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+Project Gutenberg's Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II, by Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II
+
+Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
+Posting Date: August 5, 2012 [EBook #9442]
+Release Date: December, 2005
+First Posted: October 1, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HELBECK OF BANNISDALE, VOL. II ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Thomas
+Berger, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HELBECK OF BANNISDALE
+
+by
+
+MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
+
+
+         ... metus ille ... Acheruntis ...
+  Funditus humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo
+
+
+In two volumes
+
+Vol. II.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK III (_continued_)
+
+BOOK IV
+
+BOOK V
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III _Continued_
+
+
+HELBECK OF BANNISDALE
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+"Look out there! For God's sake, go to your places!"
+
+The cry of the foreman reached the ears of the clinging women. They fell
+apart--each peering into the crowd and the tumult.
+
+Mounted on a block of wood about a dozen yards from them--waving his arm
+and shouting to the stream of panic-stricken workmen--they saw the man
+who had been their guide through the works. Four white-hot ingots, just
+uncovered, blazed deserted on their truck close to him, and a multitude
+of men and boys were pushing past them, tumbling over each other in their
+eagerness to reach the neighbourhood of the furnace. The space between
+the ingots and some machinery near them was perilously narrow. At any
+moment, those rushing past might have been pushed against the
+death-bearing truck. Ah! another cry. A man's coat-sleeve has caught
+fire. He is pulled back--another coat is flung about him--the line of
+white faces turns towards him an instant--wavers--then the crowd flows on
+as before.
+
+Another man in authority comes up also shouting. The man on the block
+dismounts, and the two hold rapid colloquy. "Have they sent for Mr.
+Martin?" "Aye." "Where's Mr. Barlow?" "He's no good!" "Have they stopped
+the mills?" "Aye--there's not a man'll touch a thing--you'd think they'd
+gone clean out of their minds. There'll be accidents all over the place
+if somebody can't quiet 'em."
+
+Suddenly the buzzing groups behind the foreman parted, and a young
+broad-shouldered workman, grimed from head to foot, his blue eyes rolling
+in his black face, came staggering through.
+
+"Gie ma a drink," he said, clutching at the old woman; "an let ma sit
+down!"
+
+He almost fell upon an iron barrow that lay face downwards on the path.
+Laura, sitting crouched and sick upon the ground, raised her head to look
+at him. Another man, evidently a comrade, followed him, took the mug of
+cold tea from the old woman's shaking hand, lifted his head and helped
+him drink it.
+
+"Blast yer!--why ain't it spirits?" said the youth, throwing himself back
+against his companion. His eyes closed on his smeared cheeks; his jaw
+fell; his whole frame seemed to sink into collapse; those gazing at him
+saw, as it were, the dislocation and undoing of a man.
+
+"Cheer up, Ned--cheer up," said the older man, kneeling down behind
+him--"you'll get over it, my boy--it worn't none o' your fault. Stand
+back there, you fellows, and gie im air."
+
+"Oh, damn yer! let ma be," gasped the young fellow, stretching himself
+against the other's support, like one who feels the whole inner being of
+him sick to death, and cannot be still for an instant under the anguish.
+
+The woman with the tea began to cry loudly and ask questions. Laura rose
+to her feet, and touched her.
+
+"Don't cry--can't you get some brandy?" Then in her turn she felt herself
+caught by the arm.
+
+"Miss Fountain--Miss Laura--I can get you out of this!--there's a way out
+here by the back."
+
+Mason's white countenance showed over her shoulder as she turned.
+
+"Not yet--can't anyone find some brandy? Ah!"
+
+For their guide came up at the moment with a bottle in his hand. It was
+Laura who handed him the mug, and it was she who, stooping down, put the
+spirit to the lips of the fainting workman. Her mind seemed to float in a
+mist of horror, but her will asserted itself; she recovered her power of
+action sooner than the men around her. They stared at the young lady for
+a moment; but no more. The one hideous fact that possessed them robbed
+all else of meaning.
+
+"Did he see it?" said Laura to the man's friend. Her voice reached no ear
+but his. For they were surrounded by two uproars--the noise of the crowd
+of workmen, a couple of thousand men aimlessly surging and shouting to
+each other, and the distant thunder of the furnace.
+
+"Aye, Miss. He wor drivin the tub, an he saw Overton in front--it wor the
+wheel of his barrer slipped, an soomthin must ha took him--if he'd ha let
+goa straight theer ud bin noa harm doon--bit he mut ha tried to draw it
+back--an the barrer pulled him right in."
+
+"He didn't suffer?" said Laura eagerly, her face close under his.
+
+"Thank the Lord, he can ha known nowt aboot it!--nowt at aw. The gas ud
+throttle him, Miss, afore he felt the fire."
+
+"Is there a wife?"
+
+"Noa--he coom here a widower three weeks sen--there's a little gell----"
+
+"Aye! they be gone for her an t' passon boath," said another voice;
+"what's passon to do whan he cooms?"
+
+"Salve the masters' consciences!" cried a third in fury. "They'll burn us
+to hell first, and then quieten us with praying."
+
+Many faces turned to the speaker, a thin, wiry man one of the "agitators"
+of the town, and a dull groan went round.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Make way there!" cried an imperious voice, and the crowd between them
+and the entrance side of the shed began to part. A gentleman came
+through, leading a clergyman, who walked hurriedly, with eyes downcast,
+holding his book against his breast.
+
+There was a flutter of caps through the vast shed. Every head stood
+bared, and bent. On went the parson towards the little platform with the
+railway. The furnace had sunk somewhat--its roar was less acute---- Laura
+looking at it thought of the gorged beast that falls to rest.
+
+But another parting of the throng--one sob!--the common sob of hundreds.
+
+Laura looked.
+
+"It's t' little gell, Ned! t' little gell!" said the elder workman to the
+youth he was supporting.
+
+And there in the midst of the blackened crowd of men was a child,
+frightened and weeping, led tenderly forward by a grey-haired workman,
+who looked down upon her, quite unconscious of the tears that furrowed
+his own cheeks.
+
+"Oh, let me--let me go!" cried Laura. The men about her fell back. They
+made a way for her to the child. The old woman had disappeared. In an
+instant Laura, as of right, took the place of her sex. Half an hour
+before she had been the merest passing stranger in that vast company; now
+she was part of them, organically necessary to the act passing in their
+midst. The men yielded her the child instinctively, at once; she caught
+the little one in her sheltering arm.
+
+"Ought she to be here?" she asked sharply of the grey-haired man.
+
+"They're goin to read the Burial Service, Miss," he said, as he dashed
+away the mist from his eyes. "An we thowt that the little un would like
+soom day to think she'd been here. So I found her--she wor in school."
+
+The child looked round her in terror. The platform in front of the
+furnace had been hurriedly cleared. It was now crowded with men--masters
+and managers in black coats mingled with workmen, to the front the parson
+in his white. He turned to the throng below and opened his book.
+
+"_I am the Resurrection and the Life._"
+
+A great pulsation passed through the mob of workmen. On all sides strong
+men broke down and wept.
+
+The child stared at the platform, then at these faces round her that were
+turned upon her.
+
+"Daddy--where's Daddy?" she said trembling, her piteous eyes travelling
+up and down the pretty lady beside her.
+
+Laura sat down on the edge of a truck and drew the little shaking
+creature to her breast. Such a power of tenderness went out from her, so
+soft was the breast, so lulling the scent of the roses pinned into the
+lady's belt, that the child was stilled. Every now and then, as she
+looked at the men, pressing round her, a passion of fear seemed to run
+through her; she shuddered and struggled in Laura's hold. Otherwise she
+made not a sound. And the great words swept on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How the scene penetrated!--leaving great stabbing lines never to be
+effaced in the quivering tissues of the girl's nature. Once before she
+had heard the English Burial Service. Her father--groaning and fretting
+under the penalties of friendship--had taken her, when she was fifteen,
+to the funeral of an old Cambridge colleague. She remembered still the
+cold cemetery chapel, the gowned mourners, the academic decorum, or the
+mild regret amid which the function passed. Then her father's sharp
+impatience as they walked home--that reasonable men in a reasonable age
+should be asked to sit and listen to Paul's logic, and the absurdities of
+Paul's cosmical speculations!
+
+And now--from what movements, what obscurities of change within herself,
+had come this new sense, half loathing, half attraction, that could not
+withdraw itself from the stroke, from the attack of this Christian
+poetry--these cries of the soul, now from the Psalms, now from Paul, now
+from the unknown voices of the Church?
+
+Was it merely the setting that made the difference--the horror of what
+had passed, the infinite relief to eye and heart of this sudden calm that
+had fallen on the terror and distraction of the workmen--the strangeness
+of this vast shed for church, with its fierce perpetual drama of
+assaulting flame and flying shadow, and the gaunt tangled forms of its
+machinery--the dull glare of that distant furnace that had made so
+little--hardly an added throb, hardly a leaping flame! of the living man
+thrown to it half an hour before, and seemed to be still murmuring and
+growling there, behind this great act of human pity, in a dying
+discontent?
+
+Whence was it--this stilling, pacifying power?
+
+All around her men were sobbing and groaning, but as the wave dies after
+the storm. They seemed to feel themselves in some grasp that sustained,
+some hold that made life tolerable again. "Amens" came thick and fast.
+The convulsion of the faces was abating; a natural human courage was
+flowing back into contracted hearts.
+
+"_Blessed are the dead--for they rest from their labours_--" "_as our
+hope is this our brother doth._"
+
+Laura shivered. The constant agony of the world, in its constant search
+for all that consoles, all that eases, laid its compelling hand upon her.
+By a natural instinct she wrapped her arms closer, more passionately,
+round the child upon her knee.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Won't she come?" said Mason.
+
+He and Seaton were standing in the downstairs parlour of a small house in
+a row of workmen's cottages, about half a mile from the steel works.
+
+Mason still showed traces, in look and bearing, of the horror he had
+witnessed. But he had sufficiently recovered from it to be conscious into
+the bargain of his own personal grievance, of their spoilt day, and his
+lost chances. Seaton, too, showed annoyance and impatience; and as Polly
+entered the room he echoed Mason's question.
+
+Polly shook her head.
+
+"She says she won't leave the child till the last moment. We must go and
+have our tea, and come back for her."
+
+"Come along then!" said Mason gloomily, as he led the way to the door.
+
+The little garden outside, as they passed through it, was crowded with
+women discussing the accident, and every now and then a crowd would
+gather on the pavement and disperse again. To each and all the speakers,
+the one intolerable thing was the total disappearance of the poor lost
+one. No body--no clothes--no tangible relic of the dead: it was a sore
+trial to customary beliefs. Heaven and hell seemed alike inconceivable
+when there was no phantom grave-body to make trial of them. One woman
+after another declared that it would send her mad if it ever happened to
+any belonging of hers. "But it's a mercy there's no one to fret--nobbut
+t' little gell--an she's too sma'." There was much talk about the young
+lady that had come home with her--"a nesh pretty-lukin yoong creetur"--to
+whom little Nelly clung strangely--no doubt because she and her father
+had been so few weeks in Froswick that there had been scarcely time for
+them to make friends of their own. The child held the lady's gown in her
+clutch perpetually, Mr. Dixon reported--would not lose sight of her for a
+moment. But the lady herself was only a visitor to Froswick, was being
+just taken through the works, when the accident happened, and was to
+leave the town by an evening train--so it was said. However, there would
+be those left behind who would look after the poor lamb--Mrs. Starr, who
+had taken the tea to the works, and Mrs. Dixon, the Overtons' landlady.
+They were in the house now; but the lady had begged everyone else to keep
+outside.
+
+The summer evening crept on.
+
+At half-past six Polly with Hubert behind her climbed the stairs of the
+little house. Polly pushed open the door of the back room, and Hubert
+peered over her shoulder.
+
+Inside was a small workman's room, with a fire burning, and the window
+wide open. There were tea-things on the table; a canary bird singing
+loudly in a cage beside the window; and a suit of man's clothes with a
+clean shirt hanging over a chair near the fire.
+
+In a rocking-chair by the window lay the little girl--a child of about
+nine years old. She was quite colourless, but she was not crying. Her
+eyes still had the look of terror that the sight of the works had called
+up in them, and she started at every sound. Laura was kneeling beside
+her, trying to make her drink some tea. The child kept pushing the tea
+away, but her other hand held fast to Laura's arm. On the further side of
+the table sat two elderly women.
+
+"Laura, there's only just time!" said Polly softly, putting her head
+through the door.
+
+The child started painfully, and the cup Laura held was with difficulty
+saved from falling.
+
+Laura stooped and kissed the little one's cheek.
+
+"Dear, will you let me go now? Mrs. Dixon will take care of you--and I'll
+come and see you again soon."
+
+Nelly began to breathe fast. She caught Laura's sleeve with both hands.
+
+"Don't you go, Miss--I'll not stay with her." She nodded towards her
+landlady.
+
+"Now, Nelly, you must be a good girl," said Mrs. Dixon, rising and coming
+forward--she was a strange, ugly woman, with an almost bald head--"you
+must do what your poor papa wud ha wished you to do. Let the lady go, an
+I'll take care on you same as one o' my own, till they can come and take
+you to the House."
+
+"Oh! don't say that!" cried Laura.
+
+But it was too late. The child had heard the word--had understood it.
+
+She looked wildly from one to the other, then she threw herself against
+the side of the chair, in a very madness of crying. Now, she pushed even
+Laura away. It seemed as though at the sound of that one word she had
+felt herself indeed forsaken, she had become acquainted with her grief.
+
+Laura's eyes filled with tears.
+
+Polly, standing at the door, spoke to her in vain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"There's another train--Mr. Seaton said so!" Laura threw the words over
+her shoulder as though in anger. Hubert Mason stood behind her. In her
+excitement it seemed to her that he was dragging her by force from this
+sobbing and shrieking misery before her.
+
+"I don't believe he's right. I never heard of any train later than the
+7.10," said Mason, in perplexity.
+
+"Go and ask him."
+
+Mason went away and returned.
+
+"Of course he swears there is. You won't get Seaton to say he's mistaken
+in a hurry. All I know is I never heard of it."
+
+"He must be right," said Laura obstinately. "Don't trouble about me--send
+a cab. Oh!"
+
+She put her hands to her ears for an instant, as they stood by the door,
+as though to shut out the child's cries. Hubert looked down upon her,
+hesitating, his face flushed, his eyes drawn and sombre.
+
+"Now--you'll let me take you home, Miss Laura? It'll be very late for
+you. I can get back to-morrow."
+
+She looked up suddenly.
+
+"No, _no_!" she said, almost stamping. "I can get home alone quite well.
+I want no one."
+
+Then she caught the lad's expression--and put her hand to her brow a
+moment.
+
+"Come back for me now at any rate--in an hour," she said in another
+voice. "Please take me to the train--of course. I must go then."
+
+"Oh, Laura, I _can't_ wait!" cried Polly from the stairs--"I wish I
+could. But mother's sending Daffady with the cart--and she'd be that
+cross."
+
+Laura came out to the stairway.
+
+"Don't wait. Just tell the carriage--mind"--she hung over the banisters,
+enforcing the words--"tell them that I'm coming by the later train.
+They're not to send down for me again--I can get a cab at the inn. Mind,
+Polly,--did you hear?"
+
+She bent forward, caught Polly's assent, and ran back to the child.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later Mason found Laura with little Nelly lying heavily asleep in
+her arms. At sight of him she put finger on lip, and, rising, carried the
+child to her bed. Tenderly she put her down--tenderly kissed the little
+hand. The child's utter sleep seemed to soothe her, for she turned away
+with a smile on her blanched lips. She gave money to Mrs. Starr, who was
+to nurse the little one for a week, and then, it seemed to Mason, she was
+all alacrity, all eagerness to go.
+
+"Oh! but we're late!" she said, looking at her watch in the street. And
+she hastily put her head out of the window and implored the cabman to
+hurry.
+
+Mason said nothing.
+
+The station, when they reached it, was in a Saturday night ferment.
+Trains were starting and arriving, the platforms were packed with
+passengers.
+
+Mason said a word to a porter as they rushed in. The porter answered;
+then, while they fled on, the man stopped a moment and looked back as
+though about to run after them. But a dozen passengers with luggage laid
+hands upon him at once, and he was left with no time for more than the
+muttered remark:
+
+"Marsland? Why, there's no train beyond Braeside to-night."
+
+"No. 4 platform," said Hubert to his companion. "Train just going." Laura
+threw off her exhaustion and ran.
+
+The guard was just putting his whistle to his lips. Hubert lifted her
+into her carriage.
+
+"Good-bye," she said, waving to him, and disappeared at once into a crowd
+of fellow-passengers.
+
+"Right for Marsland?" cried Hubert to the guard.
+
+The guard, who had already whistled, waved his flag as he replied:
+
+"Marsland? No train beyond the junction to-night."
+
+Hubert paused for a moment, then, as the train was moving briskly out,
+sprang upon the foot-board. A porter rushed up, the door was opened, and
+he was shoved in amid remonstrances from front and rear.
+
+The heavily laden train stopped at every station--was already nearly an
+hour late. Holiday crowds got in and out; the platforms were gay with
+talk and laughter.
+
+Mason saw nothing and heard nothing. He sat leaning forward, his hat
+slouched over his eyes. The man opposite thought he had fallen asleep.
+
+Whose fault was it? Not his! He might have made sure? Why, wasn't
+Seaton's word good enough? _She_ thought so.
+
+Why hadn't he made sure?--in that interval before he came back for her.
+She might have stayed at Froswick for the night. Plenty of decent people
+would have put her up. He remembered how he had delayed to call the cab
+till the last moment.
+
+... Good God! how could a man know what he had thought! He was fair
+moidered--bedazzled--by that awful thing--and all the change of plans.
+And there was Seaton's word for it. Seaton was a practical man, and
+always on the railway.
+
+What would she say--when the train stopped? In anticipation he already
+heard the cry of the porters--"Braeside--all change!" The perspiration
+started on his brow. Why, there was sure to be a decent inn at Braeside,
+and he would do everything for her. She would be glad--of course she
+would be glad to see him--as soon as she discovered her dilemma. After
+all he was her cousin--her blood relation.
+
+And Mr. Helbeck? The lad's hand clenched. A clock-face came slowly into
+view at a wayside station. 8.45. He was now waiting for her at Marsland.
+For the Squire himself would bring the trap; there was no coachman at
+Bannisdale. A glow of fierce joy passed through the lad's mind, as he
+thought of the Squire waiting, the train's arrival, the empty platform,
+the returning carriage. What would the Squire think? Damn him!--let him
+think what he liked.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, in another carriage, Laura leant back with shut eyes, pursued
+by one waking dream after another. Shadow and flame--the whirling
+sparks--the cry!--that awful wrenching of the heart in her breast--the
+parting crowd, and the white-faced child, phantom-like, in its midst. She
+sat up, shaken anew by the horror of it, trying to put it from her.
+
+The carriage was now empty. All the other travellers had dismounted, and
+she seemed to be rushing through the summer night alone. For the long
+daylight was nearly done. The purple of the June evening was passing into
+the more mysterious purple of the starlight; a clear and jewelled sky
+hung softly over valleys with "seaward parted lips," over woods with the
+wild rose bushes shining dimly at their edge; over knolls of rocky
+ground, crowned with white spreading farms; over those distant forms to
+the far north where the mountains melted into the night.
+
+Her heart was still wrung for the orphaned child--prized yesterday, no
+doubt--they said he was a good father!--desolate to-day--like herself.
+"Daddy!--where's Daddy?" She laid her brow against the window-sill and
+let the tears come again, as she thought of that trembling cry. For it
+was her own--the voice of her own hunger--orphan to orphan.
+
+And yet, after this awful day--this never to be forgotten shock and
+horror--she was not unhappy. Rather, a kind of secret joy possessed her
+as the train sped onward. Her nature seemed to be sinking wearily into
+soft gulfs of reconciliation and repose. Froswick, with its struggle and
+death, its newness and restlessness, was behind her--she was going home,
+to the old house, with its austerity and peace.
+
+Home? Bannisdale, home? How strange! But she was too tired to fight
+herself to-night--she let the word pass. In her submission to it there
+was a secret pleasure.
+
+... The first train had come in by now. Eagerly, she saw Polly on the
+platform--Polly looking for the pony cart. Was it old Wilson, or Mr.
+Helbeck? Wilson, of course! And yet--yet--she knew that Wilson had been
+away in Whinthorpe on farm business all day. And Mr. Helbeck was careful
+of the old man. Ah well! there would be something--and someone--to meet
+her when she arrived. Her heart knew that.
+
+Now they were crossing the estuary. The moon was rising over the sands,
+and those far hills, the hills of Bannisdale. There on the further bank
+were the lights of Braeside. She had forgotten to ask whether they
+changed at the junction--probably the Marsland train would be waiting.
+
+The Greet!--its voice was in her ears, its many channels shone in the
+flooding light. How near the hills seemed!--just a moonlight walk along
+the sands, and one was there, under the old tower and the woods. The
+sands were dangerous, people said. There were quicksands among them, and
+one must know the paths. Ah! well--she smiled. Humdrum trains and cabs
+were good enough for her to-night.
+
+She hung at the open window, looking down into the silver water. How
+strange, after these ghastly hours, to feel yourself floating in beauty
+and peace--a tremulous peace--like this? The world going your way--the
+soul yielding itself to fate--taking no more painful thought for the
+morrow----
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Braeside! All change!"
+
+Laura sprang from the carriage. The station clock opposite told her to
+her dismay that it was nearly half-past eleven.
+
+"Where's the Marsland train?" she said to the porter who had come forward
+to help her. "And how dreadfully late we are!"
+
+"Marsland train, Miss! Last one left an hour ago--no other till 6.12
+to-morrow morning."
+
+"What do you mean? Oh! you didn't hear!--it's the train for _Marsland_ I
+want."
+
+"Afraid you won't get it then, Miss, till to-morrow. Didn't they warn you
+at Froswick? They'd ought to. This train only makes the main-line
+connection--for Crewe and Rugby--no connection Whinthorpe way after
+8.20."
+
+Laura's limbs seemed to waver beneath her. A step on the platform. She
+turned and saw Hubert Mason.
+
+"You!"
+
+Mason thought she would faint. He caught her arm to support her. The
+porter looked at them curiously, then moved away, smiling to himself.
+
+Laura tottered to the railing at the back of the platform and supported
+herself against it.
+
+"What are you here for?" she said to him in a voice--a voice of hatred--a
+voice that stung.
+
+He glanced down upon her, pulling his fair moustache. His handsome face
+was deeply flushed.
+
+"I only heard there was no train on, from the guard, just as you were
+starting; so I jumped into the next carriage that I might be of some use
+to you here if I could. You needn't look at me like that," he broke out
+violently--"I couldn't help it!"
+
+"You might have found out," she said hoarsely.
+
+"Say you believe I did it on purpose!--to get you into trouble!--you may
+as well. You'd believe anything bad about me, I know."
+
+Already there was a new note in his voice, a hoarse, tyrannous note, as
+though he felt her in his power. In her terror the girl recalled that
+wild drive from the Browhead dance, with its disgusts and miseries. Was
+he sober now? What was she to do?--how was she to protect herself? She
+felt a passionate conviction that she was trapped, that he had planned
+the whole catastrophe, knowing well what would be thought of her at
+Bannisdale--in the neighbourhood.
+
+She looked round her, making a desperate effort to keep down exhaustion
+and excitement. The main-line train had just gone, and the
+station-master, with a lantern in his hand, was coming up the platform.
+
+Laura went to meet him.
+
+"I've made a mistake and missed the last train to Marsland. Can I sit
+here in the station till the morning?"
+
+The station-master looked at her sharply--then at the man standing a yard
+or two behind her. The young lady had to his eye a wild, dishevelled
+appearance. Her fair hair had escaped its bonds in all directions, and
+was hanging loose upon her neck behind. Her hat had been crumpled and
+bent by the child's embracing arms; the little muslin dress showed great
+smears of coal-dust here and there, and the light gloves were black.
+
+"No, Miss," he said, with rough decision. "You can't sit in the station.
+There'll be one more train down directly--the express--and then we shut
+the station for the night."
+
+"How long will that be?" she asked faintly. He looked at his watch.
+
+"Thirty-five minutes. You can go to the hotel, Miss. It's quite
+respectable."
+
+He gave her another sharp glance. He was a Dissenter, a man of northern
+piety, strict as to his own morals and other people's. What on earth was
+she doing here, in that untidy state, with a young man, at an hour going
+on for midnight? Missed train? The young man said nothing about missed
+trains.
+
+But just as he was turning away, the girl detained him.
+
+"How far is it across the sands to Marsland station?"
+
+"Eight miles, about--shortest way."
+
+"And the road?"
+
+"Best part of fifteen."
+
+He walked off, throwing a parting word behind him.
+
+"Now understand, please, I can't have anybody here when we lock up for
+the night."
+
+Laura hardly heard him. She was looking first to one side of the station,
+then to the other. The platform and line stood raised under the hill.
+Just outside the station to the north the sands of the estuary stretched
+bare and wide under the moon. In the other direction, on her right hand,
+the hills rose steeply; and close above the line a limestone quarry made
+a huge gash in the fell-side. She stood and stared at the wall of
+glistening rock that caught the moon; at the little railing at the top,
+sharp against the sky; at the engine-house and empty trucks.
+
+Suddenly she turned back towards Mason. He stood a few yards away on the
+platform, watching her, and possessed by a dumb rage of jealousy that
+entirely prevented him from playing any rational or plausible part. Her
+bitter tone, her evident misery, her refusal an hour or two before to let
+him be her escort home--all that he had feared and suspected that
+morning--during the past few weeks,--these things made a dark tumult
+about him, in which nothing else was audible than the alternate cries of
+anger and passion.
+
+But she walked up to him boldly. She tried to laugh.
+
+"Well! it is very unlucky and very disagreeable. But the station-master
+says there is a respectable inn. Will you go and see, while I wait? If it
+won't do--if it isn't a place I can go to--I'll rest here while you ask,
+and then I shall walk on over the sands to Marsland. It's eight miles--I
+can do it."
+
+He exclaimed:
+
+"No, you can't."--His voice had a note of which he was unconscious, a
+note that increased the girl's fear of him.--"Not unless you let me take
+you. And I suppose you'd sooner die than put up with another hour of
+me!--The sands are dangerous. You can ask them."
+
+He nodded towards the men in the distance.
+
+She put a force on herself, and smiled. "Why shouldn't you take me? But
+go and look at the inn first--please!--I'm very tired. Then come and
+report."
+
+She settled herself on a seat, and drew a little white shawl about her.
+From its folds her small face looked up softened and beseeching.
+
+He lingered--his mind half doubt, half violence, He meant to force her to
+listen to him--either now, or in the morning. For all her scorn, she
+should know, before they parted, something of this misery that burnt in
+him. And he would say, too, all that it pleased him to say of that
+priest-ridden fool at Bannisdale.
+
+She seemed so tiny, so fragile a thing as he looked down upon her. An
+ugly sense of power came to consciousness in him. Coupled with despair,
+indeed! For it was her very delicacy, her gentlewoman's
+grace--maddeningly plain to _him_ through all the stains of the steel
+works--that made hope impossible, that thrust him down as her inferior
+forever.
+
+"Promise you won't attempt anything by yourself--promise you'll sit here
+till I come back," he said in a tone that sounded like a threat.
+
+"Of course."
+
+He still hesitated. Then a glance at the sands decided him. How, on their
+bare openness, could she escape him?--if she did give him the slip. Here
+and there streaks of mist lay thin and filmy in the moonlight. But as a
+rule the sands were clear, the night without a stain.
+
+"All right. I'll be back in ten minutes--less!"
+
+She nodded. He hurried along the platform, asked a question or two of the
+station-master, and disappeared.
+
+She turned eagerly to watch. She saw him run down the road outside the
+station--past a grove of trees--out into the moonlight again. Then the
+road bent and she saw him no more. Just beyond the bend appeared the
+first houses of the little town.
+
+She rose. Her heart beat so, it seemed to her to be a hostile thing
+hindering her. A panic terror drove her on, but exhaustion and physical
+weakness caught at her will, and shod her feet with lead.
+
+She walked down the platform, however, to the station-master.
+
+"The gentleman has gone to inquire at the inn. Will you kindly tell him
+when he comes back that I have made up my mind after all to walk to
+Marsland? He can catch me up on the sands."
+
+"Very good, Miss. But the sands aren't very safe for those that don't
+know 'em. If you're a stranger you'd better not risk it."
+
+"I'm not a stranger, and my cousin knows the way perfectly. You can send
+him after me."
+
+She left the station. In her preoccupation she never gave another thought
+to the station-master.
+
+But there was something in the whole matter that roused that person's
+curiosity. He walked along the raised platform to a point where he could
+see what became of the young lady.
+
+There was only one exit from the station. But just outside, the road from
+the town passed in a tunnel under the line. To get at the sands one must
+double back on the line after leaving the station, walk through the
+tunnel, and then leave the road to your right. The stony edge of the
+sands came up to the road, which shot away eastwards along the edge of
+the estuary, a straight white line that gradually lost itself in the
+night.
+
+The man watching saw the small figure emerge. But the girl never once
+turned to the tunnel. She walked straight towards the town, and he lost
+sight of her in a dense patch of shadow made by some overhanging trees
+about a hundred yards from the station.
+
+"Upon my word, she's a deep 'un!" he said, turning away; "it beats
+me--fair."
+
+"Hi!" shouted the porter from the end of the platform. "There's a message
+just come in, sir."
+
+The station-master turned to the telegraph office in some astonishment.
+It was not the ordinary signal message, or the down signal would have
+dropped.
+
+He read off. "If a lady arrives by 10.20, too late for Marsland train,
+kindly help her make arrangements for night. Direct her to White Hart
+Inn, tell her will meet her Marsland first train. Reply. Helbeck,
+Bannisdale."
+
+The station-master stared at the message. It was, of course, long after
+hours, and Mr. Helbeck--whose name he knew--must have had considerable
+difficulty in sending the message from Marsland, where the station would
+have been shut before ten o'clock, after the arrival of the last train.
+
+Another click--and the rattle of the signal outside. The express was at
+hand. He was not a man capable of much reasoning at short notice, and he
+had already drawn a number of unfavourable inferences from the conduct of
+the two people who had just been hanging about the station. So he hastily
+replied:
+
+"Lady left station, said intended to walk by sands, but has gone towards
+town. Gentleman with her."
+
+Then he rushed out to attend to the express.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Laura had not gone to the town. From the platform she had clearly
+seen a path on the fell-side, leading over some broken ground to the
+great quarry above the station. The grove of trees had hidden the
+starting of the path from her, but some outlet into the road there must
+be; she had left the station in quest of it.
+
+And as soon as she reached the trees a gate appeared in the wall to the
+left. She passed through it, and hurried up the steep path beyond it.
+Again and again she hid herself behind the boulders with which the fell
+was strewn, lest her moving figure should be seen from below--often she
+stopped in terror, haunted by the sound of steps, imagining a breath, a
+voice, behind her.
+
+She ran and stumbled--ran again--tore her light dress--gulped down the
+sob in her throat--fearing at every step to faint, and so be taken by the
+pursuer; or to slip into some dark hole--the ground seemed full of
+them--and be lost there--still worse, found there!--wounded, defenceless.
+
+But at last the slope is climbed. She sees before her a small platform,
+on a black network of supporting posts--an engine-house--and beyond,
+truck lines with half-a-dozen empty trucks upon them, lines that run away
+in front of her along the descending edge of the first low hill she has
+been climbing.
+
+Further on, a dark gulf--then the dazzling wall of the quarry. A patch of
+deepest, blackest shadow, at the seaward end of the engine-house, caught
+her eye. She gained it, sank down within it, strengthless and gasping.
+
+Surely no one could see her here! Yet presently she perceived beside her
+a low pile of planks within the shadow, and for greater protection crept
+behind them. Her eyes topped them. The whole lower world, the roofs of
+the station, the railway line, the sands beyond, lay clear before her in
+the moon.
+
+Then her nerve gave way. She laid her head against the stones of the
+engine-house and sobbed. All her self-command, her cool clearness, was
+gone. The shock of disappointment, the terrors of this sudden loneliness,
+the nightmare of her stumbling flight coming upon a nature already
+shaken, and powers already lowered, had worked with miserable effect. She
+felt degraded by her own fears. But the one fear at the root of all, that
+included and generated the rest, held her in so crippling, so torturing a
+vice, that do what she would, she could not fight herself--could only
+weep--and weep.
+
+And yet supposing she had walked over the sands with her cousin, would
+anybody have thought so ill of her--would Hubert himself have dared to
+offer her any disrespect?
+
+Then again, why not go to the inn? Could she not easily have found a
+woman on whom to throw herself, who would have befriended her?
+
+Or why not have tried to get a carriage? Fifteen miles to
+Marsland--eighteen to Bannisdale. Even in this small place, and at
+midnight, the promise of money enough would probably have found her a fly
+and a driver.
+
+But these thoughts only rose to be shuddered away. All her rational being
+was for the moment clouded. The presence of her cousin had suddenly
+aroused in her so strong a disgust, so hot a misery, that flight from him
+was all she thought of. On the sands, at the inn, in a carriage, he would
+still have been there, within reach of her, or beside her. The very dream
+of it made her crouch more closely behind the pile of planks.
+
+The moon is at her height; across the bay, mountains and lower hills rise
+towards her, "ambitious" for that silver hallowing she sheds upon shore
+and bay. The night is one sigh of softness. The rivers glide glistening
+to the sea. Even the shining roofs of the little station and the white
+line of the road have beauty, mingle in the common spell. But on Laura it
+does not work. She is in the hall at Bannisdale--on the Marsland
+platform--in the woodland roads through which Mr. Helbeck has driven
+home.
+
+No!--by now he is in his study. She sees the crucifix, the books, the
+little altar. There he sits--he is thinking, perhaps, of the girl who is
+out in the night with her drunken cousin, the girl whom he has warned,
+protected, thought for in a hundred ways--who had planned this day out of
+mere wilfulness--who cannot possibly have made any honest mistake as to
+times and trains.
+
+She wrings her hands. Oh! but Polly must have explained, must have
+convinced him that owing to a prig's self-confidence they were all
+equally foolish, equally misled. Unless Hubert--? But then, how is she at
+fault? In imagination she says it all through Polly's lips. The words
+glow hot and piteous, carrying her soul with them. But that face in the
+oak chair does not change.
+
+Yet in flashes the mind works clearly; it rises and rebukes this surging
+pain that breaks upon it like waves upon a reef. Folly! If a girl's name
+were indeed at the mercy of such chances, why should one care--take any
+trouble? Would such a ravening world be worth respecting, worth the
+fearing?
