gives me a lift now and then. It was toplease him they gave me the berth; he's worth thousands and thousands ayear to them!"

And he launched into a boasting account of the importance and abilitiesof his uncle, Daniel Mason, who was now managing director of the greatshipbuilding yard into which Hubert had been taken, as a favour to hiskinsman. 

"He began at the bottom, same as me--only he was younger than me, " saidHubert, "so he had the pull. But you'll see, I'll work up. I've learnt alot since I've been here. The classes at the Institute--well, they'refine!"

Laura showed an astonished glance. New sides of the lad seemed to berevealing themselves. 

She inquired after his music. But he declared he was too busy to think ofit. By-and-by in the winter he would have lessons. There was a violinclass at the Institute--perhaps he'd join that. Then abruptly, staringdown upon her with his wide blue eyes--

"And how have you been getting on with the Squire?"

He thought she started, but couldn't be quite sure. 

"Getting on with the Squire? Why, capitally! Whenever he's there to geton with. "

"What--he's been away?" he said eagerly. 

She raised her shoulders. 

"He's always away----"

"Why, I thought they'd have made a Papist of you by now, " he said. 

His laugh was rough, but his eyes held her with a curious insistence. 

"Think something more reasonable, please, next time! Now, where are wegoing to lunch?"

"We've got it all ready. But we must see the yard first.... MissFountain--Laura--I've got that flower you gave me. "

His voice was suddenly hoarse. 

She glanced at him, lifting her eyebrows. 

"Very foolish of you, I'm sure.... Now do tell me, how did you get off soearly?"

He sulkily explained to her that work was unusually slack in his ownyard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week inorder to get an hour or two off this Saturday, and that Seaton was onnight duty at a large engineering "works, " and lord therefore of hisdays. But she paid small attention. She was occupied in looking at thenew buildings and streets, the brand new squares and statues of Froswick. 

"How can people build and live in such ugly places?" she said at last, standing still that she might stare about her--"when there are suchlovely things in the world; Cambridge, for instance--or--Bannisdale. "

The last word slipped out, dreamily, unaware. 

The lad's face flushed furiously. 

"I don't know what there is to see in Bannisdale, " he said hotly. "It's adamp, dark, beastly hole of a place. "

"I prefer Bannisdale to this, thank you, " said Laura, making a littleface at the very ample bronze gentleman in a frock coat who was standingin the centre of a great new-built empty square, haranguing a phantomcrowd. "Oh! how ugly it is to succeed--to have money!"

Mason looked at her with a half-puzzled frown--a frown that of late hadbegun to tease his handsome forehead habitually. 

"What's the harm of having a bit of brass?" he said angrily. "And what'sthe beauty o' livin in an old ramshackle place, without a sixpence inyour pocket, and a pride fit to bring you to the workhouse!"

Laura's little mouth showed amusement, an amusement that stung. Shelifted a little fan that hung at her girdle. 

"Is there any shade in Froswick?" she said, looking round her. 

Mason was silenced, and as Polly and Mr. Seaton joined them, he recoveredhis temper with a mighty effort and once more set himself to do thehonours--the slighted honours--of his new home. 

... But oh! the heat of the ship-building yard. Laura was already tiredand faint, and could hardly drag her feet up and down the sides of thegreat skeleton ships that lay building in the docks, or through theinterminable "fitting" sheds with their piles of mahogany and teak, theirwhirring lathes and saws, their heaps of shavings, their resinous woodsmell. And yet the managing director appeared in person for twentyminutes, a thin, small, hawk-eyed man, not at all unwilling to give abrief patronage to the young lady who might be said to link the houses ofMason and Helbeck in a flattering equality. 

"He wad never ha doon it for _us_!" Polly whispered in her awe to MissFountain. "It's you he's affther!"

Laura, however, was not grateful. She took her industrial lesson ill, with much haste and inattention, so that once when the director and hisnephew fell behind, the great man, whose speech to his kinsman in privatewas often little less broad than Mrs. Mason's own--said scornfully:

"An I doan't think much o' your fine cousin, mon! she's nobbut a flightymiss. "

The young man said nothing. He was still slavishly ill at ease with hisuncle, on whose benevolence all his future depended. 

"Is there something more to see?" said Laura languidly. 

"Only the steel works, " said Mr. Seaton, with a patronising smile. "Youyoung ladies, I presume, would hardly wish to go away without seeing ourchief establishment. Froswick Steel and Hematite Works employ threethousand workmen. "

"Do they?--and does it matter?" said Laura, playing with the salt. 