+
+It is her very innocence and ignorance that rack her. Why should there be
+these mysterious suspicions and penalties in the world? Her mind holds
+nothing that can answer. But she trembles none the less.
+
+How strange that she should tremble! Two months before, would the same
+adventure have affected her at all? Why, she would have laughed it down;
+would have walked, singing perhaps, across the sands with Hubert.
+
+Some secret cause has weakened the will--paralysed all the old daring.
+Will he never even scold or argue with her again? Nothing but a cold
+tolerance--bare civility and protection for Augustina's sake? But never
+the old rare kindness--never! He has been much away, and she has been
+secretly bitter, ready to revenge herself by some caprice, like a crossed
+child! But the days of return--the hours of expectation, of recollection!
+
+Her heart opens to her own reading--like some great flower that bursts
+its sheath. But such pain--oh, such pain! She presses her little fingers
+on her breast, trying to drive back this humiliating truth that is
+escaping her, tearing its way to the light.
+
+How is it that contempt and war can change like this? She seems to have
+been fighting against something that all the time had majesty, had
+charm--that bore within itself the forces that tame a woman. In all ages
+the woman falls before the ascetic--before the man who can do without
+her. The intellect may rebel; but beneath its revolt the heart yields.
+Oh! to be guided, loved, crushed if need be, by the mystic, whose first
+thought can never be for you--who puts his own soul, and a hundred
+torturing claims upon it, before your lips, your eyes! Strange passion of
+it!--it rushes through the girl's nature in one blending storm of longing
+and despair....
+
+... What sound was that?
+
+She raised her head. A call came from the sands--a distant call, floating
+through the night. Another--and another! She stood up--she sprang on the
+heap of planks, straining her eyes. Yes--surely she saw a figure on that
+wide expanse of sand, moving quickly, moving away? And one after another
+the cries rose, waking dim echoes from the shore.
+
+It was Hubert, no doubt--Hubert in pursuit, and calling to her, lest she
+should come unawares upon the danger spots that marked the sands.
+
+She stood and watched the moving speck till it was lost in a band of
+shadow. Then she saw it no more, and the cries ceased.
+
+Would he be at Bannisdale before she was? She dashed away her tears, and
+smiled. Ah! Let him seek her there!--let him herald her. Light broke upon
+her; she began to rise from her misery.
+
+But she must sleep a little, or she would never have the strength to
+begin her walk with the dawn. For walk she would, instead of waiting for
+tardy trains. She saw herself climbing the fell--she would never trust
+herself to the road, the open road, where cousins might be hiding after
+all--finding her way through back lanes into sleeping villages, waking
+someone, getting a carriage to a point above the park, then slipping down
+to the door in the garden and so entering by the chapel, when entrance
+was possible. She would go straight to Augustina. Poor Augustina! there
+would be little sleep for her to-night. The tears rose again in the
+girl's eyes.
+
+She drew her thin shawl round her, and crept again into the shadow of the
+engine-house. Not three hours, and the day would have returned. But
+already the dawn-breath seemed to be blowing through the night. For it
+had grown cold and her limbs shivered.
+
+... She woke often in terror, pursued by sheets of flame, or falling
+through unfathomed space; haunted all through by a sense of doom, an
+awful expectancy--like one approaching some grisly Atreus-threshold and
+conscious of the death behind it. But sleep seized her again, a cold
+tormented sleep, and the hours passed.
+
+Meanwhile the light that had hardly gone came welling gently back. The
+stars paled; the high mountains wrapped themselves in clouds; a clear
+yellow mounted from the east, flooding the dusk with cheerfulness. Then
+the birds woke. The diminished sands, on which the tide was creeping,
+sparkled with sea-birds; the air was soon alive with their white curves.
+
+With a start Laura awoke. Above the eastern fells scarlet feather-clouds
+were hovering; the sun rushed upon them as she looked; and in that blue
+dimness to the north lay Bannisdale.
+
+She sprang up, stared half aghast at the black depths of the quarry,
+beside which she had been sleeping, then searched the fell with her eyes.
+Yes, there was the upward path. She struck into it, praying that friend
+and houses might meet her soon.
+
+Meanwhile it seemed that nothing moved in the world but she.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+It was on the stroke of midnight when the message from Braeside was
+handed to Mr. Helbeck by the sleepy station-master, who had been dragged
+by that gentleman's urgency from his first slumbers in the neat cottage
+beside the line.
+
+The master of Bannisdale thrust the slip of paper into his pocket, and
+stood an instant with bent head, as though reflecting.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Brough," he said at last. "I will not ask you to do
+anything more. Good-night."
+
+Rightful reward passed, and Mr. Helbeck left the station. Outside, his
+pony cart stood tied to the station railing.
+
+Before entering it he debated with himself whether he should drive on to
+the town of Marsland, get horses there and then, and make for Braeside at
+once.
+
+He could get there in about a couple of hours. And then?
+
+To search a sleeping town for Miss Fountain--would that mend matters?
+
+A carriage arriving at two o'clock in the morning--the inn awakened--no
+lady there, perhaps--for what was to prevent her having found decent
+shelter in some quite other quarter? Was he to make a house-to-house
+visitation at that hour? How wise! How quenching to the gossip that must
+in any case get abroad!
+
+He turned the pony homewards.
+
+Augustina, all shawls and twitching, opened the door to him. A message
+had been sent on to her an hour before to the effect that Miss Fountain
+had missed her train, and was not likely to arrive that night.
+
+"Oh, _Alan_!--where is she?"
+
+"I got a telegram through to the station-master. Don't be anxious,
+Augustina. I asked him to direct her to the inn. The old White Hart, they
+say, has passed into new management and is quite comfortable. She may
+arrive by the first train--7.20. Anyway I shall meet it."
+
+Augustina pursued him with fretful inquiries and surmises. Helbeck, pale
+and gloomy, threw himself down on the settle, and produced the story of
+the accident, so far as the garrulous and incoherent Polly had enabled
+him to understand it. Fresh wails on Augustina's part. What a horrible,
+horrible thing! Why, of course the child was terribly upset--hurt
+perhaps--or she would never have been so foolish about the trains. And
+now one could not even be sure that she had found a place to sleep in!
+She would come home a wreck--a simple wreck. Helbeck moved uneasily.
+
+"She was not hurt, according to Miss Mason."
+
+"I suppose young Mason saw her off?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"What were they all about, to make such a blunder?"
+
+Helbeck shrugged his shoulders, and at last he succeeded in quieting his
+sister, by dint of a resolute suppression of all but the most ordinary
+and comforting suggestions.
+
+"Well, after all, thank goodness, Laura has a great deal of common
+sense--she always had," said Mrs. Fountain, with a clearing countenance.
+
+"Of course. She will be here, I have little doubt, before you are ready
+for your breakfast. It is unlucky, but it should not disturb your night's
+rest. Please go to bed." With some difficulty he drove her there.
+
+Augustina retired, but it was to spend a broken and often tearful night.
+Alan might say what he liked--it was all most disagreeable. Why!--would
+the inn take her in? Mrs. Fountain had often been told that an inn, a
+respectable inn, required a trunk as well as a person. And Laura had not
+even a bag--positively not a hand-bag. A reflection which was the
+starting-point of a hundred new alarms, under which poor Mrs. Fountain
+tossed till the morning.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile Helbeck went to his study. It was nearly one o'clock when he
+entered it, but the thought of sleep never occurred to him. He took out
+of his pocket the telegram from Braeside, re-read it, and destroyed it.
+
+So Mason was with her--for of course it was Mason. Not one word of such a
+conjunction was to be gathered from the sister. She had clearly supposed
+that Laura would start alone and arrive alone. Or was she in the plot?
+Had Mason simply arranged the whole "mistake," jumped into the same train
+with her, and confronted her at the junction?
+
+Helbeck moved blindly up and down the room, traversed by one of those
+storms of excitement to which the men of his stock were liable. The
+thought of those two figures leaving the Braeside station together at
+midnight roused in him a madness half jealousy, half pride. He saw the
+dainty head, the cloud of gold under the hat, the pretty gait, the
+girlish waist, all the points of delicacy or charm he had worshipped
+through his pain these many weeks. To think of them in the mere
+neighbourhood of that coarse and sensual lad had always been profanation.
+And now who would not be free to talk, to spatter her girlish name? The
+sheer unseemliness of such a kinship!--such a juxtaposition.
+
+If he could only know the true reason of that persistency she had shown
+about the expedition, in the face of Augustina's wailings, and his own
+silence? She had been dull--Heaven knows she had been dull at Bannisdale,
+for these two months. On every occasion of his return from those
+intermediate absences to which he had forced himself, he had perceived
+that she drooped, that she was dumbly at war with the barriers that shut
+her youth away from change and laughter, and the natural amusements,
+flatteries and courtings that wait, or should wait, on sweet-and-twenty.
+More than once he had realised the fever pulsing through the girl's
+unrest. Of course she was dissatisfied and starved. She was not of the
+sort that accepts the _rôle_ of companion or sick nurse without a murmur.
+What could he do--he, into whose being she had crept with torturing
+power--he who could not marry her even if she should cease to hate
+him--who could only helplessly put land and distance between them? And
+then, who knows what a girl plans, to what she will stoop, out of the
+mere ebullience and rush of her youth--with what haloes she will surround
+even the meanest heads? Her blood calls her--not this man or that! She
+takes her decisions--behind that veil of mystery that masks the woman at
+her will. And who knows---who can know? A mother, perhaps. Not
+Augustina--not he--nor another.
+
+Groans broke from him. In vain he scourged himself and the vileness of
+his own thoughts. In vain he said to himself, "All her instincts, her
+preferences, are pure, guileless, delicate--I could swear it, I, who have
+watched her every look and motion." Temper?--yes. Caprice?--yes. A
+hundred immaturities and rawnesses?--yes! but at the root of all, the
+most dazzling, the most convincing maidenliness. Not the down-dropt eyes,
+the shrinking modesties of your old Christian or Catholic types--far from
+it. But something that, as you dwelt upon it, seemed to make doubt a mere
+folly.
+
+And yet his very self-assurances, his very protests, left him in torment.
+There is something in the Catholic discipline on points of sex-relation
+that perhaps weakens a man's instinctive confidence in women. Evil and
+its varieties, in this field, are pressed upon his thoughts perpetually
+with a scholastic fulness so complete, a deductive frankness so
+compelling, that nothing stands against the process. He sees corruption
+everywhere--dreads it everywhere. There is no part of its empire, or its
+action, that his imagination is allowed to leave in shadow. It is the
+confessional that works. The devout Catholic sees all the world _sub
+specie peccati_. The flesh seems to him always ready to fall--the devil
+always at hand.
+
+--Little restless proud creature! What a riddle she has been to him all
+the time--flitting about the house so pale and inaccessible, so silent,
+too, in general, since that night when he had wrestled with her in the
+drawing-room. One moment of fresh battle between them there has been--in
+the park--on the subject of old Scarsbrook. Preposterous!--that she
+should think for one moment she could be allowed to confess herself--and
+so bring all the low talk of the neighbourhood about her ears. He could
+hear the old man's plaintive cogitations over the strange experience
+which had blanched his hair and beard and brought him a visible step
+nearer to his end. "Soombody towd my owd woman tudther day, Misther
+Helbeck, at yoong Mason o' t' Browhead had been i' th' park that neet.
+Mappen tha'll tell me it was soom gell body he'd been coortin. Noa!--he
+doan't gaa about wi' the likes o' thattens! Theer was never a soun' ov
+her feet, Misther Helbeck! She gaed ower t' grass like a bit cloud i'
+summer, an she wor sma' an nesh as a wagtail on t' steëans. I ha seen aw
+maks o' gells, but this one bet 'em aw." And after that, to think of her
+pouring herself out in impetuous explanation to the old peasant and his
+wife! It had needed a strong will to stop her. "Mr. Helbeck, I wish to
+tell the truth, and I ought to tell it! And your arguments have no weight
+with me whatever."
+
+But he had made them prevail. And she had not punished him too severely.
+A little more pallor, a little more silence for a time--that was all!
+
+A score of poignant recollections laid hold upon him as he paced the
+night away. That music in the summer dusk--the softness of her little
+face--the friendliness--first, incredible friendliness!--of her lingering
+hand. Next morning he had banished himself to Paris, on a Catholic
+mission devised for the purpose. He had gone, torn with passion--gone, in
+the spirit that drives the mystic through all the forms of self-torture
+that religious history records--_ad majorem Dei gloriam_. He had returned
+to find her frozen and hostile as before--all wilfulness with
+Augustina--all contradiction with himself. The Froswick plan was already
+on foot--and he had furthered it--out of a piteous wish to propitiate
+her, to make her happy. What harm could happen to her? The sister would
+go with her and bring her back. Why must he always play the disobliging
+and tyrannical host? Could he undo the blood-relationship between her and
+the Masons? If for mere difficulty and opposition's sake there were
+really any fancy in her mind for this vulgar lad, perhaps after all it
+were the best thing to let her see enough of him for disenchantment!
+There are instincts that can be trusted.
+
+Such had been the thoughts of the morning. They do not help him through
+these night hours, when, in spite of all the arguments of common sense,
+he recurs again and again to the image of her as alone, possibly
+defenceless, in Mason's company.
+
+Suddenly he perceived that the light was changing. He put his lamp out
+and threw back the curtain. A pale gold was already creeping up the east.
+The strange yew forms in the garden began to emerge from the night. A
+huge green lion showed his jaw, his crown, his straight tail quivering in
+the morning breeze; a peacock nodded stiffly on its pedestal; a great H
+that had been reared upon its post supports before Dryden's death stood
+black against the morning sky, and everywhere between the clumsy crowding
+forms were roses, straggling and dew-drenched, or wallflowers in a June
+wealth of bloom, or peonies that made a crimson flush amid the yews. The
+old garden, so stiff and sad through all the rest of the year, was in its
+moment of glory.
+
+Helbeck opened one of the lattices of the oriel, and stood there gazing.
+Six months before there had been a passionate oneness between him and his
+inheritance, between his nature and the spirit of his race. Their
+privations and persecutions, their faults, their dumb or stupid
+fidelities, their very vices even, had been the source in him of a
+constant and secret affection. For their vices came from their long
+martyrdom, and their martyrdom from their faith. New influences had
+worked upon himself, influences linking him with a more European and
+militant Catholicism, as compared with that starved and local type from
+which he sprang. But through it all his family pride, his sense of
+ancestry with all its stimulus and obligations, had but grown. He was
+proud of calamity, impoverishment, isolation; they were the scars on
+pilgrims' feet--honour-marks left by the oppressor. His bare and rained
+house, his melancholy garden, where not a bed or path had suffered change
+since the man who planned them had refused to comply with the Test Act,
+and so forfeited his seat in Parliament; his dwindling resources, his
+hermit's life and fare--were they not all joy to him? For years he had
+desired to be a Jesuit; the obligations of his place and name had stood
+in the way. And short of being a son of St. Ignatius, he exulted in being
+a Helbeck--the more stripped and despised, the more happy--with those
+maimed generations behind him, and the triumph of his faith, his faith
+and theirs, gilding the mind's horizon.
+
+And now after just four months of temptation he stands there, racked with
+desire for this little pagan creature, this girl without a single
+Christian sentiment or tradition, the child of an infidel father, herself
+steeped in denial and cradled in doubt, with nothing meekly feminine
+about her on which to press new stamps--and knowing well why she denies,
+if not personally and consciously, at least by a kind of inheritance.
+
+The tangled garden, slowly yielding its splendours to the morning light,
+the walls of the old house, springing sheer from the grass like the
+native rock itself--for the first time he feels a gulf between himself
+and them. His ideals waver in the soul's darkened air; the breath of
+passion drives them to and fro.
+
+With an anguished "Domine, exaudi!" he snatched himself from the window,
+and leaving the room he crossed the hall, where the Tudor badges on the
+ceiling, the arms of "Elizabetha Regina" above the great hearth were
+already clear in the cold dawn, and made his way as noiselessly as
+possible to the chapel.
+
+Those strange figures on the wall had already shaken the darkness from
+them. Wing rose on wing, halo on halo, each face turning in a mystic
+passion to the altar and its steadfast light.
+
+_Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe
+deprecationem nostram. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis_.
+
+In prayer and passionate meditation he passed through much of the time
+that had still to be endured. But meanwhile he knew well, in his sinful
+and shrinking mind, that, for that night at least, he was only praying
+because he could do nothing else--nothing that would give him Laura, or
+deliver him from the fears that shook his inmost being.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little before six Helbeck left the chapel. He must bathe and
+dress--then to the farm for the pony cart. If she did not arrive by the
+first train he would get a horse at Marsland and drive on to Braeside.
+But first he must take care to leave a message for Mrs. Denton, whose
+venomous face, as she stood listening the night before to his story of
+Miss Fountain's mishaps, recurred to him disagreeably.
+
+The housekeeper would not be stirring yet, perhaps, for an hour. He went
+back to his study to write her some short directions covering the hours
+of his possible absence.
+
+The room, as he entered it, struck him as musty and airless, in spite of
+the open lattice. Instinctively, before writing, he went to throw another
+window wide. In rushed a fresh rose-scented air, and he leant forward an
+instant, letting its cool current flow through him.
+
+Something white caught his eye beneath the window.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Laura slowly raised her head.
+
+Had she fallen asleep in her fatigue?
+
+Helbeck, bending over her, saw her eyes unclose. She looked at him as she
+had never looked before--with a sad and spiritual simplicity as though
+she had waked in a world where all may tell the truth, and there are no
+veils left between man and woman.
+
+Her light hat fell back from her brow; her delicate pinched features,
+with the stamp of suffering upon them, met his look so sweetly--so
+frankly!
+
+"I was _very_ tired," she said, in a new voice, a voice of appealing
+trust. "And there was no door open."
+
+She raised her small hand, and he took it in his, trembling through all
+his man's strength.
+
+"I was just starting to see if the train had brought you."
+
+"No--I walked--a great part of the way, at least. Will you help me up?
+It's very foolish, but I can't stand."
+
+She rose, tottering, and leaning heavily upon his hand. She drew her own
+across her forehead.
+
+"It's only hunger. And I had some milk. Was Augustina in a great way?"
+
+"She was anxious, of course. We both were."
+
+"Yes! it was stupid. But look--" she clung to him. "Will you take me into
+the drawing-room, and get me some wine--before I see Augustina?"
+
+"Lean on me."
+
+She obeyed, and he led her in. The drawing-room door was open, and she
+sank into the nearest chair. As she looked up she saw the Romney lady
+shining from the wall in the morning sunlight. The blue-eyed beauty
+looked down, as though with a careless condescension, upon the pale and
+tattered Laura. But Laura was neither envious nor ashamed. As Helbeck
+left her to get wine, she lay still and white; but in the solitude of the
+room while he was gone, a little smile, ghostly as the dawn itself,
+fluttered suddenly beneath her closed lids and was gone again.
+
+When he returned, she did her best to drink and eat what she was told.
+But her exhaustion became painfully apparent, and he hung over her, torn
+between anxiety, remorse, and the pulsations of a frantic joy, hardly to
+be concealed, even by him.
+
+"Let me wake Augustina, and bring her down!"
+
+"No--wait a little. I have been in a quarry all night, you see! That
+isn't--resting!"
+
+"I tried to direct you--I managed to telegraph to the station-master; but
+it must have missed. I asked him to direct you to the inn."
+
+"Oh, the inn!" She shuddered suddenly. "No, I couldn't go to the inn."
+
+"Why--what frightened you?"
+
+He sat down by her, speaking very gently, as one does to a child.
+
+She was silent. His heart beat--his ear hungered for the next word.
+
+She lifted her tired lids.
+
+"My cousin was there--at the junction. I did not want him. I did not wish
+to be with him; he had no right whatever to follow me. So I sent him to
+the inn to ask--and I----"
+
+"You----?"
+
+"I hid myself in the quarry while he was gone. When he came back, he went
+on over the sands, calling for me--perhaps he thought I was lost in one
+of the bad places."
+
+She gave a little whimsical sigh, as though it pleased her to think of
+the lad's possible frights and wanderings.
+
+Helbeck bent towards her.
+
+"And so--to avoid him----?"
+
+She followed his eye like a child.
+
+"I had noticed a quarry beside the line. I climbed up there--under the
+engine-house--and sat there till it was light. You see"--her breath
+fluttered--"I couldn't--I couldn't be sure--he was sober. I dare say it
+was ridiculous--but I was so startled--and he had no business----"
+
+"He had given you no hint--that he wished to accompany you?"
+
+Something drove, persecuted the man to ask it in that hoarse, shaking
+tone.
+
+She did not answer. She simply looked at him, while the tears rose softly
+in her clear eyes. The question seemed to hurt her. Yet there was neither
+petulance nor evasion. She was Laura, and not Laura--the pale sprite of
+herself. One might have fancied her clothed already in the heavenly
+super-sensual body, with the pure heart pulsing visibly through the
+spirit frame.
+
+Helbeck rose, closed the door softly, came back and stood before her,
+struggling to speak. But she intercepted him. There was a look of
+suffering, a frown.
+
+"I saw a man die yesterday," she said abruptly. "Did Polly tell you?"
+
+"I heard of the accident, and that you had stayed to comfort the child."
+
+"It seems very heartless, but somehow as we were in the train I had
+almost forgotten it. I was so glad to get away from Froswick--to be
+coming back. And I was very tired, of course, and never dreamt of
+anything going wrong. Oh, _no_! I haven't forgotten really--I never shall
+forget."
+
+She pressed her hands together shuddering. Helbeck was still silent.
+
+But it was a silence that pierced. Suddenly she flushed deeply. The spell
+that held her--that strange transparency of soul--broke up.
+
+"Naturally I was afraid lest Augustina should be anxious," she said
+hastily, "and lest it should be bad for her."
+
+Helbeck knelt down beside her. She sank back in her chair, staring at
+him.
+
+"You were glad to be coming back--to be coming here?" he said in his deep
+voice. "Is that true? Do you know that I have sat here all night--in
+misery?"
+
+The struggling breath checked the answer, cheeks and lips lost every
+vestige of their returning red. Only her eyes spoke. Helbeck came closer.
+Suddenly he snatched the little form to his breast. She made one small
+effort to free herself, then yielded. Soul and body were too weak, the
+ecstasy of his touch too great.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You can't love me--you can't."
+
+She had torn herself away. They were sitting side by side; but now she
+would not even give him her hand. That one trembling kiss had changed
+their lives. But in both natures, passion was proud and fastidious from
+its birth; it could live without much caressing.
+
+As she spoke, he met her gaze with a smiling emotion. The long, stern
+face in its grizzled setting of hair and beard had suffered a
+transformation that made it almost strange to her. He was like a man
+loosed from many bonds, and dazzled by the effects of his own will. The
+last few minutes had made him young again. But she looked at him
+wistfully once or twice, as though her fancy nursed something which had
+grown dear to it.
+
+"You can't love me," she repeated; "when did you begin? You didn't love
+me yesterday, you know--nor the day before."
+
+"Why do you suppose I went away the day after the ghost?" he asked her
+slowly.
+
+"Because you had business, or you were tired of my very undesirable
+company."
+
+"Put it as you like! Do you explain my recent absences in the same way?"
+
+"Oh, I can't explain you!" She raised her shoulders, but her face
+trembled. "I never tried."
+
+"Let me show you how. I went because you were here."
+
+"And you were afraid--that you might love me? Was it--such a hard fate?"
+She turned her head away.
+
+"What have I to offer you?" he said passionately; "poverty--an elderly
+lover--a life uncongenial to you."
+
+She slipped a hand nearer to him, but her face clouded a little.
+
+"It's the very strangest thing in the world," she said deliberately,
+"that we should love each other. What can it mean? I hated you when I
+came, and meant to hate you. And"--she sat up and spoke with an emphasis
+that brought the colour back into her face--"I can never, never be a
+Catholic."
+
+He looked at her gravely.
+
+"That I understand."
+
+"You know that I was brought up apart from religion, altogether?"
+
+His eye saddened. Then he raised her hand and kissed it. The pitying
+tenderness of the action almost made her break down. But she tried to
+snatch her hand away.
+
+"It was papa's doing, and I shall never blame him--never!"
+
+"I have been in Belgium lately," he said, holding the hand close, "at a
+great Catholic town--Louvain--where I was educated. I went to an old
+priest I know, and to a Reverend Mother who has sent me Sisters once or
+twice, and I begged of them both--prayers for your father's soul."
+
+She stared. The painful tears rushed into her eyes.
+
+"I thought that--for you--that was all sure and settled long ago."
+
+"I don't think you know much about us, little heretic! I have prayed for
+your father's soul at every Mass since--you remember that Rosary service
+in April?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"And what you said to me afterwards, about the child--and doubt? I stayed
+long in the chapel that night. It was borne in upon me, with a certainty
+I shall never lose, that all was well with your poor father. Our Blessed
+Lord has revealed to him in that other life what an invincible ignorance
+hid from him here."
+
+He spoke with a beautiful simplicity, like a man dealing with all that
+was most familiarly and yet sacredly real to his daily mind and thought.
+
+She trembled. Words and ideas of the kind were still all strange and
+double-edged to her--suggesting on the one side the old feelings of
+contempt and resistance, on the other a new troubling of the waters of
+the heart.
+
+She leant her brow against the back of the old sofa on which they were
+sitting. "And--and no prayers for me?" she said huskily.
+
+"Dear love!--at all times--in all places--at my downsitting and mine
+uprising," he answered--every word an adoration.
+
+She was silent for a moment, then she dashed the tears from her eyes.
+
+"All the same, I shall never be a Catholic," she repeated resolutely;
+"and how can you marry an unbeliever?"
+
+"My Church allows it--under certain conditions."
+
+Her mind flew over the conditions. She had heard them named on one or two
+occasions during the preceding months. Then she turned away, dreading his
+eye.
+
+"Suppose I am jealous of your Church and hate her?"
+
+"No!--you will love her for my sake."
+
+"I can't promise. There are two selves in me. All your Catholic
+friends--Father Leadham--the Reverend Mother--will be in despair."
+
+She saw him wince. But he spoke firmly. "I ask only what is lawful. I am
+free in such a matter to choose my own path--under my conscience."
+
+She said nothing for a little. But she pondered on all that he might be
+facing and sacrificing for such a marriage. Once a cloud of sudden
+misgiving descended upon her, as though, a bird had brushed her with its
+black wing. But she shook it away. Her little hand crept back to
+him--while her face was still hidden from him.
+
+"I ought not to marry you--but--but I will. There--take me!--will you
+guide me?"
+
+"With all my strength!"
+
+"Will you fight me?"
+
+He laughed. "To the best of my ability--when I must. Did I do it
+well--that night--about the ghost?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders--half laughing, half crying.
+
+"No!--you were violent--impossible. Will you never, never let me get the
+upper hand?"
+
+"How would you do it?--little atom!" He bent over her, trying to see her
+face, but she pressed him away from her.
+
+"Make me afraid to mock at your beliefs!" she said passionately; "make me
+afraid!--there is no other way."
+
+"Laura!"
+
+At last she let his arms have their will. And it was time. The exhaustion
+which had been driven back for the moment by food and excitement returned
+upon her with paralysing force. Helbeck woke to a new and stronger alarm.
+He half led, half carried her through the hall, on the way to Augustina.
+
+At the foot of the stairs, as Laura was making a tottering effort to
+climb them with Helbeck's arm round her, Mrs. Denton came out of the
+dining-room straight upon them. She carried a pan and brush, and had
+evidently just begun her morning work.
+
+At sight of her Laura started; but Helbeck gave her no chance to withdraw
+herself. He turned quietly to his housekeeper, who stood transfixed.
+
+"Good-morning, Denton. Miss Fountain has just returned, having walked
+most of the way from Braeside. She is very tired, as you see--let some
+breakfast be got ready for her at once. And let me tell you now--what I
+should anyway have told you a few hours later--that Miss Fountain has
+promised to be my wife."
+
+He spoke with a cold dignity, scanning the woman closely. Mrs. Denton
+grew very white. But she dropped a curtesy in old Westmoreland fashion.
+
+"I wish you joy, sir--and Miss Fountain, too."
+
+Her voice was low and mumbling, but Helbeck gave her a cheerful nod.
+
+"Thank you. I shall be downstairs again as soon as I have taken Miss
+Fountain to my sister--and I, too, should be glad of some breakfast."
+
+"He's been agate all night," said the housekeeper to herself, as she
+entered the study and looked at the chairs, the lamp which its master had
+forgotten to extinguish, the open window. "An where's she been? Who
+knows? I saw it from the first. It's a bewitchment--an it'll coom to noa
+good."
+
+She went about her dusting with a shaking hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Augustina was not told till later in the day. When her brother, who was
+alone with her, had at last succeeded in making her understand that he
+proposed to make Laura Fountain his wife, the surprise and shock of the
+news was such that Mrs. Fountain was only saved from faintness by her
+very strongest smelling-salts.
+
+"Alan--my dear brother! Oh! Alan--you can't have thought it out. She's
+her father's child, Alan, all through. How can you be happy? Why, Alan,
+the things she says--poor Laura!"
+
+"She _has_ said them," he replied.
+
+"She can't help saying them--thinking them--it's in her. No one will ever
+change her. Oh! it's all so strange----"
+
+And Augustina began to cry, silently, piteously.
+
+Helbeck bent over her.
+
+"Augustina!" He spoke with emotion. "If she loved, wouldn't that change
+her? Don't all women live by their affections? I am not worth her
+loving--but----"
+
+His face shone, and spoke the rest for him.
+
+Augustina looked at him in bewilderment. Why, it was only yesterday that
+Laura disliked and despised him, and that Alan hardly ever spoke when her
+stepdaughter was there. It was utterly incomprehensible to her. Was it
+another punishment from Heaven for her own wilful and sacrilegious
+marriage? As she thought of the new conditions and relations that were
+coming upon them all--the disapproval of friends, the danger to her
+brother's Catholic life, the transformation of her own ties to Laura, her
+feeble soul lost itself in fear. Secretly, she said to herself, with the
+natural weariness of coming age:
+
+"Perhaps I shall die--before it happens."
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Augustina was sitting in the garden with Father Bowles. Their chairs were
+placed under a tall Scotch fir, which spread its umbrella top between
+them and the sun. All around, the old garden was still full and flowery.
+For it was mid-September, and fine weather.
+
+Mrs. Fountain was lying on a sort of deck-chair, and had as usual a
+number of little invalid appliances about her. But in truth, as Father
+Bowles was just reflecting, she looked remarkably well. The influences of
+her native air seemed so far to have brought Dr. MacBride's warnings to
+naught. Or was it the stimulating effect of her brother's engagement? At
+any rate she talked more, and with more vigour; she was more liable to
+opinions of her own; and in these days there was that going on at
+Bannisdale which provoked opinion in great plenty.
+
+"Miss Fountain is not at home?" remarked the old priest. An afternoon
+gossip with Mrs. Fountain had become a very common feature of his recent
+life.
+
+"Laura has gone, I believe, to meet my brother at the lodge. He has been
+over to Braeside on business."
+
+"He is selling some land there?"
+
+"I hope so!" said Augustina, with fervour.
+
+"It is time indeed that our poor orphans were housed," said Father Bowles
+naïvely. "For the last three months some of our dear nuns have been
+sleeping in the passages."
+
+Augustina sighed.
+
+"It seems a little hard that there is nobody but Alan to do anything! And
+how long is it to go on?"
+
+The priest bent forward.
+
+"You mean----?"
+
+"How long will my stepdaughter let it go on?" said Augustina impatiently.
+"She will be mistress here directly."
+
+The eyes of her companion flinched, as though something had struck him.
+But he hastened to say:
+
+"Do not let us doubt, my dear lady, that the soul of Miss Fountain will
+sooner or later be granted to our prayers."
+
+"But there is not the smallest sign of it," cried Augustina. And she in
+her turn bent towards her companion, unable to resist the temptation of
+these priestly ears so patiently inclined to her. "And yet, Father, she
+isn't happy!--though Alan gives way to her in everything. It's not a bit
+like a girl in love--you'd expect her to be thinking about her clothes,
+and the man, and her housekeeping at least--if she won't think
+about--well! those other things that we should all wish her to think
+about. While we were at the sea, and Alan used to come down every now and
+then to stay near us in lodgings, it was all right. They never argued or
+disputed; they were out all day; and really I thought my brother began to
+look ten years younger. But now--since we have come back--of course my
+brother has all his affairs, and all his Church business to look after,
+and Laura doesn't seem so contented--nearly. It would be different if she
+cared for any of his interests--but I often think she hates the orphans!
+She is really naughty about them. And then the Sisters--oh
+dear!"--Augustina gave a worried sigh--"I don't think the Reverend Mother
+can have managed it at all well."
+
+Father Bowles said that he understood both from the Reverend Mother and
+Sister Angela that they had made very great efforts to secure Miss
+Fountain's friendly opinion.
+
+"Well, it didn't succeed, that's all I can say," replied Augustina
+fretfully. "And I don't know what they'll do after November."
+
+November had been fixed for the marriage, which was to take place at
+Cambridge.
+
+Father Bowles hung his hands between his knees and looked down upon them
+in gentle meditation.
+
+"Your brother seems still very much attached----"
+
+"Attached!"
+
+Augustina was silent. In reality she spent half her days in secretly
+marvelling how such a good man as Alan could allow himself to be so much
+in love.
+
+"If only someone had ever warned me that this might happen--when I was
+coming back to live here," she said, in her most melancholy voice; and
+clasping her thin hands she looked sadly down the garden paths, while her
+poor head shook and jerked under the influence of the thoughts--so far
+from agreeable!--with which it was filled.
+
+There was a little silence. Then Father Bowles broke it.
+
+"And our dear Squire does nothing to try and change Miss Fountain's mind
+towards the Church?" he asked, looking vaguely round the corner all the
+time.
+
+Nothing--so Augustina declared.
+
+"I say to him--'Alan, give her some books.' Why, they always give people
+books to read! 'Or get Father Leadham to talk to her.' What's the good of
+a man like Father Leadham--so learned, and such manners!--if he can't
+talk to a girl like Laura? But no, Alan won't. He says we must let her
+alone--and wait God's time!--And there's no altering him, as you know."
+
+Father Bowles pondered a little, then said with a mild perplexity:
+
+"I find, in my books, that a great many instances are recorded of holy
+wives--or even betrothed--who were instrumental under God in procuring
+the conversion of their unbelieving husbands--or--or lovers, if I may use
+such a word to a lady. But I cannot discover any of an opposite nature.
+There was the pious Nonna, for instance, the mother of the great St.
+Gregory Nazianzen, who converted her husband so effectually that he
+became a bishop, and died at the age of ninety."
+
+"What became of her?" inquired Augustina hastily.
+
+The priest hesitated.
+
+"It is a very curious case--and, I understand, much disputed. Some people
+suppose that St. Gregory was born after his father became a bishop, and
+many infidel writers have made use of the story for their own malicious
+purposes. But if it was so, the Church may have allowed such a departure
+from her law, at a time of great emergency and in a scarcity of pastors.
+But the most probable thing is that nothing of the kind happened--" he
+drew himself up with decision--"that the father of St. Gregory had
+separated from his wife before he became a bishop--and that those writers
+who record the birth of St. Gregory during the episcopate of his father
+were altogether mistaken."
+
+"At any rate, I really don't see how it helps us!" said Augustina.
+
+Father Bowles looked a little crestfallen.
+
+"There is one other case that occurs to me," he said timidly. "It is that
+of St. Amator, Bishop of Auxerre. He was desired by his parents to marry
+Martha, a rich young lady of his neighbourhood. But he took her aside,
+and pressed upon her the claims of the ascetic life with such fervour
+that she instantly consented to renounce the world with him. She
+therefore went into a convent; and he received the tonsure, and was in
+due time made Bishop of Auxerre."
+
+"Well, I assure you, I should be satisfied with a good deal less than
+that in Laura's case!" said Augustina, half angry, half laughing.
+
+Father Bowles said no more. His mind was a curious medley of scraps from
+many quarters--from a small shelf of books that held a humble place in
+his little parlour, from the newspapers, and from the few recollections
+still left to him of his seminary training. He was one of the most
+complacently ignorant of men; and it had ceased to trouble him that even
+with Augustina he was no longer of importance.
+
+Mrs. Fountain made him welcome, indeed, not only because he was one of
+the chief gossips of the neighbourhood, but because she was able to
+assume towards him certain little airs of superiority that no other human
+being allowed her. With him, she was the widow of a Cambridge scholar,
+who had herself breathed the forbidden atmosphere of an English
+University; she prattled familiarly of things and persons wherewith the
+poor priest, in his provincial poverty and isolation, could have no
+acquaintance; she let him understand that by her marriage she had passed
+into hell-flame regions of pure intellect, that little parish priests
+might denounce but could never appreciate. He bore it all very meekly; he
+liked her tea and talk; and at bottom the sacerdotal pride, however
+hidden and silent, is more than a match for any other.
+
+Augustina lay for a while in a frowning and flushed silence, with a host
+of thoughts, of the most disagreeable and heterogeneous sort, scampering
+through her mind. Suddenly she said:
+
+"I don't think Sister Angela should talk as she does! She told me when
+she heard of the engagement that she could not help thinking of St.
+Philip Neri, who was attacked by three devils near the Colosseum, because
+they were enraged by the success of his holy work among the young men of
+Rome. I asked her whether she meant to call Laura a devil! And she
+coloured, and got very confused, and said it was so sad that Mr. Helbeck,
+of all people, should marry an unbelieving wife--and we were taught to
+believe that all temptations came from evil spirits."
+
+"Sister Angela means well, but she expresses herself very unwarrantably,"
+said the priest sharply. "Now the Reverend Mother tells me that she
+expected something of the kind, almost from the first."
+
+"Why didn't she tell me?" cried Augustina. "But I don't really think she
+did, Father. She makes a mistake. How _could_ she? But the dear Reverend
+Mother--well! you know--though she is so wonderfully humble, she doesn't
+like anybody to be wiser than she. And I can hardly bear it--I _know_ she
+puts it all down to some secret sin on Alan's part. She spends a great
+part of the night--that she told me--in praying for him in the chapel."
+
+Father Bowles sighed.
+
+"I believe that our dear Reverend Mother has often and often prayed for a
+good wife for Mr. Helbeck. Miss Fountain, no doubt, is a very attractive
+and accomplished young lady, but--"
+
+"Oh, don't, please, go through the 'buts,'" said Mrs. Fountain with a
+shrug of despair. "I don't know what's to become of us all--I don't
+indeed. It isn't as though Laura could hold her tongue. Since we came
+back I can see her father in her all day long. I had a talk with the
+Bishop yesterday," she said in a lower voice, looking plaintively at her
+companion.
+
+He bent forward.
+
+"Oh! he's just, broken-hearted. He can hardly bring himself to speak to
+Alan about it at all. Of course, Alan will get his dispensation for the
+marriage. They can't refuse it to him when they give it to so many
+others. But!"--she threw up her hands--"the Bishop asked me if Laura had
+been really baptized. I told him there was no doubt at all about
+it--though it was a very near thing. But her mother did insist that once.
+And it appears that if she hadn't----"
+
+She looked interrogatively at the priest.
+
+"The marriage could not have taken place," he said slowly. "No Catholic
+priest could have celebrated it, at least. There would have been a
+diriment impediment."
+
+"I thought so," said Augustina excitedly, "though I wasn't sure. There
+are so many dispensations nowadays."
+
+"Ah, but not in such cases as that," said the priest, with an unconscious
+sigh that rather startled his companion.
+
+Then with a sudden movement he pounced upon something on the further side
+of the table, nearly upsetting the tea-tray. Augustina exclaimed.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said humbly; "it was only a nasty fly." And he
+dropped the flattened creature on the grass.
+
+Both relapsed into a melancholy silence. But several times during the
+course of it Mrs. Fountain looked towards her companion as though on the
+point of saying something--then rebuked herself and refrained.
+
+But when the priest had taken his leave, and Mrs. Fountain was left alone
+in the garden with the flowers and the autumn wind, her thoughts were
+painfully concerned with quite another part of the episcopal conversation
+from that which she had reported to Father Bowles. What right had the
+Bishop or anyone else to speak of "stories" about Laura? Of course, the
+dear Bishop had been very kind and cautious. He had said emphatically
+that he did not believe the stories--nor that other report that Mr.
+Helbeck's sudden proposal of marriage to Miss Fountain had been brought
+about by his chivalrous wish to protect the endangered name of a young
+girl, his guest, to whom he had become unwisely attached.
+
+But why should there be "stories," and what did it all mean?
+
+That unlucky Froswick business--and young Mason? But what had Mason to do
+with it--on that occasion? As Augustina understood, he had seen the child
+off from Froswick by the 8.20 train--and there was an end of him in the
+matter. As for the rest of that adventure, no doubt it was foolish of
+Laura to sit in the quarry till daylight, instead of going to the inn;
+but all the world might know that she took a carriage at Wryneck,
+half-way home, about four o'clock in the morning, and left it at the top
+gate of the park. Why, she was in her room by six, or a little after!
+
+What on earth did the Bishop mean? Augustina fell into a maze of rather
+miserable cogitation. She recalled her brother's manner and words after
+his return from the station on the night of the expedition--and then next
+day, the news!--and Laura's abrupt admission: "I met him in the garden,
+Augustina, and--well! we soon understood each other. It had to come, I
+suppose--it might as well come then. But I don't wonder it's all very
+surprising to you----" And then such a wild burst of tears--such a sudden
+gathering of the stepmother in the girl's young arms--such a wrestle with
+feelings to which the bewildered Augustina had no clue.
+
+Was Alan up all that night? Mrs. Denton had said something of the sort.
+Was he really making up his mind to propose--because people might talk?
+But why?--how ridiculous! Certainly it must have been very sudden. Mrs.
+Denton met them coming upstairs a little after six; and Alan told her
+then.
+
+"Oh, if I only _could_ understand it," thought Augustina, with a little
+moan. "And now Alan just lives and breathes for her. And she will be
+here, in my mother's place--Stephen's daughter."
+
+Mrs. Fountain felt the burning of a strange jealousy. Her vanity and her
+heart were alike sore. She remembered how she had trembled before Alan in
+his strict youth--how she had apostatised even, merely to escape the
+demands which the intensity of Alan's faith made on all about him. And
+now this little chit of twenty, her own stepdaughter, might do and say
+what she pleased. She would be mistress of Alan, and of the old house.
+Alan's sister might creep into a corner, and pray!--that was enough for
+her.
+
+And yet she loved Laura, and clung to her! She felt the humiliation of
+her secret troubles and envies. Her only comfort lay in her recovered
+faith; in the rosary to which her hands turned perpetually; in her
+fortnightly confession; in her visits to the sacrament. The great
+Catholic tradition beat through her meagre life, as the whole Atlantic
+may run pulsing through a drifting weed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, near the entrance gate of the park, on a wooded knoll that
+overlooked the park wall and commanded the road beyond, Laura Fountain
+was sitting with the dogs--waiting for Helbeck.
+
+He had been at Whinthorpe all day, on some business in which she was
+specially interested. The Romney lady was not yet sold. During May and
+June, Laura had often wondered why she still lingered on the wall. An
+offer had actually been made--so Augustina said. And there was pressing
+need for the money that it represented--that, every sojourner in
+Bannisdale must know. And yet, there still she hung.
+
+Then, with the first day of her engagement, Laura knew why. "You saved
+her," said Helbeck. "Since that evening when you denounced me for selling
+her--little termagant!--I have racked my brains to keep her."
+
+And now for some time there had been negotiations going on between
+Helbeck and a land agent in Whinthorpe for the sale of an outlying piece
+of Bannisdale land, to which the growth of a little watering-place on the
+estuary had given of late a new value. Helbeck, in general a singularly
+absent and ineffective man of business, had thrown himself into the
+matter with an astonishing energy, had pressed his price, hurried his
+solicitors, and begged the patience of the nuns--who were still sleeping
+in doorways and praying for new buildings--till all should be complete.
+
+That afternoon he had ridden over to Whinthorpe in the hopes of signing
+the contract. He did not yet know--so Laura gathered--with whom he was
+really treating. The Whinthorpe agent had talked vaguely of "a Manchester
+gentleman," and Helbeck had not troubled himself to inquire further.
+
+When they were married, would he still sell all that he had, and give to
+the poor--in the shape of orphanages and reformatories? Laura was almost
+as unpractical, and cared quite as little about money, as he. But her
+heart yearned towards the old house; and she already dreamt of making it
+beautiful and habitable again. As a woman, too, she was more alive to the
+habitual discomforts of the household than Helbeck himself. Mrs. Denton
+at least should go! So much he had already promised her. The girl thought
+with joy of that dismissal, tightening her small lips. Oh! the tyranny of
+those perpetual grumblings and parsimonies, of those sour unfriendly
+looks! Economy--yes! But it should be a seemly, a smiling economy in
+future--one still compatible with a little elegance, a little dignity.
+
+Laura liked to think of her own three hundred a year; liked to feel it of
+importance in the narrow lot of this impoverished estate. To a rich
+bridegroom it would have been a trifle for contempt. To Helbeck and
+herself--though she scarcely believed that he had realised as yet that
+she possessed a farthing!--it would mean just escape from penury; a few
+more fires and servants and travellings; enough to ease his life from
+that hard strain that had tugged at it so long. For _her_ money should
+not go to nuns or Jesuits!--she would protect it zealously, and not for
+her own sake.
+
+... Oh! those days by the sea! Those were days for remembering. That tall
+form always beside her--those eyes so grey and kind--so fiery-kind,
+often!--revealing to her day by day more of the man, learning a new
+language for her alone, in all the world, a language that could set her
+trembling, that could draw her to him, in a humility that was strange and
+difficult, yet pure joy!--her hand slipping into his, her look sinking
+beneath his, almost with an appeal to love to let her be. Then--nothing
+but the sparkling sands and the white-edged waves for company! A little
+pleasant chat with Augustina; duty walks with her bath chair along the
+sea-wall; strolls in the summer dusk, while Mrs. Fountain, wrapped in her
+many shawls, watched them from the balcony; their day had known no other
+events, no other disturbance than these.
+
+As far as things external were concerned.--Else, each word, each look
+made history. And though he had not talked much to her of his religion,
+his Catholic friends and schemes, all that he had said on these things
+she had been ready to take into a softened heart. His mystic's practice
+and belief wore still their grand air for her--that aspect of power and
+mystery which had in fact borne so large a part in the winning of her
+imagination, the subduing of her will. She did not want then to know too
+much. She wished the mystery still kept up. And he, on his side, had made
+it plain to her that he would not attempt to disturb her inherited
+ideas--so long as she herself did not ask for the teaching and initiation
+that could only, according to his own deepest conviction, bear fruit in
+the willing and prepared mind.
+
+But now---- They were at Bannisdale again, and he was once more Helbeck
+of Bannisdale, a man sixteen years older than she, wound round with the
+habits and friendship and ideals which had been the slow and firm deposit
+of those years--habits and ideals which were not hers, which were at the
+opposite pole from hers, of which she still only dimly guessed the
+motives and foundations.
+
+"Helbeck of Bannisdale." Her new relation to him, brought back into the
+old conditions, revealed to her day by day fresh meanings and
+connotations of the name. And the old revolts, under different, perhaps
+more poignant forms, were already strong.
+
+What _time_ this religion took! Apart from the daily Mass, which drew him
+always to Whinthorpe before breakfast, there were the morning and evening
+prayers, the visits to the Sacrament, the two Masses on Sunday morning,
+Rosary and Benediction in the evening, and the many occasional services
+for the marking of Saints'-days or other festivals. Not to speak of all
+the business that fell upon him as the chief Catholic layman of a large
+district.
+
+And it seemed to her that since their return home he was more strict,
+more rigorous than ever in points of observance. She noticed that not
+only was Friday a fast-day, but Wednesday also was an "abstinence" day;
+that he looked with disquiet upon the books and magazines that were often
+sent her by the Friedlands, and would sometimes gently beg her--for the
+Sisters' sake--to put them out of sight; that on the subject of balls and
+theatres he spoke sometimes with a severity no member of the Metropolitan
+Tabernacle could have outdone. What was that phrase he had dropped once
+as to being "under a rule"? What was "The Third Order of St. Francis"?
+She had seen a book of "Constitutions" in his study; and a printed card
+of devout recommendations to "Tertiaries of the Northern Province" hung
+beside his table. She half thirsted, half dreaded, to know precisely what
+these things meant to him. But he was silent, and she shrank from asking.
+
+Was he all the more rigid with himself on the religious side of late,
+because of that inevitable scandal which his engagement had given to his
+Catholic friends--perhaps because of his own knowledge of the weakening
+effects of passion on the will? For Laura's imagination was singularly
+free and cool where the important matters of her own life were concerned.
+She often guessed that but for the sudden emotion of that miserable
+night, and their strange meeting in the dawn, he might have succeeded in
+driving down and subduing his love for her--might have proved himself in
+that, as in all other matters, a good Catholic to the end. That she
+should have brought him to her feet in spite of all trammels was food for
+a natural and secret exultation. But now that the first exquisite days of
+love were over, the trammels, the forgotten trammels, were all there
+again--for the fretting of her patience. That his mind was often
+disturbed, his cheerfulness overcast, that his letters gave him
+frequently more pain than pleasure, and that a certain inward unrest made
+his dealings with himself more stern, and his manner to those around him
+less attractive than before,--these things were constantly plain to
+Laura. As she dwelt upon them, they carried flame and poison through the
+girl's secret mind. For they were the evidences of forces and influences
+not hers--forces that warred with hers, and must always war with hers.
+Passion on her side began to put forward a hundred new and jealous
+claims; and at the touch of resistance in him, her own will steeled.
+
+As to the Catholic friends, surely she had done her best! She had called
+with Augustina on the Reverend Mother and Sister Angela--a cold,
+embarrassed visit. She had tried to be civil whenever they came to the
+house. She had borne with the dubious congratulations of Father Bowles.
+She had never once asked to see any portion of that correspondence which
+Helbeck had been carrying on for weeks with Father Leadham, persuaded
+though she was, from its effects on Helbeck's moods and actions, that it
+was wholly concerned with their engagement, and with the problems and
+difficulties it presented from the Catholic point of view.
+
+She was preparing even to welcome with politeness that young Jesuit who
+had neglected his dying mother, against whom--on the stories she had
+heard--her whole inner nature cried out....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+The sound of a horse approaching. Up sprang the dogs, and she with them.
+
+Helbeck waved his hand to her as he came over the bridge. Then at the
+gate he dismounted, seeing Wilson in the drive, and gave his horse to the
+old bailiff.
+
+"Cross the bridge with me," he said, as he joined her, "and let us walk
+home the other side of the river. Is it too far?"
+
+His eyes searched her face--with the eagerness of one who has found
+absence a burden. She shook her head and smiled. The little frown that
+had been marring the youth of her pretty brow smoothed itself away. She
+tripped beside him, feeling the contagion of his joy--inwardly
+repentant--and very happy.
+
+But he was tired and disappointed by the day's result. The contract was
+not signed. His solicitor had been summoned in haste to make the will of
+a neighbouring magnate; some of the last formalities of his own business
+had been left uncompleted; and in short the matter was postponed for at
+least a day or two.
+
+"I wish it was done," he said, sighing--and Laura could only feel that
+the responsibilities and anxieties weighing upon him seemed to press with
+unusual strength.
+
+A rosy evening stole upon them as they walked along the Greet.--The glow
+caught the grey walls of the house on the further bank--lit up the
+reaches of the stream--and the bare branch work of a great ruined tree in
+front of them. Long lines of heavy wood closed the horizon on either
+hand, shutting in the house, the river, and their two figures.
+
+"How solitary we are here!" he said, suddenly looking round him. "Oh!
+Laura, can you be happy--with poverty--and me?"
+
+"Well, I shan't read my prayer-book along the river!--and I shan't
+embroider curtains for the best bedroom--alack! Perhaps a new piano might
+keep me quiet--I don't know!"
+
+He looked at her, then quickly withdrew his eyes, as though they
+offended. Through his mind had run the sacred thought, "Her children will
+fill her life--and mine!"
+
+"When am I to teach you Latin?" he said, laughing.
+
+She raised her shoulders.
+
+"I wouldn't learn it if I could do without it! But you Catholics are bred
+upon it."
+
+"We are the children of the Church," he said gently. "And it is her
+tongue."
+
+She made no answer, and he talked of something else immediately. As they
+crossed the little footbridge he drew her attention to the deep pool on
+the further side, above which was built the wooden platform, where Laura
+had held her May tryst with Mason.
+
+"Did I ever tell you the story of my great-grandfather drowning in that
+pool?"
+
+"What, the drinking and gambling gentleman?"
+
+"Yes, poor wretch! He had half killed his wife, and ruined the
+property--so it was time. He was otter hunting--there is an otter hole
+still, half-way down that bank. Somehow or other he came to the top of
+the crag alone, probably not sober. The river was in flood; and his poor
+wife, sitting on one of those rock seats with her needlework and her
+books, heard the shouts of the huntsmen--helped to draw him out and to
+carry him home. Do you see that little beach?"--he pointed to a break in
+the rocky bank. "It was there--so tradition says--that he lay upon her
+knee, she wailing over him. And in three months she too was gone."
+
+Laura turned away.
+
+"I won't think of it," she said obstinately. "I will only think of her as
+she is in the picture."
+
+On the little platform she paused, with her hand on the railing, the dark
+water eddying below her, the crag above her.
+
+"I could--tell _you_ something about this place," she said slowly. "Do
+you want to hear?"
+
+She bent over the water. He stood beside her. The solitude of the spot,
+the deep shadow of the crag, gave love freedom.
+
+He drew her to him.
+
+"Dear!--confess!"
+
+She too whispered:
+
+"It was here--I saw Hubert Mason--that night."
+
+"Culprit! Repeat every word--and I will determine the penance."
+
+"As if there had not been already too much! Oh! what a lecture you read
+me--and you have never apologised yet! Begin--_begin_--at once!"
+
+He raised her hand and kissed it.
+
+"So? Now--courage!"
+
+And with some difficulty--half laughing--she described the scene with
+Hubert, her rush home, her meeting with old Scarsbrook.
+
+"I tell you," she insisted at the end, "there is good in that boy
+somewhere--there _is_!"
+
+Helbeck said nothing.
+
+"But you always saw the worst," she added, looking up.
+
+"I am afraid I only saw what there was," he said dryly. "Dear, it gets
+cold, and that white frock is very thin."
+
+They walked on. In truth, he could hardly bear that she should take
+Mason's name upon her lips at all. The thoughts and comments of
+ill-natured persons, of some of his own friends--the sort of misgiving
+that had found expression in the Bishop's talk with his sister--he was
+perfectly aware of them all, impossible as it would have been for
+Augustina or anyone else to say a word to him on the subject. The dignity
+no less than the passion of a strong man was deeply concerned. He
+repented and humbled himself every day for his own passing doubts; but
+his resolution only stiffened the more. There was no room, there should
+never be any room in Laura's future life, for any further contact with
+the Mason family.
+
+And, indeed, the Mason family itself seemed to have arrived at very
+similar conclusions! All that Helbeck knew of them since the Froswick day
+might have been summed up in a few sentences. On the Sunday morning
+Mason, in a wild state, with wet clothes and bloodshot eyes, had
+presented himself at the Wilsons' cottage, asking for news of Miss
+Fountain. They told him that she was safely at home, and he departed. As
+far as Helbeck knew, he had spent the rest of the Sunday drinking heavily
+at Marsland. Since then Laura had received one insolent letter from him,
+reiterating his own passion for her, attacking Helbeck in the fiercest
+terms, and prophesying that she would soon be tired of her lover and her
+bargain. Laura had placed the letter in Helbeck's hands, and Helbeck had
+replied by a curt note through his solicitor, to the effect that if any
+further annoyance were offered to Miss Fountain he would know how to
+protect her.
+
+Mrs. Mason also had written. Madwoman! She forbade her cousin to visit
+the farm again, or to hold any communication with Polly or herself. A
+girl, born of a decent stock, who was capable of such an act as marrying
+a Papist and idolater was not fit to cross the threshold of Christian
+people. Mrs. Mason left her to the mercy of her offended God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And in this matter of her cousins Laura was not unwilling to be governed.
+It was as though she liked to feel the curb.
+
+And to-night as they strolled homewards, hand locked in hand, all her
+secret reserves and suspicions dropped away--silenced or soothed. Her
+charming head drooped a little; her whole small self seemed to shrink
+towards him as though she felt the spell of that mere physical maturity
+and strength that moved beside her youth. Their walk was all sweetness;
+and both would have prolonged it but that Augustina had been left too
+long alone.
+
+She was no longer in the garden, however, and they went in by the chapel
+entrance, seeking for her.
+
+"Let me just get my letters," said Helbeck, and Laura followed him to his
+study.
+
+The afternoon post lay upon his writing-table. He opened the first, read
+it, and handed it with a look of hesitation to Laura.
+
+"Dear, Mr. Williams comes to-morrow. They have given him a fortnight's
+holiday. He has had a sharp attack of illness and depression, and wants
+change. Will you feel it too long?"
+
+Involuntarily her look darkened. She put down the letter without reading
+it.
+
+"Why--I want to see him! I--I shall make a study of him," she said with
+some constraint.
+
+But by this time Helbeck was half through the contents of his next
+envelope. She heard an exclamation of disgust, and he threw down what he
+held with vehemence.
+
+"One can trust nobody!" he said--"_nobody!_"
+
+He began to pace the floor with angry energy, his hands thrust into his
+pockets. She--in astonishment--threw him questions which he hardly seemed
+to hear. Suddenly he paused.
+
+"Dear Laura!--will you forgive me?--but after all I must sell that
+picture!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I hear to-day, for the first time, who is to be the real purchaser of
+that land, and why it is wanted. It is to be the site of a new Anglican
+church and vicarage. I have been tricked throughout--tricked--and
+deceived! But thank God it is not too late! The circumstances of this
+afternoon were providential. There is still time for me to write to
+Whinthorpe." He glanced at the clock. "And my lawyers may tear up the
+contract when they please!"
+
+"And--that means--you will sell the Romney?" said Laura slowly.
+
+"I must! Dear little one!"--he came to stoop over her--"I am most truly
+grieved. But I am bound to my orphans by all possible engagements--both
+of honour and conscience."
+
+"Why is it so horrible that an Anglican church should be built on your
+land?" she said, slightly holding him away from her.
+
+"Because I am responsible for the use of my land, as for any other
+talent. It shall not be used for the spread of heresy."
+
+"Are there any Catholics near it?"
+
+"Not that I know of. But it has been a fixed principle with me throughout
+my life"--he spoke with a firm and, as she thought, a haughty
+decision--"to give no help, direct or indirect, to a schismatical and
+rebellious church. I see now why there has been so much secrecy! My land
+is of vital importance to them. They apparently feel that the whole
+Anglican development of this new town may depend upon it. Let them feel
+it. They shall not have a foot--not an inch of what belongs to me!"
+
+"Then they are to have no church," said Laura. She had grown quite pale.
+
+"Not on my land," he said, with a violence that first amazed and then
+offended her. "Let them find sympathisers of their own. They have filched
+enough from us Catholics in the past."
+
+And he resumed his rapid walk, his face darkened with an anger he vainly
+tried to curb. Never had she seen him so roused.
+
+She too rose, trembling a little.
+
+"But I love that picture!" she said. "I beg you not to sell it."
+
+He stopped, in distress.
+
+"Unfortunately, dear, I have promised the money. It must be found within
+six weeks--and I see no other way."
+
+She thought that he spoke stiffly, and she resented the small effect of
+her appeal.
+
+"And you won't bend a single prejudice to--to save such a family
+possession--though I care for it so much?"
+
+He came up to her with outstretched hands.
+
+"I have been trying to save it all these weeks! Nothing but such a cause
+as this could have stood in the way. It is not a prejudice,
+darling--believe me!--it belongs, for me at any rate, to Catholic
+obligation."
+
+She took no notice of the hands. With her own she clung to the table
+behind her.
+
+"Why do you give so much to the Sisters? It is not right! They give a
+very bad education!"
+
+He stared at her. How pale she had grown--and this half-stifled
+voice!----
+
+"I think we must be the judges of that," he said, dropping his hands. "We
+teach what we hold most important."
+
+"Nobody like Sister Angela ought to teach!" she cried--"you give money to
+bring pupils to Sister Angela. And she is not well trained. I never heard
+anyone talk so ignorantly as she does to Augustina. And the children
+learn nothing, of course--everyone says so."
+
+"And you are so eager to listen to them?" he said, with sparkling eyes.
+Then he controlled himself.
+
+"But that is not the point. I humbly admit our teaching is not nearly so
+good as it might be if we had larger funds to spend upon it. But the
+point is that I have promised the money, and that a number of
+arrangements--fresh teachers among them--are already dependent on it.
+Dearest, won't you recognise my difficulties, and--and help me through
+them?"
+
+"You make them yourself," she said, drawing back. "There would be none if
+you did not--hate--your fellow-citizens."
+
+"I hate no one--but I cannot aid and abet the English Church. That is
+impossible to me. Laura!" He observed her carefully. "I don't understand.
+Why do you say these things?--why does it hurt you so much?"
+
+"Oh! let me go," she cried, flinging his hand away from her. "Let me go!"
+
+And before he could stop her, she had fled to the door, and disappeared.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Helbeck and Augustina ate a lonely dinner.
+
+"You must have taken Laura too far this afternoon, Alan," said Mrs.
+Fountain fretfully. "She says she is too tired to come down again
+to-night--so very unlike her!"
+
+"She did not complain--but it may have been a long round," said her
+companion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After dinner, Helbeck took his pipe into the garden, and walked for long
+up and down the bowling-green, torn with solitary thought. He had put up
+his pipe, and was beginning drearily to feel the necessity of going back
+to his study, and applying himself--if he could force his will so far--to
+some official business that lay waiting for him there, when a light noise
+on the gravel caught his ear.
+
+His heart leapt.
+
+"Laura!"
+
+She stopped--a white wraith in the light mist that filled the garden. He
+went up to her overwhelmed with the joy of her coming--accusing himself
+of a hundred faults.
+
+She was too miserable to resist him. The storm of feeling through which
+she had passed had exhausted her wholly; and the pining for his step and
+voice had become an anguish driving her to him.
+
+"I told you to make me afraid!" she said mournfully, as she found herself
+once more upon his breast--"but you can't! There is something in me that
+fears nothing--not even the breaking of both our hearts."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A week later the Jesuit scholastic Edward Williams arrived at Bannisdale.
+
+In Laura his coming roused a curiosity half angry, half feminine, by
+which Helbeck was alternately harassed and amused. She never tired of
+asking questions about the Jesuits--their training, their rules, their
+occupations. She could not remember that she had ever seen one till she
+made acquaintance with Father Leadham. They were alternately a mystery
+and a repulsion to her.
+
+Helbeck smilingly told her that she was no worse than the mass of English
+people. "They have set up their bogey and they like it." She would be
+surprised to find how simple was the Jesuit secret.
+
+"What is it?--in two words?" she asked him.
+
+"Obedience--training. So little!" he laughed at her, and took her hand
+tenderly.
+
+She inquired if Mr. Williams were yet "a full Jesuit."
+
+"Oh dear no! He has taken his first vows. Now he has three years'
+philosophy, then four years' theology. After that they will make him
+teach somewhere. Then he will take orders--go through a third year's
+noviceship--get a doctor's degree, if he can--and after that, perhaps, he
+will be a professed 'Father.' It isn't done just by wishing for it, you
+see."
+
+The spirit of opposition reared its head. She coloured, laughed--and half
+without intending it repeated some of the caustic things she had heard
+occasionally from her father or his friends as to the learning of
+Jesuits. Helbeck, under his lover's sweetness, showed a certain
+restlessness. He hardly let himself think the thought that Stephen
+Fountain had been quoted to him very often of late; but it was there.
+
+"I am no judge," he said at last. "I am not learned. I dare say you will
+find Williams ignorant enough. But he was a clever boy--besides his art."
+
+"And they have made him give up his art?"
+
+"For a time--yes--perhaps altogether. Of course it has been his great
+renunciation. His superiors thought it necessary to cut him off from it
+entirely. And no doubt during the novitiate he suffered a great deal. It
+has been like any other starved faculty."
+
+The girl's instincts rose in revolt. She cried out against such waste,
+such mutilation. The Catholic tried to appease her; but in another
+language. He bade her remember the Jesuit motto. "A Jesuit is like any
+other soldier--he puts himself under orders for a purpose."
+
+"And God is to be glorified by the crashing out of all He took the
+trouble to give you!"
+
+"You must take the means to the end," said Helbeck steadily. "The Jesuit
+must yield his will--otherwise the Society need not exist. In Williams's
+case, so long as he had a fascinating and absorbing pursuit, how could he
+give himself up to his superiors? Besides"--his grave face stiffened--"in
+his case there were peculiar difficulties. His art had become a
+temptation. He wished to protect himself from it."
+
+Laura's curiosity was roused; but Helbeck gently put her questions aside,
+and at last she said in a flash of something like passion that she
+wondered which the young man had felt most--the trampling on his art, or
+the forsaking his mother.
+
+Helbeck looked at her with sudden animation.
+
+"I knew you had heard that story. Dear--he did not forsake his mother! He
+meant to go--the Fathers had given him leave. But there was a mistake, a
+miscalculation--and he arrived too late."
+
+Laura's beautiful eyes threw lightnings.
+
+"A _miscalculation!_" she cried scornfully, her quick breath
+beating--"That puts it in a nutshell."
+
+Helbeck looked at her sadly.
+
+"So you are going to be very unkind to him?"
+
+"No. I shall watch him."
+
+"Look into him rather! Try and make out his spring. I will help you."
+
+She protested that there was nothing she less desired. She had been
+reading some Jesuit biographies from Augustina's room, and they had made
+her feel that the only thing to be done with such people was to keep them
+at a distance.
+
+Helbeck sighed and gave up the conversation. Then in a moment,
+compunctions and softenings began to creep over the girl's face. A small
+hand made its way to his.
+
+"There is Wilson in the garden--shall we go and talk to him?"
+
+They were in Helbeck's study--where Augustina had left them alone for a
+little after luncheon.
+
+Helbeck put down his pipe with alacrity. Laura ran for her hat and cape,
+and they went out together.
+
+A number of small improvements both inside and outside the house had been
+recently inaugurated to please the coming bride. Already Helbeck
+realised--and not without a secret chafing--the restraints that would
+soon be laid upon the almsgiving of Bannisdale. A man who marries, who
+may have children, can no longer deal with his money as he pleases.
+Meanwhile he found his reward in Laura's half-reluctant pleasure. She was
+at once full of eagerness and full of a proud shyness. No bride less
+grasping or more sensitive could have been imagined. She loved the old
+house and would fain repair its hurts. But her wild nature, at the
+moment, asked, in this at least, to be commanded, not to command. To be
+the managing wife of an obedient husband was the last thing that her
+imagination coveted. So that when any change in the garden, any repair in
+the house, was in progress, she would hover round Helbeck, half cold,
+half eager, now only showing a fraction of her mind, and now flashing out
+into a word or look that for Helbeck turned the whole business into pure
+joy. Day by day, indeed, amid all jars and misgivings, the once solitary
+master of Bannisdale was becoming better acquainted with that mere
+pleasantness of a woman's company which is not passion, but its best
+friend. In the case of those women whom nature marks for love, it is a
+company full of incident, full of surprise. Certainly Helbeck found it
+so.
+
+A week or more had now passed since the quarrel over the picture. Not a
+word upon the subject had passed between them since. As for Laura, she
+took pains not to look at the picture--to forget its existence. It was as
+though she felt some hidden link between herself and it--as though some
+superstitious feeling attached to it in her mind.
+
+Meanwhile a number of new understandings were developing in Helbeck. His
+own nature was simple and concentrated, with little introspective power
+of the modern kind--even through all the passions and subtleties of his
+religion. Nevertheless his lover's sense revealed to him a good deal of
+what was going on in the semi-darkness of Laura's feelings and ideas. He
+divined this jealousy of his religious life that had taken possession of
+her since their return from the sea. He felt by sympathy that obscure
+pain of separation that tormented her. What was he to do?--what could he
+do?
+
+The change astonished him, for while they were at the sea, it seemed to
+him that she had accepted the situation with a remarkable resolution. But
+it also set him on new trains of thought; it roused in him a secret
+excitement, a vague hope. If her earlier mood had persisted; if amid the
+joys of their love she had continued to put the whole religious matter
+away from her, as many a girl with her training might and would have
+done--then indeed he must have resigned himself to a life-long difference
+and silence between them on these vital things.
+
+But, since she suffered--since she felt the need of that more intimate,
+more exquisite link--? Since she could not let it alone, but must needs
+wound herself and him----?
+
+Instinctively he felt the weakness of her intellectual defence. Once or
+twice he let himself imagine the capture of her little struggling soul,
+the break-down of her childish resistance, and felt the flooding of a
+joy, at once mystical and very human.