She wore a little plaintive, tired air, which suited her soft paleness, and made her extraordinarily engaging in the eyes of both the young men. Mason watched her perpetually, anticipating her slightest movement, waiting on her least want. And Mr. Seaton, usually so certain of his ownemotions and so wholly in command of them, began to feel himselfconfused. It was with a distinct slackening of ardour that he looked fromMiss Fountain to Polly--his Polly, as he had almost come to think of her, honest managing Polly, who would have a bit of "brass, " and was in allrespects a tidy and suitable wife for such a man as he. But why had shewrapped all that silly white stuff round her head? And her hands!--Mr. Seaton slyly withdrew his eyes from Polly's reddened members to fix themon the thin white wrist that Laura was holding poised in air, and thepretty fingers twirling the salt spoon. 

Polly meantime sat up very straight, and was no longer talkative. Lunchhad not improved her complexion, as the mirror hanging opposite showedher. Every now and then she too threw little restless glances across atLaura. 

"Why, we needn't go to the works at all if we don't like, " said Polly. "Can't we get a fly, Hubert, and take a jaunt soomwhere?"

Hubert bent forward with alacrity. Of course they could. If they wentfour miles up the river or so, they would come to real nice country and afarmhouse where they could have tea. 

"Well, I'm game, " said Mr. Seaton, magnanimously slapping his pocket. "Anything to please these ladies. "

"I don't know about that seven o'clock train, " said Mason doubtfully. 

"Well, if we can't get that, there's a later one. "

"No, that's the last. "

"You may trust me, " said Seaton pompously. "I know my way about a railwayguide. There's one a little after eight. "

Hubert shook his head. He thought Seaton was mistaken. But Laura settledthe matter. 

"Thank you--we'll not miss our train, " she said, rising to put her hatstraight before the glass--"so it's the works, please. What isit--furnaces and red-hot things?"

In another minute or two they were in the street again. Mr. Seatonsettled the bill with a magnificent "Damn the expense" air, which annoyedMason--who was of course a partner in all the charges of the day--andmade Laura bite her lip. Outside he showed a strong desire to walk withMiss Fountain that he might instruct her in the details of the Bessemerprocess and the manufacture of steel rails. But the ease with which thelittle nonchalant creature disposed of him, the rapidity with which hefound himself transferred to Polly, and left to stare at the backs ofLaura and Hubert hurrying along in front, amazed him. 

"Isn't she nice looking?" said poor Polly, as she too stared helplesslyat the distant pair. 

Her shawl weighed upon her arm, Mr. Seaton had forgotten to ask for it. But there was a little sudden balm in the irritable vexation of hisreply:

"Some people may be of that opinion, Miss Mason. I own I prefer a greaterdegree of balance in the fair sex. "

"Oh! does he mean me?" thought Polly. 

And her spirits revived a little. 

 * * * * *

Meanwhile, as Laura and Hubert walked along to the desolate road that ledto the great steel works, Hubert knew a kind of jealous and tormentedbliss. She was there, fluttering beside him, her delicate face oftenturned to him, her feet keeping step with his. And at the same time whatstrong intangible barriers between them! She had put away her mockingtone--was clearly determined to be kind and cousinly. Yet every word onlyset the tides of love and misery swelling more strongly in the lad'sbreast. "She doan't belong to us, an there's noa undoin it. " Polly'sphrase haunted his ear. Yet he dared ask her no more questions aboutHelbeck; small and frail as she was, she could wrap herself in anunapproachable dignity; nobody had ever yet solved the mystery of Laura'sinmost feeling against her will; and Hubert knew despairingly that hisclumsy methods had small chance with her. But he felt with a kind of ragethat there were signs of suffering about her; he divined something toknow, at the same time that he realised with all plainness it was not forhis knowing. Ah! that man--that ugly starched hypocrite--after all had hegot hold of her? Who could live near her without feeling this pain--thispang?... Was she to be surrendered to him without a struggle--to thatcanting, droning fellow, with his jail of a house? Why, he would crushthe life out of her in six months!

There was a rush and whirl in the lad's senses. A cry of animaljealousy--of violence--rose in his being. 

 * * * * *

"How wonderful!--how enchanting!" cried Laura, her glance sparkling, herwhole frame quivering with pleasure. 

They had just entered the great main shed of the steel works. Theforeman, who had been induced by the young men to take them through, wasin the act of placing Laura in the shelter of a brick screen, so as toprotect her from a glowing shower of sparks that would otherwise haveswept over her; and the girl had thrown a few startled looks around her. 

A vast shed, much of it in darkness, and crowded with dim forms of ironand brick--at one end, and one side, openings, where the June day camethrough. Within--a grandiose mingling of fire and shadow--a vast glare ofwhite or bluish flame from a huge furnace roaring against the inner wallof the shed--sparks, like star showers, whirling through darkspaces--ingots of glowing steel, pillars of pure fire passing andrepassing, so that the heat of them scorched the girl's shrinkingcheek--and everywhere, dark against flame, the human movement answeringto the elemental leap and rush of the fire, black forms of men in aconstant activity, masters and ministers at once of this crackling terrorround about them. 