+
+But that natural chivalry and deep self-distrust he had once expressed to
+Father Leadham kept him in check; made him very slow and scrupulous.
+Towards his Catholic friends indeed he stood all along in defence of
+Laura, an attitude which only made him more sensitive and more vulnerable
+in other directions.
+
+Meanwhile his own struggles and discomforts were not few. No strong man
+of Helbeck's type endures so complete an overthrow at the hands of
+impulse and circumstance as he had done, without going afterwards through
+a period of painful readjustment. The new image of himself that he saw
+reflected in the astonished eyes of his Catholic companions worked in him
+a number of fresh forms of self-torment. His loyalty to Laura, indeed,
+and to his own passion was complete. Secretly, he had come to believe,
+with all the obstinate ardor of the religious mind, that the train of
+events which had first brought Laura into his life, and had then overcome
+his own resistance to her spell, represented, not temptation, but a
+Divine volition concerning him. No one so impoverished and forlorn as she
+in the matters of the soul! But not of her own doing. Was she responsible
+for her father? In the mere fact that she had so incredibly come to love
+him--he being what he was--there was surely a significance which the
+Catholic was free to interpret in the Catholic sense. So that, where
+others saw defection from a high ideal and danger to his own Catholic
+position, he, with hidden passion, and very few words of explanation even
+to his director, Father Leadham, felt the drawing of a heavenly force,
+the promise of an ultimate and joyful issue.
+
+At the same time, the sadness of his Catholic friends should find no
+other pretext. Upon his fidelity now and here, not only his own eternal
+fate, but Laura's, might depend. Devotion to the crucified Lord and His
+Mother, obedience to His Church, imitation of His saints, charity to His
+poor--these are the means by which the Catholic draws down the grace, the
+condescension that he seeks. He felt his own life offered for hers. So
+that the more he loved her, the more set, the more rigid became all the
+habits and purposes of religion. Again and again he was tempted to soften
+them--to spend time with her that he had been accustomed to give to
+Catholic practice--to slacken or modify the harshness of that life of
+self-renouncement, solitude, unpopularity, to which he had vowed himself
+for years--to conceal from her the more startling and difficult of his
+convictions. But he crushed the temptation, guided, inflamed by that
+profound idea of a substituted life and a vicarious obedience which has
+been among the root forces of Christianity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One evening, as she was dressing for the very simple meal that only Mrs.
+Denton dignified by the name of "dinner," Laura reminded herself that Mr.
+Williams must have arrived, and that she would probably find him in the
+hall on her descent.
+
+It happened to be the moment for donning a new dress, which she had
+ordered from a local artist. She had no mind to exhibit it to the Jesuit.
+On the other hand the temptation to show it to Helbeck was irresistible.
+She put it on.
+
+When she entered the hall, her feelings of dislike to Mr. Williams, and
+her pride in her new dress, had both combined to give her colour and
+radiance. Helbeck saw her come in with a start of pleasure. Augustina
+fidgeted uncomfortably. She thought that Laura might have dressed in
+something more quiet and retiring to meet a guest who was a religious,
+almost a priest.
+
+Helbeck introduced the newcomer. Laura's quick eyes travelled over the
+young man who bowed to her with a cold awkwardness. She turned aside and
+seated herself in a corner of the settle, whither Helbeck came to bend
+over her.
+
+"What have you been doing to yourself?" he asked her in a low voice. At
+the moment of her entrance she had thought him pale and fatigued. He had
+been half over the country that day on Catholic business. But now his
+deep-set eyes shone again. He had thrown off the load.
+
+"Experimenting with a Whinthorpe dressmaker," she said; "do you approve?"
+
+Her smile, her brilliance in her pretty dress, intoxicated him. He
+murmured some lover's words under his breath. She flushed a little
+deeper, then exerted herself to keep him by her. Till supper was
+announced they had not a word or look for anyone but each other. The
+young "scholastic" talked ceremoniously to Augustina.
+
+"Who talks of Jesuit tyranny now?" said Helbeck, laughing, as he and
+Laura led the way to the dining-room. "If it is not too much for him,
+Williams has leave to finish some of his work in the chapel while he is
+here. But he looks very ill--don't you think so?"
+
+She understood the implied appeal to her sympathy.
+
+"He is extraordinarily handsome," she said, with decision.
+
+At table, however, she came to terms more exactly with her impression.
+The face of the young Jesuit was indeed, in some ways, singularly
+handsome. The round, dark eyes, the features delicate without weakness,
+the high brow narrowed by the thick and curly hair that overhung it, the
+small chin and curving mouth, kept still something of the look and the
+bloom of the child--a look that was only intensified by the strange force
+of expression that was added to the face whenever the lids so constantly
+dropped over the eyes were raised. For one saw in it a mingling at once
+of sharp observation and of distrust; it seemed to spring from some fiery
+source of personality, which at the very moment it revealed itself, yet
+warned the spectator back, and stood, half proudly, half sullenly, on the
+defensive. Such a look one may often see in the eyes of a poetic and
+morbid child.
+
+But the whole aspect was neither delicate nor poetic. For the beauty of
+the head was curiously and unexpectedly contradicted by the clumsiness of
+the frame below it. "Brother" Williams might have the head of a poet; he
+had the form and movements, the large feet and shambling gait, of the
+peasant. And Laura, scanning him with some closeness, noticed with
+distaste a good many signs of personal slovenliness and ill-breeding. His
+hands were not as clean as they might have been; his clerical coat badly
+wanted a brushing.
+
+His talk to Augustina could hardly have been more formal. In speaking to
+ladies he seldom raised his eyes; and as far as she herself was concerned
+Laura was certain, before half an hour was over, that he meant to address
+her and to be addressed by her, as little as possible.
+
+Towards Helbeck the visitor's manner was more natural and more
+attractive. It was a manner of affection, and great deference; but even
+here the occasional bursts of conversation into which the Squire drew his
+guest were constantly interrupted by fits of silence or absence on the
+part of the scholastic.
+
+Perhaps the subject on which they talked most easily was that of Jesuit
+Missions--especially of certain West African stations. Helbeck had some
+old friends there; and Laura thought she detected that the young
+scholastic had himself missionary ambitions.
+
+Augustina too joined in with eagerness; Laura fell silent.
+
+But she watched Helbeck, she listened to Helbeck throughout. How full his
+mind and heart were of matters, persons, causes, that must for ever
+represent a sealed world to her! The eagerness, the knowledge with which
+he discussed them, roused in her that jealous, half-desolate sense that
+was becoming an habitual tone of mind.
+
+And some things offended her taste. Helbeck showed most animation, and
+the young Jesuit most response, whenever it was a question not so much of
+Catholic triumphs, as of Protestant rebuffs. The follies, mistakes, and
+defeats of Anglican missions in particular--Helbeck's memory was stored
+with them. By his own confession he had made a Jesuit friend departing
+for the mission, promise to tell him any funny or discreditable tales
+that could be gathered as to their Anglican rivals in the same region.
+And while he repeated them for Williams's amusement, he laughed
+immoderately--he who laughed so seldom. The Jesuit too was
+convulsed--threw off all restraint for the first time.
+
+The girl flushed brightly, and began to play with Bruno. Years ago she
+remembered hearing her father say approvingly of Helbeck's manner and
+bearing that they were those "of a man of rank, though not of a man of
+fashion;" and it was hardly possible to say how much of Helbeck's first
+effect on her imagination had been produced by that proud unworldliness,
+that gently, cold courtesy in which he was commonly wrapped. These silly
+pointless stories that he had been telling with such relish disturbed and
+repelled her. They revealed a new element in his character, something
+small and ugly, that was like the speck in a fine fruit, or, rather, like
+the disclosure of an angry sore beneath an outward health and strength.
+
+She recalled the incident of the land, and that cold isolation in which
+Helbeck held himself towards his Protestant neighbours--the passionate
+animosity with which he would sometimes speak of their charities or their
+pietisms, the contempt he had for almost all their ideals, national or
+social. Again and again, in the early days at Bannisdale, it had ruffled
+or provoked her.
+
+Helbeck soon perceived that she was jarred. When she called to Bruno he
+checked his flow of anecdote, and said to her in a lower voice:
+
+"You think us uncharitable?"
+
+She looked up--but rather at the Jesuit than at Helbeck.
+
+"No--only it is not amusing! If Augustina or I could speak for the other
+side--that would be more fun!"
+
+"Laura!" cried Augustina, scandalised.
+
+"Oh, I know you wouldn't, if you could," said the girl gayly. "And I
+can't. So there it is. One can't stop you, I suppose!"
+
+She threw back her bright head and turned to Helbeck. The action was
+pretty and coquettish; but there was a touch of fever in it,
+nevertheless, which did not escape the stranger sitting opposite to her.
+Brother Williams raised his down-dropped lids an instant. Those brilliant
+eyes of his took in the girl's beauty and the change in Helbeck's
+countenance.
+
+"You shall stop what you like," said Helbeck. A mute conversation seemed
+to pass between him and Miss Fountain; then the Squire turned to his
+sister, and asked her cheerfully as to the merits of a new pony that she
+and Laura had been trying that afternoon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After dinner Helbeck, much troubled by the pinched features and pale
+cheeks of his guest, descended himself to the cellar in search of a
+particular Burgundy laid down by his father and reputed to possess a rare
+medicinal force.
+
+Mr. Williams was left standing before the hearth, and the famous carved
+mantelpiece put up by the martyr of 1596. As soon as Helbeck was gone he
+looked carefully--furtively--round the room. It was the look of the
+peasant appraising a world not his.
+
+A noise made by the wind at one of the old windows disturbed him. He
+looked up and was caught by a photograph that had been propped against
+one of the vases of the mantelpiece. It was a picture--recently
+taken--of Miss Fountain sitting on the settle in the hall with the dogs
+beside her. And it rendered the half-mocking animation of her small face
+with a peculiar fidelity.
+
+The young man was conscious of a strong movement of repulsion. Mr.
+Helbeck's engagement had sent a thrill of pain through a large section of
+the Catholic world; and the Jesuit had already divined a hostile force in
+the small and brilliant creature whose eyes had scanned him so coldly as
+she sat beside the Squire. He fell into a reverie, and took one or two
+turns up and down the room.
+
+"Shall I?" he said to himself in an excitement that was half vanity, half
+religion.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour later Laura was in the oriel window of the drawing-room,
+looking out through the open casement at the rising of a golden moon
+above the fell. Her mind was full of confusion.
+
+"Is he never to be free to say what he thinks and feels in his own
+house?" she asked herself passionately. "Or am I to sit by and see him
+sink to the level of these bigots?"
+
+Augustina was upstairs, and Laura, absorbed in her own thoughts and the
+night loveliness of the garden, did not hear Helbeck and Mr. Williams
+enter the room, which was as usual but dimly lighted. Suddenly she caught
+the words:
+
+"So you still keep her? That's good! One could not imagine this room
+without her."
+
+The voice was the voice of the Jesuit, but in a new tone--more eager,
+more sincere. What were they talking of?--the picture? And she, Laura, of
+course was hidden from them by the heavy curtain half drawn across the
+oriel. She could not help waiting for Helbeck's reply.
+
+"Ah!--you remember how she was threatened even when you first began to
+come here! I have clung to her, of course--there has always been a strong
+feeling about her in the family. Last week I thought again that she must
+go. But--well! it is too soon to speak--I still have some hopes---I have
+been straining every nerve. You know, however, that we must begin our new
+buildings at the orphanage in six weeks--and that I must have the money?"
+
+He spoke with his usual simplicity. Laura dropped her head upon the
+window-sill, and the tears rushed into her eyes.
+
+"I know--we all know--what you have done and sacrificed for the faith,"
+said the younger man with emotion.
+
+"_You_ will not venture to make a merit of it," said Helbeck gravely.
+"For we serve the same ends--only you perceive them more clearly--and
+follow them more persistently than I."
+
+"I have stronger aids--and shall have to answer for more!" said Williams,
+in a low voice. "And I owe it all to you--my friend and rescuer."
+
+"You use a great deal too strong language," said Helbeck, smiling.
+
+Williams threw him an uncertain look. The colour mounted in the young
+man's sickly cheek. He approached the Squire.
+
+"Mr. Helbeck--I know from something a common friend told me--that you
+think--that you have said to others--that my conversion was not your
+doing. You are mistaken. I should like to tell you the truth. May I?"
+
+Helbeck looked uncomfortable, but was not ready enough to stave off the
+impending confidence. Williams fixed him with eyes now fully lifted, and
+piercingly bright.
+
+"You said little--that is quite true. But it was what you did, what I saw
+as I worked here beside you week after week that conquered me. Do you
+remember once rebuking me in anger because I had made some mistake in the
+chapel work? You were very angry--and I was cut to the heart. That very
+night you came to me, as I was still working, and asked my pardon--you!
+Mr. Helbeck of Bannisdale, and I, a boy of sixteen, the son of the
+wheelwright who mended your farm carts. You made me kneel down beside you
+on the steps of the sanctuary--and we said the Confiteor together. Don't
+say you forget it!"
+
+Helbeck hesitated, then spoke with evident unwillingness.
+
+"You make a great deal of nothing, my dear Edward. I had treated you to
+one of the Helbeck rages, I suppose--and had the grace to be ashamed of
+myself."
+
+"It made me a Catholic," said the other emphatically, "so I naturally
+dwell upon it. Next day I stole a 'Garden of the Soul' and a book of
+meditations from your study. Then, on the pretext of the work, I used to
+make you tell me or read me the stories of the saints--later, I often
+used to follow you in the morning when you went to Mass. I watched you
+day by day, till the sense of something supernatural possessed me. Then
+you noticed my coming to Mass--you asked Father Bowles to speak to
+me--you seemed to shrink--or I thought so--from speaking yourself. But it
+was not Father Bowles--it was not my first teachers at St. Aloysius it
+was you--who brought me to the faith!"
+
+"Well, if so, I thank God. But I think your humility----"
+
+"One moment," said the Jesuit hurriedly. "There is something on my mind
+to say to you--if I might be allowed to say it--if the gratitude, the
+strong and filial gratitude, which I feel towards you--for that, and
+much, much else," his voice shook, "might be my excuse----"
+
+Helbeck was silent. Laura to her dismay heard the sound of steps. Mr.
+Williams had walked to the open door of the drawing-room and closed it.
+What was she to do? Indecision--a wilful passion of curiosity--held her
+where she was.
+
+It was some moments, however, before the conversation was resumed. At
+last the young man said in a tone of strong agitation:
+
+"You may blame me--my superiors may blame me. I have no leave--no
+commission whatever. The impulse to speak came to me when I was waiting
+for you in the dining-room just now. I can only plead your own goodness
+to me--and--the fact that I have remembered you before the Blessed
+Sacrament for these eight years.... It was an impression at meditation
+that I want to tell you of--an impression so strong that I have never
+since been able to escape from it--it haunts me perpetually. I was in our
+chapel at St. Aloysius. The subject of meditation was St. John vii. 36,
+'Every man went unto his own house,' followed immediately by the first
+words of the eighth chapter, 'and Jesus went unto Mount Olivet.' ... I
+endeavoured strictly to obey the advice of St. Ignatius. I placed myself
+at the feet of our Lord. I went through the Preludes. Then I began on the
+meditation. I saw the multitude returning to their homes and their
+amusements--while our Lord went alone to the Mount of Olives. It was
+evening. The path seemed to me steep and weary--and He was bent with
+fatigue. At first He was all alone--darkness hung over the hill and the
+olive gardens. Then, suddenly, I became aware of forms that followed Him,
+at a long distance--saints, virgins, martyrs, confessors. They swept
+along in silence. I could just see them as a dim majestic crowd.
+Presently, a form detached itself from the crowd--to my amazement, I saw
+_you_ distinctly--there seemed to be a special light upon your face. And
+the rest appeared to fall back. Soon I only saw the Form toiling in
+front, and you following. Then at the brow of the hill the Lord
+turned--and you, who were half-way up the last steep, paused also. The
+Lord beckoned to you. His Divine face was full of sweetness and
+encouragement--and you made a spring towards Him. Then something
+happened--something horrible--but I could hardly see what. But a figure
+seemed to snatch at you from behind--you stumbled--then you fell
+headlong. A black cloud fell from the sky--and covered you. I heard a
+wailing cry--I saw the Lord's face darkened--and immediately afterwards
+the train of saints swept past me once more, with bent heads, beating
+their breasts. I cannot describe the extraordinary vividness of it! The
+succession of thoughts and images never paused; and when I woke, or
+seemed to wake, I found myself bathed in sweat and nearly fainting."
+
+There was a dead silence.
+
+The scholastic began again, in still more rapid and troubled tones, to
+excuse himself. Mr. Helbeck might well think it presumption on his part
+to have repeated such a thing. He could only plead a strange pressure on
+his conscience--a sense of obligation. The fact was probably
+nothing--meant nothing. But if calamity came--if it meant calamity--and
+he had not delivered his message--would there not have been a burden on
+his soul?
+
+Suddenly there was a sound. The handle of the drawing-room turned.
+
+"Why, you are dark in here!" said Augustina. "What a wretched light that
+lamp gives!"
+
+At the same moment the heavy curtain over the oriel window was drawn to
+one side, and a light figure entered the room.
+
+The Jesuit made a step backwards. "Laura!" cried Helbeck in bewilderment.
+"Where have you come from?"
+
+"I was in the window watching the moon rise. Didn't you know?"
+
+She walked up to him, and without hesitation she did what she had never
+yet done before a spectator: she slipped her little hand into his. He
+looked down upon her, rather pale, his lips moving. Then withdrawing his
+hand, he quietly and proudly put his arm round her. She accepted the
+movement with equal pride, and without a word.
+
+Augustina looked at them with discomfort--coughed, fumbled with her
+spectacles, and began to hunt for her knitting. The Jesuit, whiter and
+sicklier than before, murmured that he would go and rest after his
+journey, and with eyes steadily cast down he walked away.
+
+"I don't wonder!" thought Augustina, in an inward heat; "they really are
+too demonstrative!"
+
+That night for the first time since her arrival at Bannisdale, Laura,
+instead of saying good-night as soon as the clock reached a quarter to
+ten, quietly walked beside Augustina to the chapel.
+
+She knelt at some distance from Helbeck. But when the prayers, which were
+read by Mr. Williams, were over, and the tiny congregation was leaving
+the chapel, she felt herself drawn back. Helbeck did not speak, but in
+the darkness of the corridor he raised her hands and held them long
+against his lips. She quickly escaped from him, and without another word
+to anyone she was gone.
+
+But an hour or two later, as she lay wakeful in her room above the study,
+she still heard the sound of continuous voices from below.
+
+Helbeck and the scholastic!--plunged once more in that common stock of
+recollections and interests in which she had no part, linked and
+reconciled through all difference by that Catholic freemasonry of which
+she knew nothing. The impertinent zeal of the evening--the young man's
+ill manners and hypocrisies--would be soon forgiven. In some ways Mr.
+Helbeck was more Jesuit than the Jesuits. He would not only excuse the
+audacity--was she quite sure that in his inmost heart he would not shrink
+before the warning?
+
+"What chance have I?" she cried, in a sudden despair; and she wept long
+and miserably, oppressed by new terrors, new glimpses, as it were, of
+some hard or chilling reality that lay waiting for her in the dim
+corridors of life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning after breakfast, Helbeck and Mr. Williams disappeared. A
+light scaffolding had been placed in the chapel. Work was to begin.
+
+Laura put on her hat, took a basket, and went into the garden to gather
+fresh flowers for the house. Along the edges of the bowling-green stood
+rows of sunflowers, a golden show against the deep bronze of the thick
+beech hedges that enclosed the ground. Laura was trying, without much
+success, to reach some of the top blossoms of a tall plant when Helbeck
+came upon her.
+
+"Be as independent as you please," he said laughing, "but you will never
+be able to gather sunflowers without me!"
+
+In a moment her basket was filled. He looked down upon her.
+
+"You should live here--in the bowling-green. It frames you--your white
+hat--your grey dress. Laura!"--his voice leapt--"do I do enough to make
+you happy?"
+
+She flushed--turned her little face, and smiled at him--but rather sadly,
+rather pensively. Then she examined him in her turn. He looked jaded and
+tired. From want of sleep?--or merely from the daily fatigue of that long
+walk, foodless, to Whinthorpe for early Mass? That morning, as usual, by
+seven o'clock she had seen him crossing the park. A cheerless rain was
+falling from a grey sky. But she had never yet known him stopped by
+weather.
+
+There was a quick association of ideas--and she said abruptly:
+
+"Why did Mr. Williams say all that to you last night, do you suppose?"
+
+Helbeck's countenance changed. He sauntered on beside her, his hands in
+his pockets, frowning. But he did not reply, and she became impatient.
+
+"I have been reading a French story this morning," she said quickly.
+"There is a character in it--a priest. The author says of him that he had
+'une imagination faussée et troublée.'" She paused, then added with great
+vivacity--"I thought it applied to someone else--don't you?"
+
+The fold in Helbeck's forehead deepened a little.
+
+"Have you judged him already? I don't know--I can't take Williams, you
+see, quite as you take him. To me he is still the strange gifted boy I
+taught to draw--whom I had to protect from his brutal father. He has
+chosen the higher life, and will soon be a priest. He is therefore my
+superior. But at the same time I think I understand him and his
+character. I understand the kind of impulse--the impetuosity--that made
+him do and say what he did last night."
+
+"It was our engagement, of course, that he meant--by your fall--the black
+cloud that covered you?"
+
+The impetuous directness was all Laura; so was the sensitive change in
+eye and lip. But Helbeck neither wavered, nor caressed her. He had a
+better instinct. He looked at her with a penetrating glance.
+
+"I don't think he quite knew what he meant. And you? Now I will carry the
+war into the enemy's country! Were you quite kind--quite right in doing
+what you did last night? Foolish or no, he was speaking in a very
+intimate way--of things that he felt deeply. It must have given him great
+pain to be overheard."
+
+Her breath fluttered.
+
+"It was quite an accident that I was there. But how could I help
+listening? I must know--I ought to know--what your Catholic friends
+think--what they say of me to you!"
+
+She was conscious of a childish petulance. But it was as though she could
+not help herself.
+
+"I wish you had not listened," he said, with gentle steadiness. "Won't
+you trust those things to me?"
+
+"What power have I beside theirs?" she said, turning away her head. He
+saw the trembling of the soft throat, and bent over her.
+
+"I only ask you, for both our sakes, not to test it too far!"
+
+And taking her hand by force, he crushed it passionately in his own.
+
+But she was only half appeased. Her mind, indeed, was in that miserable
+state when love finds its only pleasure in self-torment.
+
+With a secret change of ground she asked him how he was going to spend
+the day. He answered, reluctantly, that there was a Diocesan Committee
+that would take the afternoon, and that the morning must be largely given
+to the preparation of papers.
+
+"But you will come and look in upon me?--you will help me through?"
+
+She raised her shoulders resentfully.
+
+"And you have been, to Whinthorpe already!--Why do you go to Mass every
+morning?" she asked, looking up. "I know very few Catholics do. I wish
+you'd tell me."
+
+He looked embarrassed.
+
+"It has been my custom for a long time," he said at last.
+
+"But _why?_"
+
+"Inquisitive person!"
+
+Her look of pain checked him. He observed her rather sadly and silently
+for a moment, then said:
+
+"I will tell you, dear, of course, if you want to know. It is one of the
+obligations of the Third Order of St. Francis, to which I belong."
+
+"What does that mean?"
+
+He shortly explained. She cross-examined. He was forced to describe to
+her in detail all the main constitutions of the Third Order; its
+obligations as to fasting, attendance at Mass, and at the special
+meetings of the fraternity; its prescriptions of a rigid simplicity in
+life and dress; its prohibition of theatre-going.
+
+She stood amazed. All her old notions of Catholics as gay people, who
+practised a free Sunday and allowed you to enjoy yourself, had been long
+overthrown by the Catholicism of Bannisdale. But this--this might be
+Daffady's Methodism!
+
+"So that is why you would not take us to Whinthorpe the other day to see
+that London company?"
+
+"It was an unsuitable play," he said hastily. "Theatres are not wholly
+forbidden us; but the exceptions must be few, and the plays such as a
+Catholic can see without harm to his conscience."
+
+"But I love acting!" she cried, almost with a sense of suffocation.
+"Whenever I could, I got papa to take me to the play. I shall always want
+to go."
+
+"There will be nothing to prevent you."
+
+"So that anything is good enough for those who are not tertiaries!" she
+cried, confronting him.
+
+Her cheeks burned. Had there been any touch of spiritual arrogance in his
+tone?
+
+"I think I shall not answer that," he said, after a pause.
+
+They walked on--she blindly holding herself as far as possible from him;
+he, with the mingled ardour and maladroitness of his character, longing
+and not quite venturing to cut the whole coil, and silence all this mood
+in her, by some masterfulness of love.
+
+Suddenly she paused--she stepped to him--she laid her fingers on his
+arms--bright tears shone in her eyes.
+
+"You can't--you can't belong to that--when we are married?"
+
+"To the Third Order? But, dear!--there is nothing in it that conflicts
+with married life! It was devised specially for persons living in the
+world. You would not have me give up what has been my help and salvation
+for ten years?"
+
+He spoke with great emotion. She trembled and hid her face against him.
+
+"Oh! I could not bear it!" she said. "Can't you realise how it would
+divide us? I should feel outside--a pariah. As it is, I seem to have
+nothing to do with half your life--there is a shut door between me and
+it."
+
+A flash of natural, of wholly irresistible feeling passed through him. He
+stooped and kissed her hair.
+
+"Open the door and come in!" he said in a whisper that seemed to rise
+from his inmost soul.
+
+She shook her head. They were both silent. The deep shade of the
+"wilderness" trees closed them in. There was a gentle melancholy in the
+autumn morning. The first leaves were dropping on the cobwebbed grass;
+and the clouds were low upon the fells.
+
+Presently Laura raised herself. "Promise me you will never press me," she
+said passionately; "don't send anyone to me."
+
+He sighed.
+
+"I promise."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+One afternoon towards the end of Mr. Williams's visit, Laura was walking
+along a high field-path that overlooked the whole valley of the Flent.
+Helbeck had gone to meet the Bishop on some urgent business; but the name
+of his Catholic affairs was legion.
+
+The weather, after long days of golden mist, of veiled and stealing
+lights on stream and fell, had turned to rain and tumult. This afternoon,
+indeed, the rain had made a sullen pause. It had drawn back for an hour
+or two from the drenched valleys, even from the high peaks that stood
+violet-black against a space of rainy light. Yet still the sky was full
+of anger. The clouds, dark and jagged, rushed across the marsh lands
+before the northwest wind. And the colour of everything--of the moss, the
+peaks, the nearer crags and fields--was superbly rich and violent. The
+soaked woods of the park from which she had just emerged were almost
+black, and from their heart Laura could hear the river's swollen voice
+pursuing her as she walked.
+
+There was something in the afternoon that reminded her of her earliest
+impressions of Bannisdale and its fell country--of those rainy March
+winds that were blowing about her when she first alighted at the foot of
+the old tower.
+
+The association made her tremble and catch her breath. It was not all
+joy--oh! far from it! The sweet common rapture of common love was not
+hers. Instinctively she felt something in her own lot akin to the wilder
+and more tragic aspects of this mountain land, to which she had turned
+from the beginning with a daughter's yearning.
+
+Yet the tragedy, if tragedy there were, was all from within, not from
+without. Augustina--though Laura guessed her mind well enough--complained
+no more. The marriage was fixed for November; the dispensation from the
+Bishop had been obtained. No lover could be more ardent, more tender,
+than Helbeck.
+
+Why then this weariness--this overwhelming melancholy that seized her in
+all her solitary moments? Her nature had lost its buoyancy, its old gift
+for happiness.
+
+The truth was that her will was tired out. Her whole soul thirsted to
+submit, and yet could not submit. Was it the mere spell of Catholic order
+and discipline, working upon her own restless and ill-ordered nature? It
+had so worked, indeed, from the beginning. She could recall--with
+trembling--many a strange moment in Helbeck's presence, or in the chapel,
+when she had seemed to feel her whole self breaking up, dissolving in the
+grip of a power that was at once her foe and the bearer of infinite
+seduction. But always the will, the self, had won the victory, had
+delivered a final "_No!_" into which had rushed the whole energy of her
+being.
+
+And now--if it were only possible to crush back that "No"--to beat down
+this resistance which, like an alien garrison, defended, as it were, a
+town that hated it; if she could only turn and knock--knock humbly--at
+that closed door in her lover's life and heart. One touch!--one step!
+
+Just as Helbeck could hardly trust himself to think of the joy of
+conquest, so she shrank bewildered before the fancied bliss of yielding.
+
+To what awful or tender things would it admit her! That ebb and flow of
+mystical emotion she dimly saw in Helbeck, a life within a life;--all
+that is most intimate and touching in the struggle of the soul--all that
+strains and pierces the heart--the world to which these belong rose
+before her, secret, mysterious, "a city not made with hands," now
+drawing, now repelling. Voices came from it to her that penetrated all
+the passion and the immaturity of her nature.
+
+The mere imagination of what it would mean to surrender herself to
+Helbeck's teaching in these strange and moving things--what it would be
+to approach them through the sweetness, the chiding, the training of his
+love--could shake and unnerve her.
+
+What stood in the way?
+
+Simply a revolt and repulsion that seemed to be more than and outside
+herself--something independent and unconquerable, of which she was the
+mere instrument.
+
+Had the differences between her and Helbeck been differences of opinion,
+they would have melted like morning dew. But they went far deeper.
+Helbeck, indeed, was in his full maturity. He had been trained by Jesuit
+teachers; he had lived and thought; his mind had a framework. Had he ever
+felt a difficulty, he would have been ready, no doubt, with the answer of
+the schools. But he was governed by heart and imagination no less than
+Laura. A serviceable intelligence had been used simply to strengthen the
+claims of feeling and faith. Such as it was, however, it knew itself. It
+was at command.
+
+But Laura!--Laura was the pure product of an environment. She represented
+forces of intelligence, of analysis, of criticism, of which in themselves
+she knew little or nothing, except so far as they affected all her modes
+of feeling. She felt as she had been born to feel, as she had been
+trained to feel. But when in this new conflict--a conflict of instincts,
+of the deepest tendencies of two natures--she tried to lay hold upon the
+rational life, to help herself by it and from it, it failed her
+everywhere. She had no tools, no weapons. The Catholic argument
+scandalised, exasperated her; but she could not meet it. And the personal
+prestige and fascination of her lover did but increase with her, as her
+feeling grew more troubled and excited, and her intellectual defence
+weaker.
+
+Meanwhile to the force of temperament there was daily added the force of
+a number of childish prejudices and dislikes. She had come to Bannisdale
+prepared to hate all she saw there; and with the one supreme exception,
+hatred had grown at command. She was a creature of excess; of poignant
+and indelible impressions. The nuns, with their unintelligible virtues,
+and their very obvious bigotries and littlenesses; the slyness and
+absurdities of Father Bowles; the priestly claims of Father Leadham; the
+various superstitions and peculiarities of the many priests and religious
+who had passed through the house since she knew it--alas! she hated them
+all!--and did not know how she was to help hating them in the future.
+These Catholic figures were to her so many disagreeable automata, moved
+by springs she could not possibly conceive, and doing perpetually the
+most futile and foolish things. She knew, moreover, by a sure instinct,
+that she had been unwelcome to them from the first moment of her
+appearance, and that she was now a stumbling-block and a grievance to
+them all.
+
+Was she--by submission--to give these people, so to speak, a right to
+meddle and dabble in her heart? Was she to be wept over by Sister
+Angela--to confess her sins to Father Bowles--still worse, to Father
+Leadham? As she asked herself the question, she shrank in sudden passion
+from the whole world of ideas concerned--from all those stifling notions
+of sin, penance, absolution, direction, as they were conventionalised in
+Catholic practice and chattered about by stupid and mindless people. In
+defiance of them, her whole nature stood like a charged weapon, ready to
+strike.
+
+For she had been bred in that strong sense of personal dignity which is
+the modern substitute for the abasements and humiliations of faith. And
+with that sense of dignity went reserve--the intimate conviction that no
+feeling which is talked about, which can be observed and handled and
+measured by other people, is worth a rush. It was what seemed to her the
+spiritual intrusiveness of Catholicism, its perpetual uncovering of the
+soul--its disrespect for the secrets of personality--its humiliation of
+the will--that made it most odious in the eyes of this daughter of a
+modern world, which finds in the development and dignifying of human life
+its most characteristic faith.
+
+There were many moments indeed in which the whole Catholic system
+appeared to Laura's strained imagination as one vast _chasse_--an
+assemblage of hunters and their toils--against which the poor human
+spirit that was their quarry must somehow protect itself, with every
+possible wile or violence.
+
+So that neither submission, nor a mere light tolerance and forgetting,
+were possible. Other girls, it seemed, married Catholics and made nothing
+of it--agreed pleasantly to differ all their lives. Her heart cried out!
+There could be no likeness between these Catholic husbands and Alan
+Helbeck.
+
+In the first days of their engagement she had often said to herself: "I
+need have nothing to do with it!" or "Some things are so lovely!--I will
+only think of them." In those hours beside the sea it had been so easy to
+be tolerant and kind. Helbeck was hers from morning till night. And she,
+so much younger, so weak and small and ignorant, had seemed to hold his
+life, with all its unexplored depths and strengths, in her hand.
+
+And now------
+
+She threw herself down on a rock that jutted from the wet grass, and gave
+herself up to the jealous pain that possessed her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few days more and Mr. Williams would be gone. There was some relief in
+that thought. That strange scene in the drawing-room--deep as all
+concerned had buried it in oblivious silence--had naturally made his
+whole visit an offence to her. In her passionate way she felt herself
+degraded by his very presence in the house. His eyes constantly dropt,
+especially in her presence and Augustina's, his evident cold shrinking
+from the company of women--she thought of them with disgust and anger.
+For she said to herself that now she understood what they meant.
+
+Of late she had been constantly busy with the books that stood to the
+right of Helbeck's table. She could not keep herself away from them,
+although the signs of tender and familiar use they bore, were as thorns
+in her sore sense. Even his books were better friends to him than she!
+And especially had she been dipping into those "Lives of the Saints" that
+Helbeck read habitually day by day; of which he talked to young Williams
+with a minuteness of knowledge that he scarcely possessed on any other
+subject--knowledge that appeared in all the details of the chapel
+painting. And on one occasion, as she turned over the small, worn volumes
+of his Alban Butler, she had come upon a certain passage in the life of
+St. Charles Borromeo:
+
+"Out of a most scrupulous love of purity ... neither would he speak to
+any woman, not even to his pious aunt, or sisters, or any nun, but in
+sight of at least two persons, and in as few words as possible."
+
+The girl flung it down. Surrounded as she often was by priests--affronted
+by those downcast eyes of the scholastic--the passage came upon her as an
+insult. Her cheeks burnt. Instinctively she showed herself that evening
+more difficult and exacting than ever with the man who loved her, and
+could yet feed his mind on the virtues of St. Charles Borromeo.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nevertheless, she was often puzzled by the manner and demeanour of the
+young Jesuit.
+
+During his work at the chapel frescoes certain curious transformations
+seemed to have passed over him. Or was it merely the change of dress?
+While painting he wore a long holland blouse that covered the clerical
+coat, concealed the clumsy limbs and feet, and concentrated the eye of
+the spectator on the young beauty of the head. When a visitor entered he
+would look up for an instant flushed with work and ardour, then plunge
+again into what he was doing. Art had reclaimed him; Laura could almost
+have said the Jesuit had disappeared. And what an astonishing gift there
+was in those clumsy fingers! His daring delicacies of colour; his ways of
+using the brush, that seemed to leave no clue behind; the liquid shimmer
+and brilliancy of his work--Helbeck could only explain them by saying
+that he had once taken him as a lad of nineteen to see a loan exhibition
+at Manchester, and then to the gallery at Edinburgh,
+
+"There were three artists that he fastened upon--Watteau!--I have seen
+him recoil from the subjects (he was already balancing whether he should
+become a religious) and then go back again and again to the pictures,
+feeding himself upon them. Then there were two or three Rembrandts, and
+two or three Tintorets. One Tintoret Entombment I remember--a small
+picture. I never could get him away from it. He told me once that it was
+like something painted in powdered gems and then dipped in air. I believe
+he got the expression from some book he was reading," said Helbeck, with
+the good-humoured smile of one who does not himself indulge in the
+fineries of language.... "When we came home I borrowed a couple of
+pictures for him from a friend in Lancashire, who has good things. One
+was a Rembrandt--'The Casting-out of Hagar'--I have his copy of it in my
+room now--the other was a Tintoret sketch. He worked at them for days and
+weeks, pondering and copying them, bit by bit, till he was almost ill
+with excitement and enthusiasm. But you see the result in what he does."
+
+And Helbeck smiled upon the artist with the affectionate sympathy of an
+elder brother. He and Laura were standing together one morning at the
+west end of the chapel, while Williams, in his blouse and mounted on a
+high stool, was painting a dozen yards away.
+
+"And then he gave it up!" said Laura under her breath. "Who can
+understand that?"
+
+Helbeck hesitated a little. His face was crossed for a moment by the
+shadow of some thought that he did not communicate. Then he said, "He
+came--as I told you--to think that it was right and best for him to do
+so. An artist, darling, has to think of the Four Last Things, like
+anybody else!"
+
+"The Four Last Things!" said Laura, startled. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Death--Judgment--Heaven--and Hell."
+
+The words fell slowly from the half-whispering voice into the quiet
+darkness of the chapel. Laura looked up--Helbeck's eyes, fixed upon the
+crucifix over the altar, seemed to receive thence a stem and secret
+message to which the whole man responded.
+
+The girl moved restlessly away.
+
+"Let us go and see what he is doing."
+
+As they approached, Williams turned to Helbeck--he seemed not to see Miss
+Fountain--and said a few troubled phrases that showed him wholly
+dissatisfied with his morning's work. Beads of perspiration stood on his
+brow; his lips were pinched and feverish; his eyes unhappy. He pointed
+Helbeck to the figure he was engaged upon--a strange dream of St. Mary of
+Egypt, as a very old woman, clothed in the mantle of Zosimus--the lion
+who was to bury her, couchant at her feet. Helbeck looked into it;
+admired some points, criticised others. Williams got down from his stool,
+talked with a low-voiced volubility, an egotistical passion and
+disturbance that roused astonishment in Laura. Till then she had been
+acquainted only with the measured attitudes and levelled voice that the
+Jesuit learns from the "Regulae Modestiae" of his order. But for the
+first time she felt a certain sympathy with him.
+
+Afterwards for some days the young man, so recently an invalid, could
+hardly be persuaded to take sufficient exercise or food. He was absorbed
+in his saint and in the next figure beyond her, that was already growing
+under his brush. St. Ursula, white robed and fair haired, was springing
+like a flower from the wall; her delicate youth shone beside the age and
+austerity, the penitence and emaciation, of St. Mary of Egypt. Both
+looked towards the altar; but St. Mary with a mystic sadness that both
+adored and quailed; St. Ursula with the rapture, the confidence, of a
+bride.
+
+The artist could not be torn from his conception; and upon Laura too the
+spell of the work steadily grew. She would slip into the chapel at all
+hours, and watch; sometimes standing a little way from the painter, a
+black lace scarf thrown round her bright hair, sometimes sitting
+motionless with a book on her knee, which she did not read. When Helbeck
+was there conversation arose into which she was often drawn. And out of a
+real wish to please Helbeck, she would silence her own resentments, and
+force herself to be friendly. Insensibly Williams began to talk to her;
+and it would sometimes happen, when Helbeck went away for a time, that
+the cold reserve or _mauvaise honte_ of the Jesuit would melt wholly
+before the eagerness of the artist--when, with intervals of a brusque
+silence, he talked with the rapidity and force of a turbid stream on the
+imaginations and the memories embodied in his work. And on one occasion,
+when the painter was busy with the head of St. Ursula, Laura, who was
+talking to Helbeck a few yards away, turned suddenly and found those dark
+strange eyes, that as a rule evaded her, fixed steadily and intently upon
+her. Next day she fancied with a start of dislike that in the lines of
+St. Ursula's brow, and in the arrangement of the hair, there was a
+certain resemblance to herself. But Helbeck did not notice it, and
+nothing was said.
+
+At meals, too, conversation turned now more on art than on missions.
+Pictures seen by the two friends years before; Helbeck's fading
+recollections of Florence and Rome; modern Catholic art as it was being
+developed in the Jesuit churches of the Continent: of these things
+Williams would talk, and talk eagerly. Sometimes Augustina would timidly
+introduce some subject of greater practical interest to the commonplace
+English Catholic. Mr. Williams would let it drop; and then Mrs. Fountain
+would sit silent and ill at ease, her head and hands twitching in a
+helpless bewildered way.
+
+But in a moment came a change. After a certain Thursday when he was at
+work all day, the young man painted no more. Beyond St. Ursula, St.
+Eulalia of Saragossa, Virgin and Martyr, had been sketched in, with a
+strange force of line and some suggestions both of colour and symbolism
+that held Laura fascinated. But the sketch remained ghostlike on the
+wall. The high stool was removed; the blouse put away.
+
+Thenceforward Mr. Williams--to Laura's secret anger--spent hours in
+Helbeck's study reading. His avoidance of her society and Mrs. Fountain's
+was more marked than ever. His face, which in the first days at
+Bannisdale had begun to recover a certain boyish bloom, became again
+white and drawn. The eyes were scarcely ever seen; if, by some rare
+chance, the heavy lids did lift, the fire and brilliance of the gaze
+below were startling to the bystander. But for the most part he seemed to
+be wrapped in a dumb sickliness and pain; his person was even less
+cleanly, his clothes less cared for, than before. At table he hardly
+talked at all; never of painting, or of any topic connected with it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once or twice Laura caught Helbeck's look fixed upon his guest in what
+seemed to her anxiety or perplexity. But when she carelessly asked him
+what might be wrong with Mr. Williams, the Squire gave a decided answer.
+
+"He is ill--and we ought not to have allowed him to do this work. There
+must be complete rest till he goes."
+
+"Has he seen his father?" asked Laura.
+
+"No. That is still hanging over him."
+
+"Does his father wish to see him?"
+
+"No! But it is his duty to go."
+
+"Why? That he may enjoy a little more martyrdom?"
+
+Helbeck laughed and captured her hand.
+
+"What penalty do I exact for that?"
+
+"It doesn't deserve any," she said quickly. "I don't think it is for
+health he has given up his painting. I believe he is unhappy."
+
+"It may have revived old struggles," said Helbeck, with a sigh that
+seemed to escape him against his will.
+
+"Why doesn't he give it all up," she said with energy, "and be an artist?
+That's where his heart, his strength, lies."
+
+Helbeck's manner changed and stiffened.
+
+"You are entirely mistaken, dearest. His heart and his strength are in
+his vocation--in making himself a good Jesuit."
+
+She shook her head obstinately, with that rising breath of excitement
+which the slightest touch of difference was now apt to call up.
+
+"I don't think so!--and I have watched him. Suppose he _did_ give it all
+up? He could, of course, at any time."
+
+Helbeck tried to smile and change the subject. But Laura persisted. Till
+at last the Squire said with pain:
+
+"Darling--I don't think you know how these things sound in Catholic
+ears."
+
+"But I want to know. You see, I don't understand anything about vows. I
+can't imagine why that man can't walk into a studio and leave his
+clerical coat behind him to-morrow. To me nothing seems easier. He is a
+human being, and free."
+
+Helbeck was silent, and began to put some letters in order that were
+lying on his table. Laura's caprice only grew stronger.
+
+"If he were to leave the Jesuits," she said, "would you break with him?"
+
+As Mr. Williams was safely in the park with Augustina, Laura had resumed
+her accustomed place in the low seat beside Helbeck's writing-table.
+Augustina, for decorum's sake, had her arm-chair on the further side of
+the fireplace, where she often dozed, knitted, and read the newspapers.
+But she left the betrothed a good deal alone, less from a natural
+feminine sympathy than because she fed herself day by day on the hope
+that, in spite of all, Alan would yet set himself in earnest to the task
+that was clearly his--the task of Laura's conversion.
+
+Helbeck showed no more readiness to answer her second inquiry than her
+first. He seemed to be absorbed in reading over a business letter.
+
+Laura's pride was roused. Her cheeks flushed, and she repeated her
+question, her mind filled all the time with that mingled dread and
+wilfulness that must have possessed poor Psyche when she raised the lamp.
+
+"Well, no," said Helbeck dryly, without lifting his eyes from his
+letter--"I don't suppose that he would remain my friend, under such
+strange circumstances--or that he would wish it."
+
+"So you would cast him off?"
+
+"Why will you start such uncomfortable topics, dear?" he said, half
+laughing. "What has poor Williams done that you should imagine such
+things?"
+
+"I want to know what _you_ would do if Mr. Williams--if any priest you
+know were to break his vows and leave the Church, what would you do?"
+
+"Follow the judgment of the Church," said Helbeck quietly.
+
+"And give up your friend!"
+
+"Friendship, darling, is a complex thing--it depends upon so much. But I
+am so tired of my letters! Your hat is in the hall. Won't you come out?"
+
+He rose, and bent over her tenderly, his hand on the table. In a flash
+she felt all the strange dignity, the ascetic strength of his
+personality; it was suggested this time by the mere details of dress--by
+the contrast between the worn and shabby coat, and the stern force of the
+lips, the refined individuality of the hand. She was filled anew with the
+sudden sense that she knew but half of him--a sudden terror of the
+future.
+
+She lay back in her chair, meeting his eyes and trying to smile. But in
+truth she was quivering with impatience.
+
+"I won't move till I have my answer! Please tell me--would--would you
+regard him as a lost soul?"
+
+"Dearest! I am neither Williams's judge nor anyone else's! Of course I
+must hold that a man who breaks the most solemn vows endangers his soul.
+What else do you expect of me?"
+
+"What do you mean by 'soul'? Have I a soul?--and what do you suppose is
+going to happen to it?"
+
+The words were flung out with a concentrated passion--almost an
+anguish--that for the moment struck him dumb. They both grew pale; he
+looked at her steadily, and spoke her name, in a low appealing voice. But
+she took no notice; she rose, and, turning away from him, she leant
+against the mantelpiece, speaking with a choking eagerness that forced
+its way.
+
+"You were in the chapel last night--very late. I know, for I heard the
+door open and shut. You must be unhappy, or you wouldn't spend so much
+time praying. Are you unhappy about me? I know you don't want to force
+me; but if, in time, I don't agree with you--if it goes on all our
+lives--how can you help thinking that I shall be lost--lost
+eternally--separated from you? You would think it of Mr. Williams if he
+left the Church. I know you told me once about ignorance--invincible
+ignorance. But here there will be no ignorance. I shall have seen
+everything--heard everything--known everything. If living here doesn't
+teach one, what could? And"--she paused, then resumed with even greater
+emphasis--"and as far as I can see I shall reject it all--wilfully,
+knowingly, deliberately. What will you say? What do you say now--to
+yourself--when--when you pray for me? What do you really think--what do
+you fear--what _must_ you fear? I ought to know."
+
+Helbeck looked at her without answering for a long moment. Her agitation,
+his painful silence, bore pitiful testimony to the strange,
+insurmountable reality of those facts of the spirit that stood like rocks
+in the stream of their love.
+
+At last he held out his hands to her with that half-reproachful gesture
+he had often used towards her. "I fear nothing!--I hope everything. You
+never forbade me that. Will you leave my love no mysteries, Laura--no
+reserve? Nothing for you to discover and explore as time goes on?"
+
+She trembled under the mingled remonstrance and passion of his tone. But
+she persisted. "It's because--I feel--other things come before love. Tell
+me--I have a right to know. I shall never come first--quite first--shall
+I?"
+
+She forced the saddest, proudest of smiles, as he took her reluctant
+hands.
+
+And involuntarily her eyes travelled over the room, over the crucifix
+above the faldstool, the little altar to St. Joseph, the worn books upon
+his table. They were to her like the weapons and symbols of an enemy.
+
+He made her no direct answer. His face was for a moment grave and set.
+Then he roused himself, kissed the hands he held, and resolutely began to
+talk of something else.
+
+When a few minutes later he left her alone, she stood there quivering
+under the touch of power by which he had silenced her--under the angry
+sense that she was less and less able as the days went by to draw or
+drive him into argument. The more thorny her mood became, the more sadly
+did he seem to hide the treasures of the soul from her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+These memories, and many like them, were passing and repassing through
+Laura's mind as she sat listless and sad on the hillside.
+
+When at last she shook them off, the light was failing over the western
+wall of mountains. She had an errand to do for Augustina in the village
+that lay half-way to the daffodil wood, and she sprang up, wondering
+whether there was still time for it before dark.
+
+As she hurried on towards a stile that lay across the path, she saw a
+woman approaching on the further side.
+
+"Polly!"
+
+The figure addressed stood still a moment in astonishment, then ran to
+meet the speaker.
+
+"Laura!--well, I'm sure!"
+
+The two girls kissed each other. Laura looked gayly, wistfully, at her
+cousin.
+
+"Polly--are you all very cross with me still?"
+
+Polly hesitated and fenced. Laura sighed. But she looked at the stout
+red-faced woman with a peculiar flutter of pleasure. The air of the wild
+upland--all the primitive, homely facts of the farm, seemed to come
+about her again. She had left Bannisdale, choked with feeling, tired with
+thought. Polly's broad speech and bouncing ways were welcome as a breeze
+in summer.
+
+They sat down on the stile side by side. Laura gave up her errand, and
+they talked fast. Polly was all curiosity. When was Laura to be married,
+and what was she to wear?
+
+"The plainest thing I can find," said Laura indifferently. "Unless
+Augustina teases me into something I don't want." Polly inquired if it
+would be in church. "In a Catholic church," said Laura with a shrug. "No
+flowers--no music. They just let you be married--that's all."
+
+Polly's-eyes jumped with amazement. "Why, I thowt they had everything so
+grand!"
+
+"Not if you will go and marry a heretic like me," said Laura. "Then they
+make you know your place."
+
+"But--but Laura! yo're to be a Romanist too--for sure?" cried Polly in
+bewilderment.
+
+"Do you think so?" said Laura. Her eyes sparkled. She was sitting on the
+edge of the stile, one small foot dangling. Polly's rustic sense was once
+more vaguely struck by the strange mingling in the little figure of an
+extreme, an exquisite delicacy with some tough, incalculable element.
+Miss Fountain's soft lightness seemed to offer no more resistance than a
+daffodil on its stalk. But approach her!--whether it was poor Hubert, or
+even----?
+
+Polly looked and spoke her perplexity. She let Laura know that Miss
+Fountain's conversion was assumed at Browhead Farm. Through her
+blundering though not unkindly talk, Laura gradually perceived indeed a
+score of disagreeable things. Mrs. Mason and her fanatical friend, Mr.
+Bayley, were both persuaded--so it seemed--that Miss Fountain had set her
+cap at the Squire from the beginning, ready at a moment's notice to
+swallow the Scarlet Lady when required. And Catholic and Protestant alike
+were kind enough to say that she had made use of her cousin to draw on
+Mr. Helbeck. The neighbourhood, in fact, held her to be a calculating
+little minx, ripe for plots and Papistry, or anything else that might
+suit a daring game.
+
+The girl gradually fell silent. Her head drooped. Her eyes looked at
+Polly askance and wistfully. She did not defend herself; but she showed
+the wound.
+
+"Well, I'm sorry you don't understand," she said at last, while her voice
+trembled. "Perhaps you will some day. I don't know. Anyway, will you
+please tell Cousin Elizabeth that I'm not going to be a Catholic? Perhaps
+that will comfort her a little."
+
+"But howiver are you goin to live wi Mr. Helbeck then?" asked Polly. Her
+loud surprise conveyed the image of Helbeck as it lay graven in the minds
+of the Browhead circle,--a sort of triple-crowned, black-browed tyrant,
+with all the wiles and torments of Rome in his pocket. A wife
+resist--defy? The Church knows how to deal with naughtiness of that kind.
+
+Laura laughed.
+
+"We can but try. But now then,"--she bent forward and put her hands
+impulsively on Polly's shoulders,--"tell me about everybody and
+everything. How's Daffady? how's the cow that was ill? how're the calves?
+how's Hubert?"
+
+She laughed again, but there was moisture in her look. For the thousandth
+time, her heart told her that in this untoward marriage she was wrenching
+herself anew from her father and all his world.
+
+Polly rather tossed her head at the mention of Hubert. She replied with
+some tartness that he was doing very well--nobody indeed could be doing
+better. Did Laura's eyebrows go up the very slightest trifle? If so, the
+sister beat down the surprise. Hubert no doubt had been upset, and a bit
+wild, after--well, Laura might guess what! But that was all past now,
+long ago. There was a friend, a musical friend, a rescuer, who had
+appeared, in the shape of a young organist who had come to lead the
+Froswick Philharmonic Society. Hubert was living with him now; and the
+young man, of whom all Froswick thought a wonderful deal, was looking
+after him, and making him write his songs. Some of them were to be sung
+at a festival----
+
+Laura clapped her hands.
+
+"I told him!" she said gayly. "If he'll only work, he'll do. And he is
+keeping straight?"
+
+Her look was keen and sisterly. She wished to show that she had forgotten
+and forgiven. But Polly resented it.
+
+"Why shouldn't he be keeping straight?" she asked. No doubt Laura had
+thought him just a ne'er do weel. But he was nothing of the sort--he was
+a bit wild and unruly, as young men are--"same as t' colts afoor yo break
+'em." But Laura would have done much better for herself if she had stayed
+quietly with him that night at Braeside, and let him take her over the
+sands, as he wished to, instead of running away from him in that foolish
+way.
+
+Polly spoke with significance--nay, with heat. Laura was first startled,
+then abashed.
+
+"Do you think I made a ridiculous fuss?" she said humbly. "Perhaps I did.
+But if--if--" she spoke slowly, drawing patterns on the wood of the stile
+with her finger, "if I hadn't seen him drunk once--I suppose I shouldn't
+have been afraid."
+
+"Well, you'd no call to be afraid!" cried Polly. "Hubert vowed to me, as
+he hadna had a drop of onything. And after all, he's a relation--an if
+you'd walked wi him, you'd not ha had telegrams sent aboot you to make aw
+th' coontry taak!"
+
+"Telegrams!" Laura stared. "Oh, I know--Mr. Helbeck telegraphed to the
+station-master--but it must have come after I'd left the station."
+
+"Aye--an t' station-master sent word back to Mr. Helbeck! Perhaps you
+doan't knaw onything aboot that!" exclaimed Polly triumphantly.
+
+Laura turned rather pale.
+
+"A telegram to Mr. Helbeck?"
+
+Polly, surprised at so much ignorance, could not forego the sensation
+that it offered her. She bit her lip, but the lip would speak. So the
+story of the midnight telegram--as it had been told by that godly man Mr.
+Cawston of Braeside to that other godly man Mr. Bayley, perpetual curate
+of Browhead, and as by now it had gone all about the country-side--came
+piecemeal out.
+
+"Oh! an at that Papist shop i' th' High Street--you remember that
+sickly-lukin fellow at the dance--they do say at they do taak shameful!"
+exclaimed Polly indignantly.
+
+"What do they say?" said Laura in a low voice.
+
+Polly hesitated. Then out of sheer nervousness she blundered into the
+harshest possible answer.
+
+"Well, they said that Mr. Helbeck could do no different, that he did it
+to save his sister from knowing----"
+
+"Knowing what?" said Laura.
+
+Polly declared that she wasn't just certain. "A set o' slanderin
+backbitin tabbies as soom o' them Catholics is!" But she believed they
+said that Mr. Helbeck had asked Miss Fountain to marry him out of
+kindness, to shut people's mouths, and keep it from his sister----
+
+"Keep what?" said Laura. Her eyes shone in her quivering proud face.
+
+"Why, I suppose--at you'd been carryin on wi Hubert, and walkin aboot wi
+him aw neet," said Polly reluctantly.
+
+And she again insisted how much wiser it would have been if Laura had
+just gone quietly over the sands to Marsland. There, no doubt, she might
+have got a car straight away, and there might have been no talk whatever.
+
+"Mightn't there?" said Laura. Her little chin was propped in her hand.
+Her gaze swept the distant water of the estuary mouth, as it lay
+alternately dark and shining under the storm lights of the clouds.
+
+"An I'll juist warn yo o' yan thing, Laura," said Polly, with fresh
+energy. "There's soom one at Bannisdale itsel, as spreads aw maks o'
+tales. There's a body theer, as is noa friend o' yours."
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Denton," said Laura languidly. "Of course."
+
+Then she fell silent. Not a word passed the small tightened lips. The
+eyes were fixed on distance or vacancy.
+
+Polly began to be frightened. She had not meant any real harm, though
+perhaps there had been just a touch of malice in her revelations. Laura
+was going to marry a Papist; that was bad. But also she was going to
+marry into a sphere far out of the Masons' ken; and she had made it very
+plain that Hubert and the likes of Hubert were not good enough for her.
+Polly was scandalised on religion's account; but also a little jealous
+and sore, in a natural feminine way, on her own; the more so as Mr.
+Seaton had long since ceased to pay Sunday visits to the farm, and Polly
+had a sharp suspicion as to the when and why of that gentleman's
+disillusionment. There had been a certain temptation to let the future
+mistress of Bannisdale know that the neighbourhood was not all whispering
+humbleness towards her.
+
+But at bottom Polly was honest and kind. So when she saw Laura sit so
+palely still, she repented her. She implored that Laura would not
+"worrit" herself about such fooleries. And then she added:
+
+"But I wonder at Mr. Helbeck didna juist tell yo himsel aboot that
+telegram!"
+
+"Do you?" said Laura. Her eyes flashed. She got down from the stile.
+"Good-bye, Polly! I must be going home."
+
+Suddenly Polly gripped her by the arm.
+
+"Luke there!" she said in excitement. "Luke!--theer he goes! That's
+Teddy--Teddy Williams! I knew as I had summat to tell you--and when you
+spoak o' Hubert--it went oot o' my head."
+
+Laura looked at her cousin first, in astonishment, and then at the dark
+figure walking on the road below--the straight white road that ran across
+the marsh, past the lonely forge of old Ben Williams, the wheelwright, to
+the foot of the tall "Scar," opposite, where it turned seaward, and so
+vanished in the dimness of the coast. It was the Jesuit certainly. The
+two girls saw him plainly in the strong storm light. He was walking
+slowly with bent head, and seemed to be reading. His solitary form, black
+against the white of the road, made the only moving thing in the wide,
+rain-drenched landscape.
+
+Laura instantly guessed that he had been paying his duty visit to his
+home. And Polly, it appeared, had been a witness of it.
+
+For the cottage adjoining the wheelwright's workshop and forge, where
+Edward Williams had been brought up, was now inhabited by his father and
+sister. The sister, Jenny, was an old friend of Polly Mason's, who had
+indeed many young memories of the scholastic himself. They had been all
+children or schoolmates together.
+
+And this afternoon, while she was in the parlour with Jenny, all of a
+sudden--voices and clamour in the forge outside! The son, the outcast
+son, had quietly presented himself to his father.
+
+"Oh, an sic a to-do! His fadther wadna let him ben. 'Naa,' he says, 'if
+thoo's got owt to say, thoo may say it i' th' shop. Jenny doan't want
+tha!' An Jenny luked oot--an I just saw Teddy turn an speak to
+her--beggin her like, a bit masterfu too, aw t' time--and she flounced
+back again--'Keep yor distance, will yer!' an slammed to the door--an
+fell agen it, cryin. An sic a shoutin an hollerin frae the owd man! He
+made a gradely noise, he did--bit never a word fra Teddy--not as yo cud
+hear, I'll uphowd yo! An at lasst--when Jenny an I opened t' door
+again--juist a cranny like--theer he was, takin hissel off--his fadther
+screamin afther him--an he wi his Papish coat, an his head hangin as thoo
+there wor a load o' peät on it--an his hands crossed--soa pious! Aye,
+theer he goes!--an he may goa!" cried Polly, her face flaming as it
+followed the Jesuit out of sight. "When a mon's treated his aan mother
+that gate, it's weary wark undoin it. Aye, soa 'tis, Mr. Teddy--soa
+'tis!" And she raised her voice vindictively.
+
+Laura's lips curled.
+
+"Do you think he cares--one rap? It was his duty to go and see his
+father--so he went. And now he's all the more certain he's on the road to
+heaven--because his father abused him, and his sister turned him out.
+He's going to be a priest directly--and a missionary after that--and a
+holy martyr, too, if he gets his deserts. There's always fever, or
+natives, handy. What do earth-worms like mothers and sisters matter to
+him?"
+
+Polly stared. Even she, as she looked, as she heard, felt that a gulf
+opened--that a sick soul spoke.
+
+"Oh! an I'd clean forgot," she faltered--"as he must be stayin at
+Bannisdale--as yo wad be seein him."
+
+"I see so many of them," said Laura wearily. She took up her bag, that
+had been leaning against the stile. "Now, good-bye!"
+
+Suddenly Polly's eyes brimmed with tears. She flung an arm round the slim
+childish creature.
+
+"Laura, whatever did you do it for? I doan't believe as yo're a bit happy
+i' yor mind! Coom away!--we'se luke after you--we're your aan kith an
+kin!"
+
+Laura paused in Polly's arm. Then she turned her wild face--the eyes half
+closed, the pale lips passionately smiling.
+
+"I'll come, Polly, when I'm dead--or my heart's dead--not before!"
+
+And, wrenching herself away, she ran down the path. Polly, with her
+clutch of Brahma eggs in her hand, that she was taking to the Bannisdale
+Bridge Farm, leant against the stile and cried.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+"Alan! is it to-night you expect Father Leadham?"
+
+"Yes," said Helbeck.
+
+"Have you told Laura?"
+
+"I will remind her that we expect him. It is annoying that I must leave
+you to entertain him to-morrow."
+
+"Oh! we shall do very well," said Augustina rather eagerly. "Alan, have
+you noticed Laura, yesterday and to-day? She doesn't look strong."
+
+"I know," said the Squire shortly. His eyes were fixed all the time on
+the little figure of Laura, as she sat listlessly in a sunny corner of
+the bowling-green, with a book on her knee.
+
+Augustina, who had been leaning on his arm, went back to the house.
+Helbeck advanced and threw himself down beside Laura.
+
+"Little one--if you keep such pale cheeks--what am I to do?"
+
+She looked down upon him with a languid smile.
+
+"I am all right."
+
+"That remark only fills up your misdoings! If I go down and get the pony
+carriage, will you drive with me through the park and tell me
+everything--_everything_--that has been troubling you the last few days?"
+
+His voice was very low, his eyes all tenderness. He had been reproaching
+himself that he had so often of late avoided difficult discussions and
+thorny questions with her. Was she hurt, and did he deserve it?
+
+"I will go driving with you," she said slowly.
+
+"Very well"--he sprang up. "I will be back in twenty minutes--with the
+pony."
+
+He left her, and she dreamed afresh over her book.
+
+She was thinking of a luncheon at Whinthorpe, to which she had been
+taken, sorely against her will, to meet the Bishop. And the Bishop had
+treated her with a singular and slighting coldness. There was no blinking
+the fact in the least. Other people had noticed it. Helbeck had been pale
+with wrath and distress. As far as she could remember, she had laughed
+and talked a good deal.
+
+Well, what wonder?--if they thought her just a fast ill-conducted girl,
+who had worked upon Mr. Helbeck's pity and softness of heart?
+
+Suddenly she put out her hand restlessly to pluck at the hedge beside
+her. She had been stung by the memory of herself--under the Squire's
+window, in the dawn. She saw herself--helpless, and asleep, the tired
+truant come back to the feet of her master. When he found her so, what
+could he do but pity her?--be moved, perhaps beyond bounds, by the
+goodness of a generous nature?
+
+Next, something stronger than this doubt touched the lips with a flying
+smile--shy and lovely. But she was far from happy. Since her talk with
+Polly especially, her pride was stabbed and tormented in all directions.
+And her nature was of the proudest.
+
+Where could she feel secure? In Helbeck's heart? But in the inmost shrine
+of that heart she felt the brooding of a majestic and exacting power that
+knew her not. Her jealousy--her fear--grew day by day.
+
+And as to the rest, her imagination was full of the most feverish and
+fantastic shapes. Since her talk with Polly the world had seemed to her a
+mere host of buzzing enemies. All the persons concerned passed through
+her fancy with the mask and strut of caricature. The little mole on
+Sister Angela's nose--the slightly drooping eyelid that marred the
+Reverend Mother's left cheek--the nasal twang of the orphans'
+singing--Father Bowles pouncing on a fly--Father Leadham's stately
+ways--she made a mock or an offence out of them all, bitterly chattering
+and drawing pictures with herself, like a child with a grievance.
+
+And then on the top of these feelings and exaggerations of the child,
+would return the bewildering, the ever-increasing trouble of the woman.
+
+She sprang up.
+
+"If I could--if I _could_! Then it would be we two together--against the
+rest. Else--how shall I be his wife at all?"
+
+She ran into the study. There on the shelf beside Helbeck's table stood a
+little Manual of Catholic Instruction, that she knew well. She turned
+over the pages, till she came to the sections dealing with the reception
+of converts.
+
+How often she had pored over them! Now she pored over them again,
+twisting her lips, knitting her white brows.
+
+"No adult baptized Protestant ('Am I a Protestant?--I am baptized!') is
+considered to be a convert to the Catholic Church until he is received
+into the Church according to the prescribed rite ('There!--it's the
+broken glass on the wall.--But if one could just slip in--without fuss or
+noise?') ... You must apply to a Catholic priest, who will judge of your
+dispositions, and of your knowledge of the Catholic faith. He will give
+you further instruction, and explain your duties, and how you have to
+act. When he is satisfied ('Father Leadham!--satisfied with me!'), you go
+to the altar or to the sacristy, or other place convenient for your
+reception. The priest who is with you says certain prayers appointed by
+the Church; you in the meantime kneel down and pray silently ('I prayed
+when papa died.'"--She looked up, her face trembling.--"Else?--Yes
+once!--that night when I went in to prayers.) 'You will then read or
+repeat aloud after the priest the Profession of Faith, either the Creed
+of Pope Pius IV'--(That's--let me see!--that's the Creed of the Council
+of Trent; there's a note about it in one of papa's books." She recalled
+it, frowning: "I often think that we of the Liberal Tradition have cause
+to be thankful that the Tridentine Catholics dug the gulf between them
+and the modern world so deep. Otherwise, now that their claws are all
+pared, and only the honey and fairy tales remain, there would be no
+chance at all for the poor rational life.")
+
+She drew a long breath, taking a momentary pleasure in the strong words,
+as they passed through her memory, and then bruised by them.
+
+"The priest will now release you from the ban and censures of the Church,
+and will so receive you into the True Fold. If you do not yourself say
+the Confiteor, you will do well to repeat in a low voice, with sorrow of
+heart, those words of the penitent in the Gospel: 'O God, be merciful to
+me a sinner!' He will then administer to you baptism under condition
+(_sub conditione_).... Being now baptized and received into the Church,
+you will go and kneel in the Confessional or other appointed place in the
+church to make your confession, and to receive from the priest the
+sacramental absolution. While receiving absolution you must renew your
+sorrow and hatred of sin, and your resolution to amend, making a sincere
+Act of Contrition."
+
+Then, as the book was dropping from her hand, a few paragraphs further on
+her eyes caught the words:
+
+"If we are not able to remember the exact number of our sins, it is
+enough to state the probable number to the best of our recollection and
+judgment, saying: 'I have committed that sin about so many times a day, a
+week, or a month.' Indeed, we are bound to reveal our conscience to the
+priest as we know it ourselves, there and then stating the things certain
+as certain, those doubtful as doubtful, and the probable number as
+probable."
+
+She threw away the book. She crouched in her chair beside Helbeck's
+table, her small face buried despairingly in her hands. "I can't--I
+can't! I would if I could--I can't!"
+
+Through the shiver of an invincible repulsion that held her spoke a
+hundred things--things inherited, things died for, things wrought out by
+the moral experience of generations. But she could not analyse them. All
+she knew were the two words--"I can't."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The little pony took them merrily through the gay October woods. Autumn
+was at its cheerfullest. The crisp leaves under foot, the tonic earth
+smells in the air, the wet ivy shining in the sun, the growing lightness
+and strength of the trees as the gold or red leaf thinned and the free
+branching of the great oaks or ashes came into sight--all these belonged
+to the autumn which sings and vibrates, and can in a flash disperse and
+drive away the weeping and melancholy autumn.