"Aye!" said their guide, answering the girl's questions as well as hecould in the roar--"that's the great furnace where they boil the steel. Now you watch--when the flame--look! it's white now--turns blue--thatmeans the process is done--the steel's cooked. Then they'll bring the vatbeneath--turn the furnace over--you'll see the steel pour out. "

"Is that a railway?"

She pointed to a raised platform in front of the furnace. A truck bearinga high metal tub was running along it. 

"Yes--it's from there they feed the furnace--in a minute you'll see thetub tip over. "

There was a signal bell--a rattle of machinery. The tub tilted--a greatjet of white flame shot upwards from the furnace--the great mouth hadswallowed down its prey. 

"And those men with their wheelbarrows? Why do they let them go soclose?"

She shuddered and put her hand over her eyes. 

The foreman laughed. 

"Why, it's quite safe!--the tub's moved out of the way. You see thefurnace has to be fed with different stuffs---the tub brings one sort andthe barrows another. Now look--they're going to turn it over. Standback!"

He held up his hand to bid Mason come under shelter. 

Laura looked round her. 

"Where are the other two?" she asked. 

"Oh! they've gone to see the bar-testing--they'll be here soon. Seatonknows the man in charge of the testing workshop. "

Laura ceased to think of them. She was absorbed in the act before her. The great lip of the furnace began to swing downwards; fresh showers ofsparks fled in wild curves and spirals through the shed; out flowed thestream of liquid steel into the vat placed beneath. Then slowly the firecup righted itself; the flame roared once more against the wall; theswarming figures to either side began once more to feed the monster--menand trucks and wheelbarrow, the little railway line, and the iron pillarssupporting it, all black against the glare----

Laura stood breathless--her wild nature rapt by what she saw. But whileshe hung on the spectacle before her, Mason never spared it a glance. Hewas conscious of scarcely anything but her--her childish form, in thelittle clinging dress, her white face, every soft feature clear in theglow, her dancing eyes, her cloud of reddish hair, from which her wideblack hat had slipped away in the excitement of her upward gaze. The ladtook the image into his heart--it burnt there as though it too were fire. 

"Now let's look at something else!" said Laura at last, turning away witha long breath. 

And they took her to see the vat that had been filled from the furnace, pouring itself into the ingot moulds--then the four moulds travellingslowly onwards till they paused under a sort of iron hand that descendedand lifted them majestically from the white-hot steel beneath, uncoveringthe four fiery pillars that reddened to a blood colour as they movedacross the shed--till, on the other side, one ingot after another waslowered from the truck, and no sooner felt the ground than it became theprey of some unseen force, which drove it swiftly onwards from beneath, to where it leapt with a hiss and crunch into the jaws of the mill. Thenout again on the further side, lengthened, and pared, the demon in italready half tamed!--flying as it were from the first mill, only to becaught again in the squeeze of the second, and the third--until at lastthe quivering rail emerged at the further end, a twisting fire serpent, still soft under the controlling rods of the workmen. On it glided, on, and out of the shed, into the open air, till it reached a sort ofplatform over a pit, where iron claws caught at it from beneath, andbrought it to a final rest, in its own place, beside its innumerablefellows, waiting for the market and its buyers. 

"Mayn't we go back once more to the furnace?" said Miss Fountain eagerlyto her guide--"just for a minute!"

He smiled at her, unable to say no. 

And they walked back across the shed, to the brick shelter. The greatfurnace was roaring as before, the white sheet of flame was nearing itslast change of colour, tub after tub, barrow after barrow poured itscontents into the vast flaring throat. Behind the shelter was an elderlywoman with a shawl over her head. She had brought a jar of tea for someworkmen, and was standing like any stranger, watching the furnace andhiding from the sparks. 

Now there is only one man more--and after that, one more tub to belowered--and the hell-broth is cooked once again, and will come streamingforth. 

The man advances with his barrow. Laura sees his blackened face in theintolerable light, as he turns to give a signal to those behind him. Anelectric bell rings. 

Then----

What was that?

God!--what was that?

A hideous cry rang through the works. Laura drew her hand in bewildermentacross her eyes. The foreman beside her shouted and ran forward. 

"Where's the man?" she said helplessly to Mason. 

But Mason made no answer. He was clinging to the brick wall, his eyesstaring out of his head. A great clamour rose from the littlerailway--from beneath it--from all sides of it. The shed began to swarmwith running men, all hurrying towards the furnace. The air was full oftheir cries. It was like the loosing of a maddened hive. 

Laura tottered, fell back against the wall. The old woman who had come tobring the tea rushed up to her. 

"Oh, Lord, save us!--Lord, save us!" she cried, with a wail to rend theheart. 

And the two women fell into each other's arms, shuddering, with wildbroken words, which neither of them heard or knew. 

END OF VOL. I