+
+Laura's bloom revived. Her hair, blown about her, glowed and shone even
+amid the gold of the woods. Her soft lips, her eyes called back their
+fire. Helbeck looked at her in a delight mingled with pain, counting the
+weeks silently till she became his very own. Only five now before Advent;
+and in the fifth the Church would give her to him, grudgingly indeed,
+with scant ceremony and festivity, like a mother half grieved, still with
+her blessing, which must content him. And beyond? The strong man--stern
+with himself and his own passion, all the more that the adored one was
+under the protection of his roof, and yielded thereby to his sight and
+wooing more freely than a girl in her betrothal is commonly yielded to
+her lover--dared hardly in her presence evoke the thrill of that thought.
+Instinctively he knew, through the restraints that parted them, that
+Laura was pure woman, a creature ripe for the subtleties and poetries of
+passion. Would not all difficulties find their solvent--melt in a golden
+air--when once they had passed into the freedom and confidence of
+marriage?
+
+Meanwhile the difficulties were all plain to him--more plain, indeed,
+than ever. He could not flatter himself that she looked any more kindly
+on his faith or his friends. And his friends--or some of them--were, to
+say the truth, pressing him hard. Father Leadham even, his director, upon
+whom during the earlier stages of their correspondence on the matter
+Helbeck seemed to have impressed his own waiting view with success, had
+lately become more exacting and more peremptory. The Squire was
+uncomfortable at the thought of his impending visit. It was hardly
+wise--had better have been deferred. Laura's quick, shrinking look when
+it was announced had not been lost upon her lover. Father Leadham should
+be convinced--must be convinced--that all would be imperilled--nay,
+lost--by haste. Yet unconsciously Helbeck himself was wavering--was
+changing ground.
+
+He had come out, indeed, determined somehow to break down the barrier he
+felt rising between them. But it was not easy. They talked for long of
+the most obvious and mundane things. There were salmon in the Greet this
+month, and Helbeck had been waging noble war with them in the intervals
+of much business, with Laura often beside him, to join in the madness of
+the "rushes" down stream, to watch the fine strength of her lover's
+wrist, to shrink from the gaffing, and to count the spoil. The shooting
+days at Bannisdale were almost done, since the land had dwindled to a
+couple of thousand acres, much of it on the moss. But there were still
+two or three poor coverts along the upper edge of the park, where the old
+Irish keeper and woodman, Tim Murphy, cherished and counted the few score
+pheasants that provided a little modest November sport. And Helbeck,
+tying the pony to a tree, went up now with Laura to walk round the woods,
+showing in all his comments and calculations a great deal of shrewd
+woodcraft and beastcraft, enough to prove at any rate that the Esau of
+his race--_feras consumere nati_, to borrow the emendation of Mr.
+Fielding--had not yet been wholly cast out by the Jacob of a mystical
+piety.
+
+Laura tripped and climbed, applauded by his eye, helped by his hand. But
+though her colour came back, her spirits were still to seek. She was
+often silent, and he hardly ever spoke to her without feeling a start run
+through the hand he held.
+
+His grey eye tried to read her, but in vain. At last he wooed her from
+the fell-side where they were scrambling. "Come down to the river and
+rest."
+
+Hand in hand they descended the steep slope to that rock-seat where he
+had found her on the morning of Easter Sunday. The great thorn which
+overhung it was then in bud; now the berries which covered the tree were
+already reddening to winter. Before her spread the silver-river, running
+to lose itself in the rocky bosom of that towering scar which closed the
+distance, whereon, too, all the wealth of the woods on either hand
+converged--the woods that hid the outer country, and all that was not
+Bannisdale and Helbeck's.
+
+To-day, however, Laura felt no young passion of pleasure in the beauty at
+her feet. She was ill at ease, and her look fled his as he glanced up to
+her from the turf where he had thrown himself.
+
+"Do you like me to read your books?" she said abruptly, her question
+swooping hawk-like upon his and driving it off the field.
+
+He paused--to consider, and to smile.
+
+"I don't know. I believe you read them perversely!"
+
+"I know what you read this morning. Do you--do you think St. Francis
+Borgia was a very admirable person?"
+
+"Well, I got a good deal of edification out of him," said Helbeck
+quietly.
+
+"Did you? Would you be like him if you could? Do you remember when his
+wife was very ill, and he was praying for her, he heard a voice--do you
+remember?"
+
+"Go on," said Helbeck, nodding.
+
+"And the voice said, 'If thou wouldst have the life of the Duchess
+prolonged, it shall be granted; but it is not expedient for
+thee'--'_thee_,' mind--not her! When he heard this, he was penetrated by
+a most tender love of God, and burst into tears. Then he asked God to do
+as He pleased with the lives of his wife and his children and himself. He
+gave up--I suppose he gave up--praying for her. She became much worse and
+died, leaving him a widower at the age of thirty-six. Afterwards--please
+don't interrupt!--in the space of three years, he disposed somehow of all
+his eight children--some of them I reckoned must be quite babies--took
+the vows, became a Jesuit, and went to Rome. Do you approve of all that?"
+
+Helbeck reddened. "It was a time of hard fighting for the Church," he
+said gravely, after a pause, "and the Jesuits were the advance guard. In
+such days a man may be called by God to special acts and special
+sacrifices."
+
+"So you do approve? Papa was a member of an Ethical Society at Cambridge.
+They used sometimes to discuss special things--whether they were right or
+wrong. I wonder what they would have said to St. Francis Borgia?"
+
+Helbeck smiled.
+
+"Mercifully, darling, the ideals of the Catholic Church do not depend
+upon the votes of Ethical Societies!"
+
+He turned his handsome head towards her. His tone was perfectly gentle,
+but behind it she perceived the breathing of a contempt before which she
+first recoiled--then sprang in revolt.
+
+"As for me," she said, panting a little, "when I finished the Life this
+morning in your room, I felt like Ivan in Browning's poem--do you
+recollect?--about the mother who threw her children one by one to the
+wolves, to save her wretched self? I would like to have dropped the axe
+on St. Francis Borgia's neck--just one--little--clean cut!--while he was
+saying his prayers, and enjoying his burning love, and all the rest of
+it!"
+
+Helbeck was silent, nor could she see his face, which was again turned
+from her towards the river. The eager feverish voice went on:
+
+"Do you know that's the kind of thing you read always--always--day after
+day? And it's just the same now! That girl of twenty-three, Augustina was
+talking of, who is going into a convent, and her mother only died last
+year, and there are six younger brothers and sisters, and her father says
+it will break his heart--_she_ must have been reading about St. Francis
+Borgia. Perhaps she felt 'burning love' and had 'floods of tears.' But
+Ivan with his axe--that's the person I'd bring in, if I could!"
+
+Still not a word from the man beside her. She hesitated a moment--felt a
+sob of excitement in her throat--bent forward and touched his shoulder.
+
+"Suppose--suppose I were to be ill--dying--and the voice came, 'Let her
+go! She is in your way; it would be better for you she should die'--would
+you just let go?--see me drop, drop, drop, through all eternity, to make
+your soul safe?"
+
+"Laura!" cried a strong voice. And, with a spring, Helbeck was beside
+her, capturing both her cold hands in one of his, a mingled tenderness
+and wrath flashing from him before which she shrank. But though she drew
+away from him--her small face so white below the broad black hat!--she
+was not quelled. Before he could speak, she had said in sharp separate
+words, hardly above a whisper:
+
+"It is that horrible egotism of religion that poisons everything! And
+if--if one shared it, well and good, one might make terms with it, like a
+wild thing one had tamed. But outside it, and at war with it, what can
+one do but hate--hate--_hate_--it!"
+
+"My God!" he said in bewilderment, "where am I to begin?"
+
+He stared at her with a passionate amazement. Never before had she shown
+such forces of personality, or been able to express herself with an
+utterance so mature and resonant. Her stature had grown before his eyes.
+In the little frowning figure there was something newly, tragically fine.
+The man for the first time felt his match. His own hidden self rose at
+last to the struggle with a kind of angry joy, eager at once to conquer
+the woman and to pierce the sceptic.
+
+"Listen to me, Laura!" he said, bending over her. "That was more than I
+can bear--that calls me out of my tent. I have tried to keep my poor self
+out of sight, but it has rights. You have challenged it. Will you take
+the consequences?"
+
+She trembled before the pale concentration of his face and bent her head.
+
+"I will tell you," he said in a low determined voice, "the only story
+that a man truly knows--the story of his own soul. You shall know--what
+you hate."
+
+And, after a pause of thought, Helbeck made one of the great efforts of
+his life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He did not fully know indeed what it was that he had undertaken, till the
+wave of emotion had gathered through all the inmost chambers of memory,
+and was bearing outward in one great tide the secret nobilities, the
+hidden poetries, the unconscious weaknesses, of a nature no less narrow
+than profound, no less full of enmities than of loves.
+
+But gradually from hurried or broken beginnings the narrative rose to
+clearness and to strength.
+
+The first impressions of a lonely childhood; the first workings of the
+family history upon his boyish sense, like the faint, perpetual touches
+of an unseen hand moulding the will and the character; the picture of his
+patient mother on her sofa, surrounded with her little religious books,
+twisted and tormented, yet always smiling; his early collisions with his
+morose and half-educated father--he passed from these to the days of his
+first Communion, the beginnings of the personal life. "But I had very
+little fervour then, such as many boys feel. I did not doubt--I would not
+have shown any disrespect to my religion for the world, mostly, I think,
+from family pride--but I felt no ardour, and did not pretend any. My
+mother sometimes shed tears over it, and was comforted by her old
+confessor--so she told me when she was dying--who used to say to her:
+'Feeling is good, but obedience is better. He obeys;' for I did all my
+religious duties without difficulty. Then at thirteen I was sent to
+Stonyhurst. And there, after a while, God began His work in me."
+
+He paused a moment; and when he resumed, his voice shook:
+
+"Among the masters there was a certain Father Lewin. He took an affection
+for me, and I for him. He was even then a dying man, but he accomplished
+more, and was more severe to himself, than any man in health I ever knew.
+So long as he lived, he made the path of religion easy to me. He was the
+supernatural life before my eyes. I had only to open them and see. The
+only difference between us was that I began--first out of love for him, I
+suppose--to have a great wish to become a Jesuit; whereas he was against
+it--he thought there were too many special claims upon me here. Then,
+when I was eighteen, he died. I had seen him the day before, when there
+seemed to be no danger, or they concealed it from me. But in the night I
+was called, too late to hear him speak; he was already in his agony. The
+sight terrified me. I had expected something much more consoling--more
+beautiful. For a long time I could not shake off the impression, the
+misery of it."
+
+He was silent again for a minute. He still held Laura's hands close, as
+though there was something in their touch that spurred him on.
+
+"After his death I got my father's leave to go and study at Louvain. I
+passed there the most wretched years of my life. Father Lewin's death had
+thrown me into an extraordinary dejection, which seemed to have taken
+from me all the joy of my faith; but at Louvain I came very near to
+losing it altogether. It came, I think, from the reading of some French
+sceptical books the first year I was there; but I went through a horror
+and anguish. Often I used to wander for a whole day along the Scheldt, or
+across lonely fields where no one could see me, lost in what seemed to me
+a fight with devils. The most horrible blasphemies--the most subtle, the
+most venomous thoughts--ah! well--by God's grace, I never gave up
+Confession and Communion--at long intervals, indeed--but still I held to
+them. The old Passionist father, my director, did not understand much
+about me. I seemed, indeed, to have no friends. I lived shut up with my
+own thoughts. The only comfort and relief I got was from painting. I
+loved the studio where I worked, poor as my own attempts were. It seemed
+often to be the only thing between me and madness.... Well, the first
+relief came in a strange way. I was visiting one of the professors, an
+old Canon of the Cathedral, on a June evening. The Bishop of the See was
+very ill, and while I was with the Canon word came round to summon the
+Chapter to assist at the administration of the last Sacraments, and to
+hear the sick man's Profession of Faith. The old Canon had been good to
+me. I don't know whether he suspected what was wrong with me. At any
+rate, he laid a kind hand on my arm. 'Come with me,' he said; and I went
+with him into the Bishop's residence. I can see the old house now--the
+black panelled stairs and passages, and the shadow of the great church
+outside.
+
+"In the Bishop's room were gathered all the canons in their white robes;
+there was an altar blazing with lights, the windows were wide open to the
+dusk, and the cathedral bell was tolling. We all knelt, and Monseigneur
+received the Viaticum. He was fully vested. I could just see his
+venerable white head on the pillow. After the Communion one of the canons
+knelt by him and recited the Creed of Pope Pius IV."
+
+Laura started. But Helbeck did not notice the sudden tremulous movement
+of the hands lying in his. He was sitting rigidly upright, the eyes half
+closed, his mind busy with the past.
+
+"And as he recited it, the bands that held my own heart seemed to break.
+I had not been able to approach any clause of that creed for months
+without danger of blasphemy; and now--it was like a bird escaped from the
+nets. The snare is broken--and we are delivered! The dying man raised his
+voice in a last effort; he repeated the oath with which the Creed ends.
+The Gospels were handed to him; he kissed them with fervour. '_Sic me
+Deus adjuvet, et Sancta Dei Evangelia_.' 'So may God help me, and His
+Holy Gospels!' I joined in the words mentally, overcome with joy. Before
+me, as in a vision, had risen the majesty and glory of the Catholic
+Church; I felt her foundations once more under my feet."
+
+He drew a long breath. Then he turned. Laura felt his eyes upon her, as
+though in doubt. She herself neither moved nor spoke; she was all
+hearing, absorbed in a passionate prescience of things more vital yet to
+come.
+
+"Laura!"--his voice dropped--"I want you to know it all, to understand me
+through and through. I will try that there shall not be a word to offend
+you. That scene I have described to you was for me only the beginning of
+another apostasy. I had no longer the excuse of doubt. I believed and
+trembled. But for two years after that, I was every day on the brink of
+ruining my own soul--and another's. The first, the only woman I ever
+loved before I saw you, Laura, I loved in defiance of all law--God's or
+man's. If she had struggled one heartbeat less, if God had let me wander
+one hair's breadth further from His hand, we had both made
+shipwreck--hopeless, eternal shipwreck. Laura, my little Laura, am I
+hurting you so?"
+
+She gave a little sob, and mutely, with shut eyes, she raised her face
+towards him. He stooped and very tenderly and gravely kissed her cheek.
+
+"But God's mercy did not fail!" he said or rather murmured. "At the last
+moment that woman--God rest her soul!--God bless her for ever!----"
+
+He took off his hat, and bent forward silently for a moment.
+
+--"She died, Laura, more than ten years ago!--At the last moment she
+saved both herself and me. She sent for one of my old Jesuit masters at
+Stonyhurst, a man who had been a great friend of Father Lewin's and
+happened to be at that moment in Brussels. He came. He brought me her
+last farewell, and he asked me to go back with him that evening to join a
+retreat that he was holding in one of the houses of the order near
+Brussels. I went in a sullen state, stunned and for the moment
+submissive.
+
+"But the retreat was agony. I could take part in nothing. I neglected the
+prescribed hours and duties; it was as though my mind could not take them
+in, and I soon saw that I was disturbing others.
+
+"One evening--I was by myself in the garden at recreation hour--the
+father who was holding the retreat came up to me, and sternly asked me to
+withdraw at once. I looked at him. 'Will you give me one more day?' I
+said. He agreed. He seemed touched. I must have appeared to him a
+miserable creature.
+
+"Next day this same father was conducting a meditation--on 'the
+condescension of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.' I was kneeling, half
+stupefied, when I heard him tell a story of the Curé d'Ars. After the
+procession of Corpus Christi, which was very long and fatiguing, someone
+pressed the Curé to take food. 'I want nothing,' he said. 'How could I be
+tired? I was bearing Him who bears me!' 'My brothers,' said Father
+Stuart, turning to the altar, 'the Lord who bore the sin of the whole
+world on the Cross, who opens the arms of His mercy now to each separate
+sinful soul, is _there_. He beseeches you by me, "Choose, My children,
+between the world and Me, between sin and Me, between Hell and Me. Your
+souls are Mine: I bought them with anguish and tears. Why will ye now
+hold them back from Me--wherefore will ye die?"'
+
+"My whole being seemed to be shaken by these words. But I instantly
+thought of Marie. I said to myself, 'She is alone--perhaps in despair.
+How can I save myself, wretched tempter and coward that I am, and leave
+her in remorse and grief?' And then it seemed to me as though a Voice
+came from the altar itself, so sweet and penetrating that it overpowered
+the voice of the preacher and the movements of my companions. I heard
+nothing in the chapel but It alone. 'She is saved!' It said--and again
+and again, as though in joy, 'She is saved--saved!'
+
+"That night I crept to the foot of the crucifix in my little cell.
+'_Elegi, elegi: renuntio!_'--I have chosen: I renounce.' All night long
+those alternate words seemed to be wrung from me."
+
+There was deep silence. Helbeck knelt on the grass beside Laura and took
+her hands afresh.
+
+"Laura, since that night I have been my Lord's. It seemed to me that He
+had come Himself--come from His cross--to raise two souls from the depths
+of Hell. Marie went into a convent, and died in peace and blessedness; I
+came home here, to do my duty if I could--and save my soul. That seems to
+you a mere selfish bargain with God--an 'egotism'--that you hate. But
+look at the root of it. Is the world under sin--and has a God died for
+it? All my nature--my intellect, my heart, my will, answer 'Yes.' But if
+a God died, and must die--cruelly, hideously, at the hands of His
+creatures--to satisfy eternal justice, what must that sin be that demands
+the Crucifixion? Of what revolt, what ruin is not the body capable? I
+knew--for I had gone down into the depths. Is any chastisement too heavy,
+any restraint too harsh, if it keep us from the sin for which our Lord
+must die? And if He died, are we not His from the first moment of our
+birth--His first of all? Is it a selfish bargain to yield Him what He
+purchased at such a cost, to take care that our just debt to Him is
+paid--so far as our miserable humanity can pay it. All these
+mortifications, and penances, and self-denials that you hate so, that
+make the saints so odious in your eyes, spring from two great facts--Sin
+and the Crucifixion. But, Laura, are they _true_?"
+
+He spoke in a low, calm voice, yet Laura knew well that his life was
+poured into each word. She herself did not, could not, speak. But it
+seemed to her strangely that some spring within her was broken--some
+great decision had been taken, by whom she could not tell.
+
+He looked with alarm at her pallor and silence.
+
+"Laura, those are the hard and awful--to us Catholics, the
+majestic--facts on which our religion stands. Accept them, and nothing
+else is really difficult. Miracles, the protection of the saints, the
+mysteries of the sacraments, the place that Catholics give to Our Lady,
+the support of an infallible Church--what so easy and natural if _these_
+be true?... Sin and its Divine Victim, penance, regulation of life,
+death, judgment--Catholic thought moves perpetually from one of these
+ideas to another. As to many other thoughts and beliefs, it is free to us
+as to other men to take or leave, to think or not to think. The Church,
+like a tender mother, offers to her children an innumerable variety of
+holy aids, consolations, encouragements. These may or may not be of
+faith. The Crucifix _is_ the Catholic Faith. In that the Catholic sees
+the Love that brought a God to die, the Sin that infects his own soul. To
+requite that love, to purge that sin there lies the whole task of the
+Catholic life."
+
+He broke off again, anxiously studying the drooping face so near to him.
+Then gently he put his arm round her, and drew her to him till her brow
+rested against his shoulder.
+
+"Laura, does it seem very hard--very awful--to you?"
+
+She moved imperceptibly, but she did not speak.
+
+"It may well. The way _is_ strait! But, Laura, you see it from without--I
+from within. Won't you take my word for the sweetness, the reward, and
+the mercifulness of God's dealings with our souls?" He drew a long
+agitated breath. "Take my own case--take our love. You remember, Laura,
+when you sat here on Easter Sunday? I came from Communion and I found you
+here. You disliked and despised my faith and me. But as you sat here, I
+loved you--my eyes were first opened. The night of the dance, when you
+went upstairs, I took my own heart and offered it. You did not love me
+then: how could I dream you ever would? The sacrifice was mine; I tried
+to yield it. But it was not His will. I made my struggle--you made yours.
+He drew us to each other. Then----"
+
+He faltered, looked down upon her in doubt.
+
+"Since then, Laura, so many strange things have happened! Who was I that
+I should teach anybody? I shrank from laying the smallest touch on your
+freedom. I thought, 'Gradually, of her own will, she will come nearer.
+The Truth will plead for itself.' My duty is to trust, and wait. But,
+Laura, what have I seen in you? Not indifference--not contempt--never!
+But a long storm, a trouble, a conflict, that has filled me with
+confusion--overthrown all my own hopes and plans. Laura, my love, my
+sweet, why does our Faith hurt you so much if it means nothing to you? Is
+there not already some tenderness"--his voice dropped--"behind the scorn?
+Could it torment you if--if it had not gained some footing in your heart?
+Laura, speak to me!"
+
+She slowly drew away from him. Gently she shook her head. Her eyes were
+full of tears.
+
+But the strange look of power--almost of triumph--on Helbeck's face
+remained unaltered. She shrank before it.
+
+"Laura, you don't know yourself! But no matter! Only, will you forgive me
+if you feel a change in me? Till now I have shrunk from fighting you. It
+seemed to me that an ugly habit of words might easily grow up that would
+poison all our future. But now I feel in it something more than words. If
+you challenge, Laura, I shall meet it! If you strike, I shall return it."
+
+He took her hands once more. His bright eye looked for--demanded an
+answer. Her own personality, for all its daring, wavered and fainted
+before the attacking force of his.
+
+But Helbeck received no assurance of it. She showed none of that girlish
+yielding which would have been so natural and so delightful to her lover.
+Without any direct answer to his appeal or his threat, she lifted to him
+a look that was far from easy to read--a look of passionate sadness and
+of pure love. Her delicate face seemed to float towards him, and her lips
+breathed.
+
+"I was not worthy that you should tell me a word. But--" It was some time
+before she could go on. Then she said with sudden haste, the colour
+rushing back into her cheeks, "It is the most sacred honour that was ever
+done me. I thank--thank--thank you!"
+
+And with her eyes still fixed upon his countenance, and all those deep
+traces that the last half hour had left upon it, she raised his hand and
+pressed her soft quivering mouth upon it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Never had Helbeck been filled with such a tender and hopeful joy as in
+the hours that followed this scene between them. Father Leadham arrived
+in time for dinner. Laura treated him with a gentleness, even a
+sweetness, that from the first moment filled the Jesuit with a secret
+astonishment. She was very pale; her exhaustion was evident.
+
+But Helbeck silenced his sister; and he surrounded Laura with a devotion
+that had few words, that never made her conspicuous, and yet was more
+than she could bear.
+
+Augustina insisted on her going to bed early. Helbeck went upstairs with
+her to the first landing, to light her candle.
+
+Nothing stirred in the old house. Father Leadham and Augustina were in
+the drawing-room. They two stood alone among the shadows of the
+panelling, the solitary candle shining on her golden hair and white
+dress.
+
+"I have something to say to you, Laura," said Helbeck in a disturbed
+voice.
+
+She looked up.
+
+"I can't save the Romney, dear. I've tried my very best. Will you forgive
+me?"
+
+She smiled, and put her hand timidly on his shoulder.
+
+"Ask her, rather! I know you tried. Good-night."
+
+And then suddenly, to his astonishment, she threw both her arms round his
+neck, and, like a child that nestles to another in penitence or for
+protection, she kissed his breast passionately, repeatedly.
+
+"Laura, this can't be borne! Look up, beloved! Why should my coat be so
+blessed?" he said, half laughing, yet deeply moved, as he bent above her.
+
+She disengaged herself, and, as she mounted the stairs, she waved her
+hand to him. As she passed out of his sight she was a vision of
+gentleness. The woman had suddenly blossomed from the girl. When Helbeck
+descended the stairs after she had vanished, his heart beat with a
+happiness he had never yet known.
+
+And she, when she reached her own room, she let her arms drop rigidly by
+her side. "It would be a crime--a _crime_--to marry him," she said, with
+a dull resolve that was beyond weeping.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Helbeck and Father Leadham sat long together after Augustina had retired.
+There was an argument between them in which the Jesuit at last won the
+victory. Helbeck was persuaded to a certain course against his
+judgment--to some extent against his conscience.
+
+Next morning the Squire left Bannisdale early. He was to be away two days
+on important business. Before he left he reluctantly told his sister that
+the Romney would probably be removed before his return, by the dealer to
+whom it had been sold. Laura did not appear at breakfast, and Helbeck
+left a written word of farewell, that Augustina delivered.
+
+Meantime Father Leadham remained as the guest of the ladies. In the
+afternoon he joined Miss Fountain in the garden, and they walked up and
+down the bowling-green for some time together. Augustina, in the deep
+window of the drawing-room, was excitedly aware of the fact.
+
+When the two companions came in, Father Leadham after a time rejoined
+Mrs. Fountain. She looked at him with eagerness. But his fine and
+scholarly face was more discomposed than she had ever seen it. And the
+few words that he said to her were more than enough.
+
+Laura meanwhile went to her own room, and shut herself up there. Her
+cheeks were glowing, her eyes angry. "He promised me!" she said, as she
+sat down to her writing-table.
+
+But she could not stay there. She got up and walked restlessly about the
+room. After half an hour's fruitless conversation, Father Leadham had
+been betrayed into an expression--hardly that--a shade of expression,
+which had set the girl's nature aflame. What it meant was, "So this--is
+your answer--to the chivalry of Mr. Helbeck's behaviour--to the delicacy
+which could go to such lengths in protecting a young lady from her own
+folly?" The meaning was conveyed by a look--an inflection--hardly a
+phrase. But Laura understood it perfectly; and when Father Leadham
+returned to Mrs. Fountain he guiltily knew what he had done, and, being a
+man in general of great tact and finesse, he hardly knew whom to blame
+most, himself, or the girl who had imperceptibly and yet deeply provoked
+him.
+
+That evening Laura told her stepmother that she must go up to London the
+following day, by the early afternoon train, on some shopping business,
+and would stay the night with her friend Molly Friedland. Augustina
+fretfully acquiesced; and the evening was spent by Mrs. Fountain at any
+rate, in trying to console herself by much broken talk of frocks and
+winter fashions, while Laura gave occasional answers, and Father Leadham
+on a distant sofa buried himself in the "Tablet."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Gone!"
+
+The word was Laura's. She had been busy in her room, and had come
+hurriedly downstairs to fetch her work-bag from the drawing-room. As she
+crossed the threshold, she saw that the picture had been taken down.
+Indeed, the van containing it was just driving through the park.
+
+White and faltering, the girl came up to the wall whence the beautiful
+lady had just been removed, and leant her head against it. She raised her
+hand to her eyes. "Good-bye," said the inner sense--"Good-bye!" And the
+strange link which from the first moment almost had seemed to exist
+between that radiant daughter of Bannisdale and herself snapped and fell
+away, carrying how much else with it!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About an hour before Laura's departure there was a loud knock at her
+door, and Mrs. Denton appeared. The woman was pale with rage. Mrs.
+Fountain, in much trepidation, had just given her notice, and the
+housekeeper had not been slow to guess, from what quarter the blow had
+fallen.
+
+Laura turned round bewildered. But she was too late to stop the outbreak.
+In the course of five minutes' violent speech Mrs. Denton wiped out the
+grievances of six months; she hurled the gossip of a country-side on
+Laura's head; and in her own opinion she finally avenged the cause of the
+Church and of female decorum upon the little infidel adventuress that had
+stolen away the wits and conscience of the Squire.
+
+Miss Fountain, after' a first impatient murmur, "I might have
+remembered!"--stood without a word, with eyes cast down, and a little
+scornful smile on her colourless lips. When at last she had shut the door
+on her assailant, a great quivering sigh rose from the girl's breast. Was
+it the last touch? But she said nothing. She brushed away a tear that had
+unconsciously risen, and went back to her packing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Just wait a moment!" said Miss Fountain to old Wilson, who was driving
+her across the bridge on her way to the station. "I want to get a bunch
+of those berries by the water. Take the pony up the hill. I'll join you
+at the top."
+
+Old Wilson drove on. Laura climbed a stile and slipped down to the
+waterside.
+
+The river, full with autumn rain, came foaming down. The leaf was falling
+fast. Through the woods on the further bank she could just distinguish a
+gable of the old house.
+
+A moan broke from her. She stooped and buried her face in the grass--his
+grass.
+
+When she returned to the road, she looked for the letter-box in the wall
+of the bridge, and, walking up to it, she dropped into it two letters.
+Then she stood a moment with bent brows. Had she made all arrangements
+for Augustina?
+
+But she dared not let herself think of the morrow. She set her face to
+the hill--trudging steadily up the wet, solitary road. Once--twice--she
+turned to look. Then the high trees that arched over the top of the hill
+received the little form; she disappeared into their shadow.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK V
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"My dear, where are the girls?"
+
+The speaker was Dr. Friedland, the only intimate friend Stephen Fountain
+had ever made at Cambridge. The person addressed was Dr. Friedland's
+wife.
+
+On hearing her husband's question, that lady's gentle and benevolent
+countenance emerged from the folds of a newspaper. It was the "first mild
+day of March," and she and her husband had been enjoying an
+after-breakfast chat in the garden of a Cambridge villa.
+
+"Molly is arranging the flowers; Laura has had a long letter from Mrs.
+Fountain, and is now, I believe, gone to answer it."
+
+"Then I shan't enjoy my lunch," said Dr. Friedland pensively.
+
+He was an elderly gentleman, with a short beard and moustache turning to
+white, particularly black eyes, and a handsome brow. His wife had put a
+rug over his shoulders, and another over his knees, before she allowed
+him the "Times" and a cigarette. Amid the ample folds of these draperies,
+he had a Jove-like and benignant air.
+
+His wife inquired what difference Miss Fountain's correspondence would or
+could make to her host's luncheon.
+
+"Because she won't eat any," said the doctor, with a sigh, "and I find it
+infectious."
+
+Mrs. Friedland laid down her newspaper.
+
+"There is no doubt she is worried--about Mrs. Fountain."
+
+"_E tutti quanti_" said the doctor, humming a tune. "My dear, it is
+surprising what an admiration I find myself possessed of for Sir John
+Pringle."
+
+"Sir John Pringle?" said the lady, in bewilderment.
+
+"Bozzy, my dear--the great Bozzy--amid the experiments of his youth,
+turned Catholic. His distracted relations deputed Sir John Pringle to
+deal with him. That great lawyer pointed out the worldly disadvantages of
+the step. Bozzy pleaded his immortal soul. Whereupon Sir John observed
+with warmth that anyone possessing a particle of gentlemanly spirit would
+sooner be damned to all eternity than give his relations so much trouble
+as Bozzy was giving his!"
+
+"The application is not clear," said Mrs. Friedland.
+
+"No," said the doctor, stretching his legs and puffing at his cigarette;
+"but when you speak of Laura, and tell me she is writing to Bannisdale, I
+find a comfort in Sir John Pringle."
+
+"It would be more to the purpose if Laura did!" exclaimed Mrs. Friedland.
+
+The doctor shook his head, and fell into a reverie. Presently he asked:
+
+"You think Mrs. Fountain is really worse?"
+
+"Laura is sure of it. And the difficulty is, what is she to do? If she
+goes to Bannisdale, she exiles Mr. Helbeck. Yet, if his sister is really
+in danger, Mr. Helbeck naturally will desire to be at home."
+
+"And they can't meet?"
+
+"Under the same roof--and the old conditions? Heaven forbid!" said Mrs.
+Friedland.
+
+"Risk it!" said the doctor, violently slapping his fist on the little
+garden table that held his box of cigarettes.
+
+"John!"
+
+"My dear--don't be a hypocrite! You and I know well enough what's wrong
+with that child."
+
+"Perhaps." The lady's eyes filled with tears. "But you forget that by all
+accounts Mr. Helbeck is an altered man. From something Laura said to
+Molly last week, it seems that Mrs. Fountain even is now quite afraid of
+him--as she used to be."
+
+"If she would only die--good lady!--her brother might go to his own
+place," said the doctor impatiently.
+
+"To the Jesuits?"
+
+The doctor nodded.
+
+"Did he actually tell you that was his intention?"
+
+"No. But I guessed. And that Trinity man Leadham, who went over, gave me
+to understand the other day what the end would probably be. But not while
+his sister lives."
+
+"I should hope not!" said Mrs. Friedland.
+
+After a pause, she turned to her husband.
+
+"John! you know you liked him!"
+
+"If you mean by that, my dear, that I showed a deplorable weakness in
+dealing with him, my conscience supports you!" said the doctor; "but I
+would have you remember that for a person of my quiet habits, to have a
+gentleman pale as death in your study, demanding his lady-love--you
+knowing all the time that the lady-love is upstairs--and only one elderly
+man between them--is an agitating situation."
+
+"Poor Laura!--poor Mr. Helbeck!" murmured Mrs. Friedland. The agony of
+the man, the resolution of the girl, stood out sharply from the medley of
+the past.
+
+"All very well, my dear--all very well. But you showed a pusillanimity on
+that occasion that I scorn to qualify. You were afraid of that
+child--positively afraid of her. I could have dealt with her in a
+twinkling, if you'd left her to me."
+
+"What would you have said to her?" inquired Mrs. Friedland gently.
+
+"How can there be any possible doubt what I should have said to her?"
+said the doctor, slapping his knee. "'My dear, you love him--_ergo_,
+marry him!' That first and foremost. 'And as to those other trifles, what
+have you to do with them? Look over them--look round them! Rise, my dear,
+to your proper dignity and destiny--have a right and natural pride--in
+the rock that bore you! You, a child of the Greater Church--of an
+Authority of which all other authorities are the mere caricature--why all
+this humiliation, these misgivings--this turmoil? Take a serener--take a
+loftier view!' Ah! if I could evoke Fountain for one hour!"
+
+The doctor bent forward, his hands hanging over his knees, his lips
+moving without sound, under the sentences his brain was forming. This
+habit of silent rhetoric represented a curious compromise between a
+natural impetuosity of temperament, and the caution of scientific
+research. His wife watched him with a loving, half-amused eye.
+
+"And what, pray, could Mr. Fountain do, John, but make matters ten times
+worse?"
+
+"Do!--who wants him to do anything? But ten years ago he might have done
+something. Listen to me, Jane!" He seized his wife's arm. "He makes Laura
+a child of Knowledge, a child of Freedom, a child of Revolution--without
+an ounce of training to fit her for the part. It is like an heir--flung
+to the gypsies. Then you put her to the test--sorely--conspicuously. And
+she stands fast--she does not yield--it is not in her blood, scarcely in
+her power, to yield. But it is a blind instinct carried through at what a
+cost! You might have equipped and fortified her. You did neither. You
+trusted everything to the passionate loyalty of the woman. And it does
+not fail you. But----!"
+
+The doctor shook his head, long and slowly. Mrs. Friedland quietly
+replaced the rugs which had gone wandering, in the energy of these
+remarks.
+
+"You see, Jane, if it's true--'ne croit qui veut'--it's still more true,
+'ne doute qui veut!' To doubt--doubt wholesomely, cheerfully,
+fruitfully--why, my dear, there's no harder task in the world! And a
+woman, who thinks with her heart--who can't stand on her own feet as a
+man can--you remove her from all her normal shelters and supports--you
+expect her to fling a 'No!' in the face of half her natural friends--and
+then you are too indolent or too fastidious to train the poor child for
+her work!--Fountain took Laura out of her generation, and gave her
+nothing in return. Did he read with her--share his mind with her? Never!
+He was indolent;-she was wilful; so the thing slid. But all the time he
+made a partisan of her--he expected her to echo his hates and his
+prejudice--he stamped himself and his cause deep into her affections----
+
+"And then, my dear, she must needs fall in love with this man, this
+Catholic! Catholicism at its best--worse luck! No mean or puerile type,
+with all its fetishisms and unreasons on its head--no!--a type sprung
+from the finest English blood, disciplined by heroic memories, by the
+persecution and hardships of the Penal Laws. What happens? Why, of course
+the girl's imagination goes over! Her father in her--her
+temperament--stand in the way of anything more. But where is she to look
+for self-respect, for peace of mind? She feels herself an infidel--a
+moral outcast. She trembles before the claims of this great visible
+system. Her reason refuses them--but why? She cannot tell. For Heaven's
+sake, why do we leave our children's minds empty like this? If you
+believe, my good friend, Educate! And if you doubt, still more--Educate!
+Educate!"
+
+The doctor rose in his might, tossed his rugs from him, and began to pace
+a sheltered path, leaning on his wife's arm.
+
+Mrs. Friedland looked at him slyly, and laughed.
+
+"So if Laura had been learned, she might have been happy?--John!--what a
+paradox!"
+
+"Not mine then!--but the Almighty's--who seems to have included a mind in
+this odd bundle that makes up Laura. What! You set a woman to fight for
+ideas, and then deny her all knowledge of what they mean. Happy! Of
+course she might have been happy. She might have made her Catholic
+respect her. He offered her terms--she might have accepted them with a
+free and equal mind. There would have been none, anyway, of this _moral
+doubt_--this bogeyfication of things she don't understand! Ah! here she
+comes. Now just look at her, Jane! What's your housekeeping after? She's
+lost half a stone this month if she's lost an ounce."
+
+And the doctor standing still peered discontentedly through his
+spectacles at the advancing figure.
+
+Laura approached slowly, with her hands behind her, looking on her way at
+the daffodils and tulips just opening in the garden border.
+
+"Pater!--Molly says you and Mater are to come in. It's March and not May,
+you'll please to remember."
+
+She came up to them with the airs of a daughter, put a flower in Mrs.
+Friedland's dress--ran for one of the discarded rugs, and draped it again
+round the doctor's ample shoulders. Her manner to the two elderly folk
+was much softer and freer than it had ever been in the days of her old
+acquaintance with them. A wistful gratitude played through it, revealing
+a new Laura--a Laura that had passed, in these five months through deep
+waters, and had been forced, in spite of pride, to throw herself upon the
+friendly and saving hands held out to her.
+
+They on their side looked at her with a tender concern, which tried to
+disguise itself in chat. The doctor hooked his arm through hers, and made
+her examine the garden.
+
+"Look at these Lent lilies, Miss Laura. They will be out in two days at
+most."
+
+Laura bent over them, then suddenly drew herself erect. The doctor felt
+the stiffening of the little arm.
+
+"I suppose you had sheets of them in the north," he said innocently, as
+he poked a stone away from the head of an emerging hyacinth.
+
+"Yes--a great many." She looked absently straight before her, taking no
+more notice of the flowers.
+
+"Well--and Mrs. Fountain? Are you really anxious?"
+
+The girl hesitated.
+
+"She is ill--quite ill. I ought to see her somehow."
+
+"Well, my dear, go!" He looked round upon her with a cheerful decision.
+
+"No--that isn't possible," she said quietly. "But I might stay somewhere
+near. She must have lost a great deal of strength since Christmas."
+
+At Christmas and for some time afterwards, she and Mrs. Fountain had been
+at St. Leonard's together. In fact, it was little more than a fortnight
+since Laura had parted from her stepmother, who had shown a piteous
+unwillingness to go back alone to Bannisdale.
+
+The garden door opened and shut; a white-capped servant came along the
+path. A gentleman--for Miss Fountain.
+
+"For me?" The girl's cheek flushed involuntarily. "Why, Pater--who is
+it?"
+
+For behind the servant came the gentleman--a tall and comely youth, with
+narrow blue eyes, a square chin, and a very conscious smile. He was well
+dressed in a dark serge suit, and showed a great deal of white cuff, and
+a conspicuous watch-chain, as he took off his hat.
+
+"Hubert!"
+
+Laura advanced to him, with a face of astonishment, and held out her
+hand.
+
+Mason greeted her with a mixture of confusion and assurance, glancing
+behind her at the Friedlands all the time. "Well, I was here on some
+business--and I thought I'd look you up, don't you know?"
+
+"My cousin, Hubert Mason," said Laura, turning to the old people.
+
+Friedland lifted his wide-awake. Mrs. Friedland, whose gentle face could
+be all criticism, eyed him quietly, and shook hands perfunctorily. A few
+nothings passed on the weather and the spring. Suddenly Mason said:
+
+"Would you take a walk with me, Miss Laura?"
+
+After a momentary hesitation, she assented, and went into the house for
+her walking things. Mason hurriedly approached the doctor.
+
+"Why, she looks--she looks as if you could blow her away!" he cried,
+staring into the doctor's face, while his own flushed.
+
+"Miss Fountain's health has not been strong this winter," said the doctor
+gravely, his spectacled eyes travelling up and down Mason's tall figure.
+"You, I suppose, became acquainted with her in Westmoreland?"
+
+"Acquainted with her!" The young man checked himself, flushed still
+redder, then resumed. "Well, we're cousins, you see--though of course I
+don't mean to say that we're her sort--you understand?"
+
+"Miss Fountain is ready," said Mrs. Friedland.
+
+Mason looked round, saw the little figure in the doorway, and hastily
+saluting the Friedlands, took his leave.
+
+"My dear," said the doctor anxiously, laying hold on his wife's arm,
+"should we have asked him to lunch?"
+
+His wife smiled.
+
+"By no means. That's Laura's business."
+
+"Well, but, Jane--Jane! had you realised that young man?"
+
+"Oh dear, yes," said Mrs. Friedland. "Don't excite yourself, John."
+
+"Laura--gone out with a young man," said the doctor, musing. "I have been
+waiting for that all the winter--and he's extremely good-looking, Jane."
+
+Mrs. Friedland lost patience.
+
+"John! I really can't talk to you, if you're as dense as that."
+
+"Talk to me!" cried the doctor--"why, you unreasonable woman, you haven't
+vouchsafed me a single word!"
+
+"Well, and why should I?" said Mrs. Friedland provokingly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Half an hour passed away. Mason and Laura were sitting in the garden of
+Trinity.
+
+Up till now, Laura had no very clear idea of what they had been talking
+about. Mason, it appeared, had been granted three days' holiday by his
+employers, and had made use of it to come to Cambridge and present a
+letter of introduction from his old teacher, Castle, the Whinthorpe
+organist, to a famous Cambridge musician. But, at first, he was far more
+anxious to discuss Laura's affairs than to explain his own; and Laura had
+found it no easy matter to keep him at arm's length. For nine months,
+Mason had brooded, gossiped, and excused himself; now, conscious of being
+somehow a fine fellow again, he had come boldly to play the
+cousin--perhaps something more. He offered now a few words of stammering
+apology on the subject of his letter to Laura after the announcement of
+her engagement. She received them in silence; and the matter dropped.
+
+As to his moral recovery, and material prospects, his manners and
+appearance were enough. A fledgeling ambition, conscious of new aims and
+chances, revealed itself in all he said. The turbid elements in the
+character were settling down; the permanent lines of it, strong, vulgar,
+self-complacent, emerged.
+
+Here, indeed, was a successful man in the making. Once or twice the
+girl's beautiful eyes opened suddenly, and then sank again. Before her
+rose the rocky chasm of the Greet; the sound of the water was in her
+ears--the boyish tones of remorse, of entreaty.
+
+"And you know I'll make some money out of my songs before long--see if I
+don't! I took some of em to the Professor this morning--and, my word,
+didn't he like em! Why, I couldn't repeat the things he said--you'd think
+I was bluffing!"
+
+Strange gift!--"settling unaware"--on this rude nature and poor
+intelligence! But Laura looked up eagerly. Here she softened; here was
+the bridge between them. And when he spoke of his new friend, the young
+musical apostle who had reclaimed him, there was a note which pleased
+her. She began to smile upon him more freely; the sadness of her little
+face grew sweet.
+
+And suddenly the young man stopped and looked at her. He reddened; and
+she flushed too, not knowing why.
+
+"Well, that's where 'tis," he said, moving towards her on the seat. "I'm
+going to get on. I told you I was, long ago, and it's come true. My
+salary'll be a decent figure before this year's out, and I'm certain I'll
+make something out of the songs. Then there's my share of the farm.
+Mother don't give me more than she's obliged; but it's a tidy bit
+sometimes. Laura!--look here!--I know there's nothing in the way now. You
+were a plucky girl, you were, to throw that up. I always said so--I
+didn't care what people thought. Well, but now--you're free--and I'm a
+better sort--won't you give a fellow a chance?"
+
+Midway, his new self-confidence left him. She sat there so silent, so
+delicately white! He had but to put out his hand to grasp her; and he
+dared, not move a finger. He stared at her, breathless and open-mouthed.
+
+But she did not take it tragically at all. After a moment, she began to
+laugh, and shook her head.
+
+"Do you mean that you want me to marry you, Hubert? Oh! you'd so soon be
+tired of that!--You don't know anything about me, really--we shouldn't
+suit each other at all."
+
+His face fell. He drew sullenly away from her, and bending forward, began
+to poke at the grass with his stick.
+
+"I see how 'tis. I'm not good enough for you--and I don't suppose I ever
+shall be."
+
+She looked at him with a smiling compassion.
+
+"I'm not in love with you, Mr. Hubert--that's all."
+
+"No--you've never got over them things that happened up at Whinthorpe,"
+he said roughly. "I've got a bone to pick with you though. Why did you
+give me the slip that night?"
+
+He looked up. But in spite of his bravado, he reddened again, deeply.
+
+"Well--you hadn't exactly commended yourself as an escort, had you?" she
+said lightly. But her tone pricked.
+
+"I hadn't had a drop of anything," he declared hotly; "and I'd have
+looked after you, and stopped a deal of gossip. You hurt my feelings
+pretty badly. I can tell you."
+
+"Did I?--Well, as you hurt mine on the first occasion, let's cry quits."
+
+He was silent for a little, throwing furtive glances at her from time to
+time. She was wonderfully thin and fragile, but wonderfully pretty, as
+she sat there under the cedar.
+
+At last he said, with a grumbling note:
+
+"I wish you wouldn't look so thin and dowie-like, as we say up at
+home--you've no cause to fret, I'm sure."
+
+The temper of twenty-one gave way. Laura sat up--nay, rose.
+
+"Will you please come and look at the sights?--or shall I go home?"
+
+He looked up at her flashing face, and stuck to his seat.
+
+"I say--Miss Laura--you don't know how you bowl a fellow over!"
+
+The expression of his handsome countenance--so childish still through all
+its athlete's force--propitiated her. And yet she felt instinctively that
+his fancy for her no longer went so deep as it had once done.
+
+Well!--she was glad; of course she was glad.
+
+"Oh! you're not so very much to be pitied," she said; but her hand
+lighted a moment kindly and shyly on the young man's arm. "Now, if you
+wouldn't talk about these things, Hubert--do you know what I should be
+doing?--I should be asking you to do me a service."
+
+His manner changed--became businesslike and mannish at once.
+
+"Then you'll please sit down again--and tell me what it is," he said.
+
+She obeyed. He crossed his knees, and listened.
+
+But she had some difficulty in putting it. At last she said, looking away
+from him:
+
+"Do you think, if I proposed it, your mother could bear to have me on a
+visit to the farm?"
+
+"Mother!--you!" he said in astonishment. A hundred notions blazed up in
+his mind. What on earth did she want to be in those parts again for?
+
+"My stepmother is very unwell," she said hurriedly. "It--well, it
+troubles me not to see her. But I can't go to Bannisdale. If your mother
+doesn't hate me now, as she did last summer--perhaps--she and Polly would
+take me in for a while?"
+
+He frowned over it--taking the airs of the relative and the counsellor.
+
+"Mother didn't say much--well--about your affair. But Polly says she's
+never spoken again you since. But I expect--you know what she'd be afraid
+of?"
+
+He nodded sagaciously.
+
+"I can't imagine," said Laura, instantly. But the stiffening of her
+slight frame betrayed her.
+
+"Why, of course--Miss Laura--you see she'd be afraid of its coming on
+again."
+
+There was silence. The broad rim of Laura's velvet hat hid her face.
+Hubert began to be uncomfortable.
+
+"I don't say as she'd have cause to," he said slowly; "but----"
+
+Laura suddenly laughed, and Mason opened his eyes in astonishment. Such a
+strange little dry sound!
+
+"Of course, if your mother were to think such things and to say them to
+me--every time I went to Bannisdale, I couldn't stay. But I want to see
+Augustina very, _very_ much." Her voice wavered. "And I could easily go
+to her--if I were close by--when she was alone. And of course I should be
+no expense. Your mother knows I have my own money."
+
+Hubert nodded. He was trying hard to read her face, but--what the deuce
+made girls so close? His countenance brightened however.
+
+"All right. I'll see to it--I'll manage it--you wait."
+
+"Ah! but stop a minute." Her smile shone out from the shadow of the hat.
+"If I go there's a condition. While I'm there, you mustn't come."
+
+The young fellow flung away from her with a passionate exclamation, and
+her smile dropped--lost itself in a sweet distress, unlike the old wild
+Laura.
+
+"I seem to be falling out with you all the time," she said in haste--"and
+I don't want to a bit! But indeed--it will be much better. You see, if
+you were to be coming over to pay visits to me--you would think it your
+duty to make love to me!"
+
+"Well--and if I did?" he said fiercely.
+
+"It would only put off the time of our making real friends. And--and--I
+do care very much for papa's people."
+
+The tears leapt to her eyes for the first time. She held out her ungloved
+hand.
+
+Reluctantly, and without looking at her, he took it. The touch of it
+roused a tempest in him. He crushed it and threw it away from him.
+
+"Oh! if you'd never seen that man!" he groaned.
+
+She got up without a word, and presently they were walking through the
+"backs," and she was gradually taming and appeasing him. By the time they
+reached the street gate of King's he was again in the full tide of
+musical talk and boasting, quite aware besides that his good looks and
+his magnificent physique drew the attention of the passers-by.
+
+"Why, they're a poor lot--these 'Varsity men!" he said once
+contemptuously, as they passed a group of rather weedy undergraduates--"I
+could throw ten of em at one go!"
+
+And perpetually he talked of money, the cost of his lodgings, of his
+railway fare, the swindling ways of the south. After all, the painful
+habits of generations had not run to waste; the mother began to show in
+the son.
+
+In the street they parted. As he was saying good-bye to her, his look
+suddenly changed.
+
+"I say!--that's the girl I travelled down with yesterday! And, by Jove!
+she knew me!"
+
+And with a last nod to Laura, he darted after a tall woman who had thrown
+him a glance from the further pavement. Laura recognised the smart and
+buxom daughter of a Cambridge tradesman, a young lady whose hair,
+shoulders, millinery, and repartees were all equally pronounced.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Fountain smiled, and turned away. But in the act of doing so, she
+came to a sudden stop. A face had arrested her--she stood bewildered.
+
+A man walking in the road came towards her.
+
+"I see that you recognise me, Miss Fountain!"
+
+The ambiguous voice--the dark, delicate face--the clumsy gait--she knew
+them all. But--she stared in utter astonishment. The man who addressed
+her wore a short round coat and soft hat; a new beard covered his chin;
+his flannel shirt was loosely tied at the throat by a silk handkerchief.
+And over all the same air of personal slovenliness and ill-breeding.
+
+"You didn't expect to see me in this dress, Miss Fountain? Let me walk a
+few steps with you, if I may. You perhaps hadn't heard that I had left
+the Jesuits--and ceased indeed to be a Catholic."
+
+Her mind whirled, as she recognised the scholastic. She saw the study at
+Bannisdale--and Helbeck bending over her.
+
+"No, indeed--I had not heard," she stammered, as they walked on. "Was it
+long ago?"
+
+"Only a couple of months. The crisis came in January----"
+
+And he broke out into a flood of autobiography. Already at Bannisdale he
+had been in confusion of mind--the voices of art and liberty calling to
+him each hour more loudly--his loyalty to Helbeck, to his boyish ideals,
+to his Jesuit training, holding him back.
+
+"I believe, Miss Fountain"--the colour rushed into his womanish
+cheek--"you overheard us that evening--you know what I owe to that
+admirable, that extraordinary man. May I be frank? We have both been
+through deep waters!"
+
+The girl's face grew rigid. Involuntarily she put a wider space between
+herself and him. But he did not notice.
+
+"It will be no news to you, Miss Fountain, that Mr. Helbeck's engagement
+troubled his Catholic friends. I chose to take it morbidly to heart--I
+ventured that--that most presumptuous attack upon him." He laughed, with
+an affected note that made her think him odious. "But you were soon
+avenged. You little know, Miss Fountain, what an influence your presence
+at Bannisdale had upon me. It--well! it was like a rebel army,
+perpetually there, to help--to support, the rebel in myself. I saw the
+struggle--the protest in you. My own grew fiercer. Oh! those days of
+painting!--and always the stabbing thought, never again! I must confess
+even the passionate delight this has given me--the irreligious ideas it
+has excited. All my religious habits lost power--I could not meditate--I
+was always thinking of the problem of my work. Clearly I must never
+touch, a brush again.--For I was very soon to take orders--then to go out
+to missionary work. Well, I put the painting aside--I trampled on
+myself--I went to see my father and sister, and rejoiced in the
+humiliations they put upon me. Mr. Helbeck was all kindness, but he was
+naturally the last person I could confide in. Then, Miss Fountain, I went
+back, back to the Jesuit routine----"
+
+He paused, looking instinctively for a glance from her. But she gave him
+none.
+
+"And in three weeks it broke down under me for ever. I gave it up. I am a
+free man. Of the wrench I say nothing." He drew himself up with a
+shudder, which seemed to her theatrical. "There are sufferings one must
+not talk of. The Society have not been ungenerous. They actually gave me
+a little money. But, of course, for all my Catholic friends it is like
+death. They know me no more."
+
+Then for the first time his companion turned towards him. Her eyelids
+lifted. Her lips framed rather than spoke the words, "Mr. Helbeck?"
+
+"Ah! Mr. Helbeck--I am not mistaken, Miss Fountain, in thinking that I
+may now speak of Mr. Helbeck with more freedom?"
+
+"My engagement with Mr. Helbeck is broken off," she said coldly. "But you
+were saying something of yourself?"
+
+A momentary expression of dislike and disappointment crossed his face. He
+was of a soft, sensuous temperament, and had expected a good deal of
+sympathy from Miss Fountain.
+
+"Mr. Helbeck has done what all of us might expect," he said, not without
+a betraying sharpness. "He has cast me off in the sternest way.
+Henceforth he knows me no more. Bannisdale is closed to me. But, indeed,
+the news from that quarter fills me with alarm."
+
+Laura looked up again eagerly, involuntarily.
+
+"Mr. Helbeck, by all accounts, grows more and more extreme--more and more
+solitary.--But of course your stepmother will have kept you informed. It
+was always to be foreseen. What was once a beautiful devotion, has
+become, with years--and, I suppose, opposition--a stern unbending
+passion--may not one say, a gloomy bigotry?"
+
+He sighed delicately. Through the girl's stormy sense there ran a dumb
+rush of thoughts--"Insolent! ungrateful! He wounds the heart that loved
+him--and then dares to discuss--to blame!"
+
+But before she could find something to say aloud, her companion resumed.
+
+"But I must not complain. I was honoured by a superior man's friendship.
+He has withdrawn it. He has the right.--Now I must look to the future.
+You will, I think, be glad to hear that I am not in that destitute
+condition which generally awaits the Catholic deserter. My prospects
+indeed seem to be secured."
+
+And with a vanity which did not escape her, he described the overtures
+that had been made to him by the editor of a periodical which was to
+represent "the new mystical school"--he spoke familiarly of great
+artists, and especially French ones, murdering the French names in a way
+that at once hurt the girl's ears, and pleased her secret spite against
+him--he threw in a critic or two without the Mr.--and he casually
+mentioned a few lords as persons on whom genius and necessity could rely.
+
+All this in a confidential and appealing tone, which he no doubt imagined
+to be most suitable to women, especially young women. Laura thought it
+impertinent and unbecoming, and longed to be rid of him. At last the
+turning to the Friedlands' house appeared. She stood still, and stiffly
+wished him good-bye.
+
+But he retained her hand and pressed it ardently.
+
+"Oh! Miss Fountain--we have both suffered!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The girl could hardly pacify herself enough to go in. Again and again she
+found a pleasure in those words of her French novel that she had repeated
+to Helbeck long ago: "_Imagination faussée et troublée--faussée et
+troublée_."
+
+No delicacy--no modesty--no compunction! Her own poor heart flew to
+Bannisdale. She thought of all that the Squire had suffered in this man's
+cause. Outrage--popular hatred--her own protests and petulances,--all met
+with so unbending a dignity, so inviolable a fidelity, both to his friend
+and to his Church! She recalled that scarred brow--that kind and
+brotherly affection--that passionate sympathy which had made the heir of
+one of the most ancient names in England the intimate counsellor and
+protector of the wheelwright's son.
+
+Popinjay!--renegade!--to come to her talking of "bigotry"--without a
+breath of true tenderness or natural remorse. Williams had done that
+which she had angrily maintained in that bygone debate with Helbeck he
+had every right to do. And she had nothing but condemnation. She walked
+up and down the shady road, her eyes blinded with tears. One more blow
+upon the heart that she herself had smitten so hard! Sympathy for this
+new pain took her back to every incident of the old--to every detail of
+that hideous week which had followed upon her flight.
+
+How had she lived through it? Those letters--that distant voice in Dr.
+Friedland's study--her own piteous craving----
+
+For the thousandth time, with the old dreary conviction, she said to
+herself that she had done right--terribly, incredibly right.
+
+But all the while, she seemed to be sitting beside him in his
+study--laying her cheek upon his hand--eagerly comforting him for this
+last sorrow. His inexorable breach with Williams--well! it was part of
+his character--she would not have it otherwise. All that had angered her
+as imagination, was now natural and dignified as reality. Her thoughts
+proudly defended it. Let him be rigorous towards others if he pleased--he
+had been first king and master of himself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next day Molly Friedland and Laura went to London for the day. Laura was
+taking music lessons, as one means of driving time a little quicker; and
+there was shopping to be done both for the household and for themselves.
+
+In the afternoon, as the girls were in Sloane Street together, Laura
+suddenly asked Molly to meet her in an hour at a friend's house, where
+they were to have tea. "I have something I want to do by myself." Molly
+asked no questions, and they parted.
+
+A few minutes later, Laura stepped into the church of the Brompton
+Oratory. It was a Saturday afternoon, and Benediction was about to begin.
+
+She drew down her thick veil, and took a seat near the door. The great
+heavy church was still nearly dark, save for a dim light in the
+sanctuary. But it was slowly filling with people, and she watched the
+congregation.
+
+In front of her was a stout and fashionably dressed young man with an
+eyeglass and stick--evidently a stranger. He sat stolid and motionless,
+one knee crossed over the other, scrutinising everything that went on as
+though he had been at the play. Presently, a great many men began to
+stream in, most of them bald and grey, but some young fellows, who
+dropped eagerly on their knees as they entered, and rose reluctantly.
+Nuns in black hoods and habits would come briskly up, kneel and say a
+prayer, then go out again. Or sometimes they brought schools--girls, two
+and two--and ranged them decorously for the service. An elderly man, of
+the workman class, appeared with his small son, and sat in front of
+Laura. The child played tricks; the man drew it tenderly within his arm,
+and kept it quiet, while he himself told his beads. Then a girl with wild
+eyes and touzled hair, probably Irish, with her baby in her arms, sat
+down at the end of Laura's seat, stared round her for a few minutes,
+dropped to the altar, and went away. And all the time smartly dressed
+ladies came and went incessantly, knelt at side altars, crossed
+themselves, said a few rapid prayers, or disappeared into the mysteries
+of side aisles behind screens and barriers--going no doubt to confession.
+
+There was an extraordinary life in it all. Here was no languid acceptance
+of a respectable habit. Something was eagerly wanted--diligently sought.
+
+Laura looked round her, with a sigh from her inmost heart. But the vast
+church seemed to her ugly and inhuman. She remembered a saying of her
+father's as to its "vicious Roman style"--the "tomb of the Italian mind."
+
+What matter?
+
+Ah!--Suddenly a dim surpliced figure in the distance, and lights
+springing like stars in the apse. Presently the high altar, in a soft
+glow, shone out upon the dark church. All was still silent; the sanctuary
+spoke in light.
+
+For a few minutes. Then this exquisite and magical effect broke up. The
+lighting spread through the church, became commonplace, showed the
+pompous lines of capital and cornice, the bad sculpture in the niches. A
+procession entered, and the service began.
+
+Laura dropped on her knees. But she was no longer in London, in the
+Oratory church. She was far away, in the chapel of an old northern house,
+where the walls glowed with strange figures, and a dark crucifix hovered
+austerely above the altar. She saw the small scattered congregation;
+Father Bowles's grey head and blanched, weak face; Augustina in her long
+widow's veil; the Squire in his corner. The same words were being said
+there now, at this same hour. She looked at her watch, then hid her eyes
+again, tortured with a sick yearning.
+
+But when she came out, twenty minutes later, her step was more alert. For
+a little while, she had been almost happy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night, after the returned travellers had finished their supper, the
+doctor was in a talking mood. He had an old friend with him a thinker and
+historian like himself. Both of them had lately come across "Leadham of
+Trinity"--the convert and Jesuit, who was now engaged upon an important
+Catholic memoir, and was settled for a time, within reach of Cambridge
+libraries.
+
+"You knew Father Leadham in the north, Miss Laura?" asked the doctor, as
+the girls came into the drawing-room.
+
+Laura started.
+
+"I saw him two or three times," she said, as she made her way to the warm
+but dark corner near the fire. "Is he in Cambridge?"
+
+The doctor nodded.
+
+"Come to embrace us all--breathing benediction on learning and on
+science! There has been a Catholic Congress somewhere."--He looked at his
+friend. "That will show us the way!"
+
+The friend--a small, lively-eyed, black-bearded man, just returned from
+some theological work in a German university--threw back his head and
+laughed good-humouredly.
+
+The talk turned on Catholic learning old and new; on the assumptions and
+limitations of it; on the forms taken by the most recent Catholic
+Apologetic; and so, like a vessel descending a great river, passed out at
+last, steered by Friedland, among the breakers of first principles.
+
+As a rule the doctor talked in paradox and ellipse. He threw his
+sentences into air, and let them find their feet as they could.
+
+But to-day, unconsciously, his talk took a tone that was rare with
+him--became prophetical, pontifical--assumed a note of unction. And
+often, as Molly noticed, with a slight instinctive gesture--a fatherly
+turning towards that golden spot made by Laura's hair among the shadows.
+
+His friend fell silent after a while--watching Friedland with small sharp
+eyes. He had come there to discuss a new edition of Sidonius
+Apollinaris,--was himself one of the driest and acutest of investigators.
+All this talk for babes seemed to him the merest waste of time.
+
+Friedland, however, with a curious feeling, let himself be carried away
+by it.
+
+A little Catholic manual of Church history had fallen into his hands that
+morning. His fingers played with it as it lay on the table, and with the
+pages of a magazine beside it that contained an article by Father
+Leadham.
+
+No doubt some common element in the two had roused him.----
+
+"The Catholic war with history," he said, "is perennial! History, in
+fact, is the great rationalist; and the Catholic conscience is
+scandalised by her. And so we have these pitiful little books--" he laid
+his hand on the volume beside him--"which simply expunge history, or make
+it afresh. And we have a piece of Jesuit _apologia_, like this paper of
+Leadham's--so charming, in a sense, so scholarly! And yet one feels
+through it a cry of the soul--the Catholic arraignment of history, that
+she is what she is!"
+
+"You'll find it in Newman--often," said the black-bearded man
+suddenly--and he ran through a list of passages, rapidly, in the
+student's way.
+
+"Ah! Newman!" said Friedland with vivacity. "This morning I read over
+that sermon of his he delivered to the Oscott Synod, after the
+re-establishment of the Hierarchy--you remember it, Dalton?--What a flow
+and thunder in the sentences!--what an elevation in the thought! Who
+would not rather lament with Newman, than exult with Froude?--But here
+again, it is history that is the rationalist--not we poor historians!
+
+"... Why was England lost to the Church? Because Henry was a
+villain?--because the Tudor bishops were slaves and poltroons? Does
+Leadham, or any other rational man really think so?"
+
+The little black man nodded. He did not think it worth while to speak.
+
+But Friedland went on enlarging, with his hand on his Molly's
+head--looking into her quiet eyes.
+
+"... The fact is, the Catholic, who is in love with his Church, _cannot_
+let himself realise truly what the Home of the Renaissance meant: But
+turn your back on all the Protestant crew--even on Erasmus. Ask only
+those Catholic witnesses who were at the fountain-head, who saw the truth
+face to face. And then--ponder a little, what it was that really happened
+in those forty-five years of Elizabeth....
+
+"Can Leadham, can anyone deny that the nation rose in them to the full
+stature of its manhood--to a buoyant and fruitful maturity? And more--if
+it had not been for some profound movement of the national life,--some
+irresistible revolt of the common intelligence, the common
+conscience--does anyone suppose that the whims and violences of any
+trumpery king could have broken the links with Rome?--that such a life
+and death as More's could have fallen barren on English hearts?
+Never!--How shallow are all the official explanations--how deep down lies
+the truth!"
+
+Out of the monologues that followed, broken often by the impatience or
+the eagerness of Dalton, Molly, at least, who worked much with her
+father, remembered fragments like the following:
+
+"... The figure of the Church,--spouse or captive, bride or martyr,--as
+she has become personified in Catholic imagination, is surely among the
+greatest, the most ravishing, of human conceptions. It ranks with the
+image of 'Jahve's Servant' in the poetry of Israel. And yet behind her,
+as she moves through history, the modern sees the rising of something
+more majestic still--the free human spirit, in its contact with the
+infinite sources of things!--the Jerusalem which is the mother of us
+all--the Greater, the Diviner Church.... Into her Ursula-robe all lesser
+forms are gathered. But she is not only a maternal, a generative
+power--she is chastisement and convulsion.
+
+"... Look back again to that great rising of the North against the South,
+that we call the Reformation.--Catholicism of course is saved with the
+rest.--One may almost say that Newman's own type is made possible--all
+that touches and charms us in English Catholics has its birth, because
+York, Canterbury, and Salisbury are lost to the Mass.
+
+"And abroad?--I always find a sombre fascination in the spectacle of the
+Tridentine reform. The Church in her stern repentance breaks all her
+toys, burns all her books! She shakes herself free from Guicciardini's
+'herd of wretches.' She shuts her gates on the knowledge and the freedom
+that have rent her--and within her strengthened walls she sits, pondering
+on judgment to come. In so far as her submission is incomplete, she is
+raising new reckonings against herself every hour.--But for the moment
+the moralising influence of the lay intelligence has saved her--a new
+strength flows through her old veins.
+
+"... And so with scholarship.--The great fabric of Gallican and
+Benedictine learning rises into being, under the hammer blows of a
+hostile research. The Catholics of Germany, says Renan, are particularly
+distinguished for acuteness and breadth of ideas. Why? Because of the
+'perpetual contact of Protestant criticism.'--
+
+"... More and more we shall come to see that it is the World that is the
+salt of the Church! She owes far more to her enemies than to any of her
+canonised saints. One may almost say that she lives on what the World can
+spare her of its virtues."
+
+Laura, in her dark corner, had almost disappeared from sight. Molly, the
+soft, round-faced, spectacled Molly, turned now and then from her friend
+to her father. She would give Friedland sometimes a gentle restraining
+touch--her lips shaped themselves, as though she said, "Take care!"
+
+And gradually Friedland fell upon things more intimate--the old topics of
+the relation between Catholicism and the will, Catholicism and
+conscience.
+
+"... I often think we should be the better for some chair of 'The Inner
+Life,' at an English University!" he said presently, with a smile at
+Molly.--"What does the ordinary Protestant know of all those treasures of
+spiritual experience which Catholicism has secreted for centuries?
+_There_ is the debt of debts that we all owe to the Catholic Church.
+
+"Well!--Some day, no doubt, we shall all be able to make a richer use of
+what she has so abundantly to give.--
+
+"At present what one sees going on in the modern world is a vast
+transformation of moral ideas, which for the moment holds the field.
+Beside the older ethical fabric--the fabric that the Church built up out
+of Greek and Jewish material--a new is rising. We think a hundred things
+unlawful that a Catholic permits; on the other hand, a hundred
+prohibitions of the older faith have lost their force. And at the same
+time, for half our race, the old terrors and eschatologies are no more.
+We fear evil for quite different reasons; we think of it in quite
+different ways. And the net result in the best moderns is at once a great
+elaboration of conscience--and an almost intoxicating sense of freedom.--
+
+"Here, no doubt, it is the _personal abjection_ of Catholicism,
+that jars upon us most--that divides it deepest from the modern
+spirit.--Molly!--don't frown!--Abjection is a Catholic word--essentially
+a Catholic temper. It means the ugliest and the loveliest things. It
+covers the most various types--from the nauseous hysteria of a Margaret
+Mary Alacoque, to the exquisite beauty of the _Imitation_.... And it
+derives its chief force, for good and evil, from the belief in the Mass.
+There again, how little the Protestant understands what he reviles! In
+one sense he understands it well enough. Catholicism would have
+disappeared long ago but for the Mass. Marvellous indestructible
+belief!--that brings God to Man, that satisfies the deepest emotions of
+the human heart!--
+
+"What will the religion of the free mind discover to put in its place?
+Something, it must find. For the hold of Catholicism--or its
+analogues--upon the guiding forces of Christendom is irretrievably
+broken. And yet the needs of the soul remain the same....
+
+"Some compensation, no doubt, we shall reap from that added sense of
+power and wealth, which the change in the root ideas of life has brought
+with it for many people. Humanity has walked for centuries under the
+shadow of the Fall, with all that it involves. Now, a precisely opposite
+conception is slowly incorporating itself with all the forms of European
+thought. It is the disappearance--the rise--of a world. At the beginning
+of the century, Coleridge foresaw it.
+
+"... The transformation affects the whole of personality! The mass of men
+who read and think, and lead straight lives to-day, are often conscious
+of a dignity and range their fathers never knew. The spiritual stature of
+civilised man has risen--like his physical stature! We walk to-day a
+nobler earth. We come--not as outcasts, but as sons and freemen, into the
+House of God.--But all the secrets and formulae of a new mystical union
+have to be worked out. And so long as pain and death remain, humanity
+will always be at heart a mystic!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Gradually, as the old man touched these more penetrating and personal
+matters, the head among the shadows had emerged. The beautiful eyes, so
+full--unconsciously full--of sad and torturing thought, rested upon the
+speaker. Friedland became sensitively conscious of them. The grey-haired
+scholar was in truth one of the most religious of men and optimists. The
+negations of his talk began to trouble him--in sight of this young grief
+and passion. He drew upon all that his heart could find to say of things
+fruitful and consoling. After the liberating joys of battle, he must
+needs follow the perennial human instinct and build anew the "Civitas
+Dei."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Friedland and his wife were left alone, Friedland said with
+timidity:
+
+"Jane, I played the preacher to-night, and preaching is foolishness. But
+I would willingly brace that poor child's mind a little. And it seemed to
+me she listened."
+
+Mrs. Friedland laughed under her breath--the saddest laugh.
+
+"Do you know what the child was doing this afternoon?"
+
+"No."
+
+"She went to the Oratory--to Benediction." Friedland looked up
+startled--then understood--raised his hands and let them drop
+despairingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"Missie--are yo ben?"
+
+The outer door of Browhead Farm was pushed inwards, and old Daffady's
+head and face appeared.
+
+"Come in, Daffady--please come in!"
+
+Miss Fountain's tone was of the friendliest. The cow-man obeyed her. He
+came in, holding his battered hat in his hand.
+
+"Missie--A thowt I'd tell yo as t' rain had cleared oop--yo cud take a
+bit air verra weel, if yo felt to wish it."
+
+Laura turned a pale but smiling face towards him. She had been passing
+through a week of illness, owing perhaps to the April bleakness of this
+high fell, and old Daffady was much concerned. They had made friends from
+the first days of her acquaintance with the farm. And during these April
+weeks since she had been the guest of her cousins, Daffady had shown her
+a hundred quaint attentions. The rugged old cow-man who now divided with
+Mrs. Mason the management of the farm was half amused, half scandalised,
+by what seemed to him the delicate uselessness of Miss Fountain. "I'm
+towd as doon i' Lunnon town, yo'll find scores o' this mak"--he would say
+to his intimate the old shepherd--"what th' Awmighty med em for, bets me.
+Now Miss Polly, she can sarve t' beese"--(by which the old North
+Countryman meant "cattle")--"and mek a hot mash for t' cawves, an cook an
+milk, an ivery oother soart o' thing as t' Lord give us t' wimmen
+for--bit Missie!--yo've nobbut to luke ut her 'ands. Nobbut what theer's
+soomat endearin i' these yoong flibberties--yo conno let em want for
+owt--bit it's the use of em worrits me above a bit."
+
+Certainly all that old Daffady could do to supply the girl's wants was
+done. Whether it was a continuous supply of peat for the fire in these
+chilly April days; or a newspaper from the town; or a bundle of daffodils
+from the wood below--some signs of a fatherly mind he was always showing
+towards this little drone in the hive. And Laura delighted in him--racked
+her brains to keep him talking by the fireside.
+
+"Well, Daffady, I'll take your advice.--I'm hungering to be out again.
+But come in a bit first. When do you think the mistress will be back?"
+
+Daffady awkwardly established himself just inside the door, looking first
+to see that his great nailed boots were making no unseemly marks upon the
+flags.
+
+Laura was alone in the house. Mrs. Mason and Polly were gone to
+Whinthorpe, where they had some small sales to make. Mrs. Mason moreover
+was discontented with the terms under which she sold her milk; and there
+were inquiries to be made as to another factor, and perhaps a new bargain
+to be struck.
+
+"Oh, the missis woan't be heäm till dark," said Daffady. "She's not yan
+to do her business i' haäste. She'll see to 't aa hersen. An she's reet
+there. Them as ladles their wits oot o' other foak's brains gits nobbut
+middlin sarved."
+
+"You don't seem to miss Mr. Hubert very much?" said Laura, with a
+laughing look.
+
+Daffady scratched his head.
+
+"Noa--they say he's doin wonnerfu well, deän i' Froswick, an I'm juist
+glad on 't; for he wasna yan for work."
+
+"Why, Daffady, they say now he's killing himself with work!"
+
+Daffady grinned--a cautious grin.
+
+"They'll deave yo, down i' th' town, wi their noise.--Yo'd think they
+were warked to deäth.--Bit, yo can see for yorsen. Why, a farmin mon mut
+be allus agate: in t' mornin, what wi' cawves to serve, an t' coos to
+feed, an t' horses to fodder, yo're fair run aff your legs. Bit down i'
+Whinthorpe--or Froswick ayder, fer it's noa odds--why, theer's nowt
+stirrin for a yoong mon. If cat's loose, that's aboot what!"
+
+Laura's face lit up. Very few things now had power to please her but
+Daffady's dialect, and Daffady's scorns.
+
+"And so all the world is idle but you farm people?"
+
+"A doan't say egsackly idle," said Daffady, with a good-humoured
+tolerance.
+
+"But the factory-hands, Daffady?"
+
+"O!--a little stannin an twiddlin!" said Daffady contemptuously--"I allus
+ses they pays em abuve a bit."
+
+"But the miners?--come, Daffady!"
+
+"I'm not stannin to it aw roond," said Daffady patiently--"I laid it down
+i' th' general."
+
+"And all the people, who work with their heads, Daffady, like--like my
+papa?"
+
+The girl smiled softly, and turned her slim neck to look at the old man.
+She was charmingly pretty so, among the shadows of the farm kitchen--but
+very touching--as the old man dimly felt. The change in her that worked
+so uncomfortably upon his rustic feelings went far deeper than any mere
+aspect of health or sickness. The spectator felt beside her a ghostly
+presence--that "sad sister, Pain"--stealing her youth away, smile as she
+might.
+
+"I doan't knaw aboot them, Missie--nor aboot yor fadther--thoo I'll uphod
+tha Muster Stephen was a terr'ble cliver mon. Bit if yo doan't bring a
+gude yed wi yo to th' farmin yo may let it alane.--When th' owd measter
+here was deein, Mr. Hubert was verra down-hearted yo understan, an verra
+wishfa to say soomat frendly to th' owd man, noo it had coom to th' lasst
+of im. 'Fadther'--he ses--'dear fadther--is there nowt I could do fer
+tha?'--'Aye, lad'--ses th' owd un--'gie me thy yed, an tak mine--thine is
+gude enoof to be buried wi.' An at that he shet his mouth, and deed."
+
+Daffady told his story with relish. His contempt for Hubert was of many
+years' standing. Laura lifted her eyebrows.
+
+"That was sharp, for the last word. I don't think you should stick pins
+when you're dying--_dying_!"--she repeated the word with a passionate
+energy--"going quite away--for ever." Then, with a sudden change of
+tone--"Can I have the cart to-morrow, Daffady?"
+
+Daffady, who had been piling the fire with fresh peat, paused and looked
+down upon her. His long, lank face, his weather-stained clothes, his
+great, twisted hand were all of the same colour--the colour of wintry
+grass and lichened rock. But his eyes were bright and blue, and a vivid
+streak of white hair fell across his high forehead. As the girl asked her
+question, the old man's air of fatherly concern became more marked.
+
+"Mut yo goa, missie? It did yo noa gude lasst time."
+
+"Yes, I must go. I think so--I hope so!"--She checked herself. "But I'll
+wrap up."
+
+"Mrs. Fountain's nobbut sadly, I unnerstan?"
+
+"She's rather better again. But I must go to-morrow. Daffady, Cousin
+Elizabeth won't forget to bring up the letters?"
+
+"I niver knew her du sich a thing as thattens," said Daffady, with
+caution.
+
+"And do you happen to know whether Mr. Bayley is coming to supper?"
+
+"T' minister'll mebbe coom if t' weather hods up."
+
+"Daffady--do you think--that when you don't agree with people about
+religion--it's right and proper to sit every night--and tear them to
+pieces?"
+
+The colour had suddenly flooded her pale face--her attitude had thrown
+off languor.
+
+Daffady showed embarrassment.
+
+"Well, noa, missie--Aa doan't hod--mysen--wi personalities. Yo mun
+wrastle wi t' sin--an gaa saftly by t' sinner."
+
+"Sin!" she said scornfully.
+
+Daffady was quelled.
+
+"I've allus thowt mysen," he said hastily, "as we'd a dëal to larn from
+Romanists i' soom ways. Noo, their noshun o' Purgatory--I daurna say a
+word for 't when t' minister's taakin, for there's noa warrant for 't i'
+Scriptur, as I can mek oot--bit I'll uphod yo, it's juist handy! Aa've
+often thowt so, i' my aan preachin. Heaven an hell are verra well for t'
+foak as are ower good, or ower bad; bit t' moast o' foak--are juist a
+mish-mash."
+
+He shook his head slowly, and then ventured a glance at Miss Fountain to
+see whether he had appeased her.
+
+Laura seemed to rouse herself with an effort from some thoughts of her
+own.
+
+"Daffady--how the sun's shining! I'll go out. Daffady, you're very kind
+and nice to me--I wonder why?"
+
+She laid one of the hands that seemed to the cow-man so absurd upon his
+arm, and smiled at him. The old man reddened and grunted. She sprang up
+with a laugh; and the kitchen was instantly filled by a whirlwind of
+barks from Fricka, who at last foresaw a walk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Laura took her way up the fell. She climbed the hill above the farm, and
+then descended slowly upon a sheltered corner that held the old Browhead
+Chapel, whereof the fanatical Mr. Bayley--worse luck!--was the curate in
+charge.
+
+She gave a wide berth to the vicarage, which with two or three cottages,
+embowered in larches and cherry-trees, lay immediately below the chapel.
+She descended upon the chapel from the fell, which lay wild about it and
+above it; she opened a little gate into the tiny churchyard, and found a
+sunny rock to sit on, while Fricka rushed about barking at the tits and
+the linnets.
+
+Under the April sun and the light wind, the girl gave a sigh of pleasure.
+It was a spot she loved. The old chapel stood high on the side of a more
+inland valley that descended not to the sea, but to the Greet--a green
+open vale, made glorious at its upper end by the overpeering heads of
+great mountains, and falling softly through many folds and involutions to
+the woods of the Greet--the woods of Bannisdale.
+
+So blithe and shining it was, on this April day! The course of the bright
+twisting stream was dimmed here and there by mists of fruit blossom. For
+the damson trees were all out, patterning the valleys,--marking the
+bounds of orchard and field, of stream and road. Each with its larch
+clump, the grey and white farms lay scattered on the pale green of the
+pastures; on either side of the valley the limestone pushed upward,
+through the grassy slopes of the fells, and made long edges and "scars"
+against the sky; while down by the river hummed the old mill where Laura
+had danced, a year before.
+
+It was Westmoreland in its remoter, gentler aspect--Westmoreland far away
+from the dust of coaches and hotels--an untouched pastoral land,
+enwrought with a charm and sweetness none can know but those who love and
+linger. Its hues and lines are all sober and very simple. In these
+outlying fell districts, there is no splendour of colour, no majesty of
+peak or precipice. The mountain-land is at its homeliest--though still
+wild and free as the birds that flash about its streams. The purest
+radiance of cool sunlight floods it on an April day; there are pale
+subtleties of grey and purple in the rocks, in the shadows, in the
+distances, on which the eye may feed perpetually; and in the woods and
+bents a never-ceasing pageantry of flowers.
+
+And what beauty in the little chapel-yard itself! Below it the ground ran
+down steeply to the village and the river, and at its edge--out of its
+loose boundary wall--rose a clump of Scotch firs, drawn in a grand
+Italian manner upon the delicacy of the scene beyond. Close to them a
+huge wild cherry thrust out its white boughs, not yet in their full
+splendour, and through their openings the distant blues of fell and sky
+wavered and shimmered as the wind played with the tree. And all round,
+among the humble nameless graves, the silkiest, finest grass--grass that
+gives a kind of quality, as of long and exquisite descent, to thousands
+of Westmoreland fields--grass that is the natural mother of flowers, and
+the sister of all clear streams. Daffodils grew in it now, though the
+daffodil hour was waning. A little faded but still lovely, they ran
+dancing in and out of the graves--up to the walls of the chapel itself--a
+foam of blossom breaking on the grey rock of the church.
+
+Generations ago, when the fells were roadless and these valleys hardly
+peopled, the monks of a great priory church on the neighbouring coast
+built here this little pilgrimage chapel, on the highest point of a long
+and desolate track connecting the inland towns with the great abbeys of
+the coast, and with all the western seaboard. Fields had been enclosed
+and farms had risen about it; but still the little church was one of the
+loneliest and remotest of fanes. So lonely and remote that the violent
+hand of Puritanism had almost passed it by, had been content at least
+with a rough blow or two, defacing, not destroying. Above the moth-eaten
+table that replaced the ancient altar there still rose a window that
+breathed the very _secreta_ of the old faith--a window of radiant
+fragments, piercing the twilight of the little church with strange
+uncomprehended things--images that linked the humble chapel and its
+worshippers with the great European story, with Chartres and Amiens, with
+Toledo and Rome.
+
+For here, under a roof shaken every Sunday by Mr. Bayley's thunders,
+there stood a golden St. Anthony, a virginal St. Margaret. And all round
+them, in a ruined confusion, dim sacramental scenes--that flamed into
+jewels as the light smote them! In one corner a priest raised the Host.
+His delicate gold-patterned vestments, his tonsured head, and the
+monstrance in his hands, tormented the curate's eyes every Sunday as he
+began, robed in his black Genevan gown, to read the Commandments. And in
+the very centre of the stone tracery, a woman lifted herself in bed to
+receive the Holy Oil--so pale, so eager still, after all these centuries!
+Her white face spoke week by week to the dalesfolk as they sat in their
+high pews. Many a rough countrywoman, old perhaps, and crushed by toil
+and child-bearing, had wondered over her, had felt a sister in her, had
+loved her secretly.
+
+But the children's dreams followed St. Anthony rather--the kind, sly old
+man, with the belled staff, up which his pig was climbing.
+
+Laura haunted the little place.
+
+She could not be made to go when Mr. Bayley preached; but on week-days
+she would get the key from the schoolmistress, and hang over the old
+pews, puzzling out the window--or trying to decipher some of the other
+Popish fragments that the church contained. Sometimes she would sit
+rigid, in a dream that took all the young roundness from her face. But it
+was like the Oratory church, and Benediction. It brought her somehow near
+to Helbeck, and to Bannisdale.
+
+To-day, however, she could not tear herself from the breeze and the sun.
+She sat among the daffodils, in a sort of sad delight, wondering
+sometimes at the veil that had dropped between her and beauty--dulling
+and darkening all things.
+
+Surely Cousin Elizabeth would bring a letter from Augustina. Every day
+she had been expecting it. This was the beginning of the second week
+after Easter. All the Easter functions at Bannisdale must now be over;
+the opening of the new orphanage to boot; and the gathering of Catholic
+gentry to meet the Bishop--in that dreary, neglected house! Augustina,
+indeed, knew nothing of these things--except from the reports that might
+be brought to her by the visitors to her sick room. Bannisdale had now no
+hostess. Mr. Helbeck kept the house as best he could.
+
+Was it not three weeks and more, now, that Laura had been at the farm?
+And only two visits to Bannisdale! For the Squire, by Augustina's wish,
+and against the girl's own judgment, knew nothing of her presence in the
+neighbourhood, and she could only see her stepmother on days when
+Augustina could be certain that her brother was away. During part of
+Passion week, all Holy week, and half Easter week, priests had been
+staying in the house--or the orphanage ceremony had detained the Squire.
+But by now, surely, he had gone to London on some postponed business.
+That was what Mrs. Fountain expected. The girl hungered for her letter.
+
+Poor Augustina! The heart malady had been developing rapidly. She was
+very ill, and Laura thought unhappy.
+
+And yet, when the first shock of it was over--in spite of the
+bewilderment and grief she suffered in losing her companion--Mrs.
+Fountain had been quite willing to recognise and accept the situation
+which had been created by Laura's violent action. She wailed over the
+countermanded gowns and furnishings; but she was in truth relieved. "Now
+we know where we are again," she had said both to herself and Father
+Bowles. That strange topsy--turveydom of things was over. She was no more
+tormented with anxieties; and she moved again with personal ease and
+comfort about her old home.
+
+Poor Alan of course felt it dreadfully. And Laura could not come to
+Bannisdale for a long, long time. But Mrs. Fountain could go to
+her--several times a year. And the Sisters were very good, and chatty. Oh
+no, it was best--much best!
+
+But now--whether it came from physical weakening or no--Mrs. Fountain was
+always miserable, always complaining. She spoke of her brother
+perpetually. Yet when he was with her, she thought him hard and cold. It
+was evident to Laura that she feared him; that she was never at ease with
+him. Merely to speak of those increased austerities of his, which had
+marked the Lent of this year, troubled and frightened her.
+
+Often, too, she would lie and look at Laura with an expression of dry
+bitterness and resentment, without speaking. It was as though she were
+equally angry with the passion which had changed her brother--and with
+Laura's strength in breaking from it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Laura moved her seat a little. Between the wild cherry and the firs was a
+patch of deep blue distance. Those were his woods. But the house, was
+hidden by the hills.
+
+"Somehow I have got to live!" she said to herself suddenly, with a
+violent trembling.
+
+But how? For she bore two griefs. The grief for him, of which she never
+let a word pass her lips, was perhaps the strongest among the forces that
+were destroying her. She knew well that she had torn the heart that loved
+her--that she had set free a hundred dark and morbid forces in Helbeck's
+life.
+
+But it was because she had realised, by the insight of a moment, the
+madness of what they had done, the gulf to which they were
+rushing--because, at one and the same instant, there had been revealed to
+her the fatality under which she must still resist, and he must become
+gradually, inevitably, her persecutor, and her tyrant!
+
+Amid the emotion, the overwhelming impressions of his story of himself,
+that conviction had risen in her inmost being--a strange inexorable voice
+of judgment--bidding her go! In a flash, she had seen the wretched future
+years--the daily struggle--the aspect of violence, even of horror, that
+his pursuit of her, his pressure upon her will, might assume--the
+sharpening of all those wild forces in her own nature.
+
+She was broken with the anguish of separation--and how she had been able
+to do what she had done, she did not know. But the inner voice
+persisted--that for the first time, amid the selfish, or passionate, or
+joy-seeking impulses of her youth, she had obeyed a higher law. The moral
+realities of the whole case closed her in. She saw no way out--no way in
+which, so far as her last act was concerned, she could have bettered or
+changed the deed. She had done it for him, first of all. He must be
+delivered from her. And she must have room to breathe, without making of
+her struggle for liberty a hideous struggle with him, and with love.
+
+Well, but--comfort!--where was it to be had? The girl's sensuous craving
+nature fought like a tortured thing in the grasp laid upon it. How was it
+possible to go on suffering like this? She turned impatiently to one
+thought after another.
+
+Beauty? Nature? Last year, yes! But now! That past physical ecstasy--in
+spring--in flowing water--in flowers--in light and colour--where was it
+gone? Let these tears--these helpless tears--make answer!
+
+Music?--books?--the books that "make incomparable old maids"--friends?
+The thought of the Friedlands made her realise that she could still love.
+But after all--how little!--against how much!
+
+Religion? All religion need not be as Alan Helbeck's. There was religion
+as the Friedlands understood it--a faith convinced of God, and of a
+meaning for human life, trusting the "larger hope" that springs out of
+the daily struggle of conscience, and the garnered experience of feeling.
+Both in Friedland and his wife, there breathed a true spiritual dignity
+and peace.
+
+But Laura was not affected by this fact in the least. She put away the
+suggestions of it with impatience. Her father had not been so. Now that
+she had lost her lover, she clung the more fiercely to her father. And
+there had been no anodynes for him.
+
+... Oh if the sun--the useless sun--would only go--and Cousin Elizabeth
+would come back--and bring that letter! Yes, one little pale joy there
+was still--for a few weeks or months. The craving for the bare rooms of
+Bannisdale possessed her--for that shadow-happiness of entering his house
+as he quitted it--walking its old boards unknown to him--touching the
+cushions and chairs in Augustina's room that he would touch, perhaps that
+very same night, or on the morrow!
+
+Till Augustina's death.--Then both for Laura and for Helbeck--an
+Unknown--before which the girl shut her eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was company that night in the farm kitchen. Mr. Bayley, the more
+than evangelical curate, came to tea.
+
+He was a little man, with a small sharp anaemic face buried in red hair.
+It was two or three years of mission work, first in Mexico, and then at
+Lima as the envoy of one of the most thoroughgoing of Protestant
+societies, that had given him his strangely vivid notions of the place of
+Romanism among the world's forces. At no moment in this experience can he
+have had a grain of personal success. Lima, apparently, is of all towns
+in the universe the town where the beard of Protestantism is least worth
+the shaving--to quote a northern proverb. At any rate, Mr. Bayley
+returned to his native land at fifty with a permanent twist of brain.
+Hence these preposterous sermons in the fell chapel; this eager nosing
+out and tracking down of every scent of Popery; this fanatical
+satisfaction in such a kindred soul as that of Elizabeth Mason. Some mild
+Ritualism at Whinthorpe had given him occupation for years; and as for
+Bannisdale, he and the Masons between them had raised the most causeless
+of storms about Mr. Helbeck and his doings, from the beginning; they had
+kept up for years the most rancorous memory of the Williams affair; they
+had made the owner of the old Hall the bogey of a country-side.
+
+Laura knew it well. She never spoke to the little red man if she could
+help it. What pleased her was to make Daffady talk of him--Daffady, whose
+contempt as a "Methody" for "paid priests" made him a sure ally.
+
+"Why, he taaks i' church as thoo God Awmighty were on the pulpit
+stairs--gi-en him his worrds!" said the cow-man, with the natural
+distaste of all preachers for diatribes not their own; and Laura, when
+she wandered the fields with him, would drive him on to say more and
+worse.
+
+Mr. Bayley, on the other hand, had found a new pleasure in his visits to
+the farm-since Miss Fountain's arrival. The young lady had escaped indeed
+from the evil thing--so as by fire. But she was far too pale and thin;
+she showed too many regrets. Moreover she was not willing to talk of Mr.
+Helbeck with his enemies. Indeed, she turned her back rigorously on any
+attempt to make her do so.
+
+So all that was left to the two cronies was to sit night after night,
+talking to each other in the hot hope that Miss Fountain might be reached
+thereby and strengthened--that even Mrs. Fountain and that distant black
+brood of Bannisdale might in some indirect way be brought within the
+saving-power of the Gospel.
+
+Strange fragments of this talk floated through the kitchen.--
+
+"Oh, my dear friend!--forbidding to marry is a doctrine of _devils_!--Now
+Lima, as I have often told you, is a city of convents----"
+
+There was a sudden grinding of chairs on the flagged floor. The grey head
+and the red approached each other; the nightly shudder began; while the
+girls chattered and coughed as loudly as they dared.
+
+"No--a woan't--a conno believe 't!" Mrs. Mason would say at last,
+throwing herself back against her chair with very red cheeks. And Daffady
+would look round furtively, trying to hear.
+
+But sometimes the curate would try to propitiate the young ladies. He
+made himself gentle; he raised the most delicate difficulties. He had,
+for instance, a very strange compassion for the Saints. "I hold it," he
+said--with an eye on Miss Fountain--"to be clearly demonstrable that the
+Invocation of Saints is, of all things, most lamentably injurious to the
+Saints themselves!"
+
+"Hoo can he knaw?" said Polly to Laura, open-mouthed.
+
+But Mrs. Mason frowned.
+
+"A doan't hod wi Saints whativer," she said violently. "So A doan't fash
+mysel aboot em!"
+
+Daffady sometimes would be drawn into these diversions, as he sat smoking
+on the settle. And then out of a natural slyness--perhaps on these latter
+occasions, from a secret sympathy for "missie"--he would often devote
+himself to proving the solidarity of all "church priests,"
+Establishments, and prelatical Christians generally. Father Bowles might
+be in a "parlish" state; but as to all supporters of bishops and the
+heathenish custom of fixed prayers--whether they wore black gowns or
+no--"a man mut hae his doots."
+
+Never had Daffady been so successful with his shafts as on this
+particular evening. Mrs. Mason grew redder and redder; her large face
+alternately flamed and darkened in the firelight. In the middle the girls
+tried to escape into the parlour. But she shouted imperiously after them.
+
+"Polly--Laura--what art tha aboot? Coom back at yance. I'll not ha sickly
+foak sittin wi'oot a fire!"
+
+They came back sheepishly. And when they were once more settled as
+audience, the mistress--who was by this time fanning herself
+tempestuously with the Whinthorpe paper--launched her last word:
+
+"Daffady--thoo's naa call to lay doon t' law, on sic matters at aw.
+Mappen tha'll recolleck t' Bible--headstrong as tha art i' thy aan
+conceit. Bit t' Bible says 'How can he get wisdom that holdeth the
+plough--whose taak is o' bullocks?' Aa coom on that yestherday--an A've
+bin sair exercised aboot thy preachin ever sen!"
+
+Daffady held his peace.
+
+The clergyman departed, and Daffady went out to the cattle. Laura had not
+given the red-haired man her hand. She had found it necessary to carry
+her work upstairs, at the precise moment of his departure. But when he
+was safely off the premises she came down again to say good-night to her
+cousins.
+
+Oh! they had not been unkind to her these last weeks. Far from it. Mrs.
+Mason had felt a fierce triumph--she knew--in her broken engagement.
+Probably at first Cousin Elizabeth had only acquiesced in Hubert's demand
+that Miss Fountain should be asked to stay at the farm, out of an ugly
+wish to see the girl's discomfiture for herself. And she had not been
+able to forego the joy of bullying Mr. Helbeck's late betrothed through
+Mr. Bayley's mouth.
+
+Nevertheless, when this dwindled ghostly Laura appeared, and began to
+flit through the low-ceiled room and dark passages of the farm--carefully
+avoiding any talk about herself or her story--always cheerful,
+self-possessed, elusive--the elder woman began after a little to have
+strange stirrings of soul towards her. The girl's invincible silence,
+taken with those physical signs of a consuming pain that were beyond her
+concealment, worked upon a nature that, as far as all personal life and
+emotion were concerned, was no less strong and silent. Polly saw with
+astonishment that fires were lit in the parlour at odd times--that Laura
+might read or practise. She was amazed to watch her mother put out some
+little delicacy at tea or supper that Laura might be made to eat.
+
+And yet!--after all these amenities, Mr. Bayley would still be asked to
+supper, and Laura would still be pelted and harried from supper-time till
+bed.
+
+To-night when Laura returned, Mrs. Mason was in a muttering and stormy
+mood. Daffady had angered her sorely. Laura, moreover, had a letter from
+Bannisdale, and since it came there had been passing lights in Miss
+Fountain's eyes, and passing reds on her pale cheeks.
+
+As the girl approached her cousin, Mrs. Mason turned upon her abruptly.
+
+"Dostha want the cart to-morrow? Daffady said soomat aboot it."
+
+"If it could be spared."
+
+Mrs. Mason looked at her fixedly.
+
+"If Aa was thoo," she said, "Aa'd not flutter ony more roond _that_
+can'le!"
+
+Laura shrank as though her cousin had struck her. But she controlled
+herself.
+
+"Do you forget my stepmother's state, Cousin Elizabeth?"
+
+"Oh!--yo' con aw mak much o' what suits tha!" cried the mistress, as she
+walked fiercely to the outer door and locked it noisily from the great
+key-bunch hanging at her girdle.
+
+The girl's eyes showed a look of flame. Then her head seemed to swim. She
+put her hand to her brow, and walked weakly across the kitchen to the
+door of the stairs.
+
+"Mother!" cried Polly, in indignation; and she sprang after Laura. But
+Laura waved her back imperiously, and almost immediately they heard her
+door shut upstairs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later Laura was lying sleepless in her bed. It was a clear cold
+night--a spring frost after the rain. The moon shone through the white
+blind, on the old four-poster, on Laura's golden hair spread on the
+pillow, on the great meal-ark which barred the chimney, on the rude walls
+and woodwork of the room.
+
+Her arms were thrown behind her head, supporting it. Nothing moved in the
+house, or the room--the only sound was the rustling of a mouse in one
+corner.
+
+A door opened on a sudden. There was a step in the passage, and someone
+knocked at her door.
+
+"Come in."
+
+On the threshold stood Mrs. Mason in a cotton bedgown and petticoat, her
+grey locks in confusion about her massive face and piercing eyes.
+
+She closed the door, and came to the bedside.
+
+"Laura!--Aa've coom to ast thy pardon!"
+
+Laura raised herself on one arm, and looked at the apparition with
+amazement.
+
+"Mebbe A've doon wrang.--We shouldna quench the smoakin flax. Soa theer's
+my han, child--if thoo can teäk it."
+
+The old woman held out her hand. There was an indescribable sound in her
+voice, as of deep waters welling up.
+
+Laura fell back on her pillows--the whitest, fragilest creature--under
+the shadows of the old bed. She opened her delicate arms. "Suppose you
+kiss me, Cousin Elizabeth!"
+
+The elder woman stooped clumsily. The girl linked her arms round her neck
+and kissed her warmly, repeatedly, feeling through all her motherless
+sense the satisfaction of a long hunger in the contact of the old face
+and ample bosom.
+
+The reserve of both forbade anything more. Mrs. Mason tucked in the small
+figure--lingered a little--said, "Laura, th'art not coald--nor
+sick?"--and when Laura answered cheerfully, the mistress went.
+
+The girl's eyes were wet for a while; her heart beat fast. There had been
+few affections in her short life--far too few. Her nature gave itself
+with a fatal prodigality, or not at all. And now--what was there left to
+give?
+
+But she slept more peacefully for Mrs. Mason's visit--with Augustina's
+letter of summons under her hand.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day was still young when Laura reached Bannisdale.
+
+Never had the house looked so desolate. Dust lay on the oaken boards and
+tables of the hall. There was no fire on the great hearth, and the blinds
+in the oriel windows were still mostly drawn. But the remains of
+yesterday's fire were visible yet, and a dirty duster and pan adorned the
+Squire's chair.
+
+The Irishwoman with a half-crippled husband, who had replaced Mrs.
+Denton, was clearly incompetent. Mrs. Denton at least had been orderly
+and clean. The girl's heart smote her with a fresh pang as she made her
+way upstairs.
+
+She found Augustina no worse; and in her room there was always comfort,
+and even brightness. She had a good nurse; a Catholic "Sister" from
+London, of a kind and cheerful type, that Laura herself could not
+dislike; and whatever working power there was in the household was
+concentrated on her service.
+
+Miss Fountain took off her things, and settled in for the day. Augustina
+chattered incessantly, except when her weakness threw her into long
+dozes, mingled often, Laura thought, with slight wandering. Her wish
+evidently was to be always talking of her brother; but in this she
+checked herself whenever she could, as though controlled by some
+resolution of her own, or some advice from another.
+
+Yet in the end she said a great deal about him. She spoke of the last
+weeks of Lent, of the priests who had been staying in the house; of the
+kindness that had been shown her. That wonderful network of spiritual
+care and attentions--like a special system of courtesy having its own
+rules and etiquette--with which Catholicism surrounds the dying, had been
+drawn about the poor little widow. During the last few weeks Mass had
+been said several times in her room; Father Leadham had given her
+Communion every day in Easter week; on Easter Sunday the children from
+the orphanage had come to sing to her; that Roman palm over the bed was
+brought her by Alan himself. The statuette of St. Joseph, too, was his
+gift.
+
+So she lay and talked through the day, cheerfully enough. She did not
+want to hear of Cambridge or the Friedlands, still less of the farm. Her
+whole interest now was centred in her own state, and in the Catholic joys
+and duties which it still permitted. She never spoke of her husband;
+Laura bitterly noted it.
+
+But there were moments when she watched her stepdaughter, and once when
+the Sister had left them she laid her hand on Laura's arm and whispered:
+
+"Oh! Laura--he has grown so much greyer--since--since October."
+
+The girl said nothing. Augustina closed her eyes, and said with much
+twitching and agitation, "When--when I am gone, he will go to the
+Jesuits--I know he will. The place will come to our cousin, Richard
+Helbeck. He has plenty of money--it will be very different some day."
+
+"Did--did Father Leadham tell you that?" said Laura, after a while.
+
+"Yes. He admitted it. He said they had twice dissuaded him in former
+years. But now--when I'm gone--it'll be allowed."
+
+Suddenly Augustina opened her eyes. "Laura! where are you?" Her little
+crooked face worked with tears. "I'm glad!--We ought all to be glad. I
+don't--I don't believe he ever has a happy moment!"
+
+She began to weep piteously. Laura tried to console her, putting her
+cheek to hers, with inarticulate soothing words. But Augustina turned
+away from her--almost in irritation.
+
+The girl's heart was wrung at every turn. She lingered, however, till the
+last minute--almost till the April dark had fallen.
+
+When she reached the hall again, she stood a moment looking round its
+cold and gloom. First, with a start, she noticed a pile of torn envelopes
+and papers lying on a table, which had escaped her in the morning. The
+Squire must have thrown them down there in the early morning, just before
+starting on his journey. The small fact gave her a throb of strange
+joy--brought back the living presence. Then she noticed that the study
+door was open.
+
+A temptation seized her--drove her before it. Silence and solitude
+possessed the house. The servants were far away in the long rambling
+basement. Augustina was asleep with her nurse beside her.
+
+Laura went noiselessly across the hall. She pushed the door--she looked
+round his room.
+
+No change. The books, the crucifix, the pictures, all as before. But the
+old walls, and wainscots, the air of the room, seemed still to hold the
+winter. They struck chill.
+
+The same pile of books in daily use upon his table--a few little manuals
+and reprints--"The Spiritual Combat," the "Imitation," some sermons--the
+volume of "Acta Sanctorum" for the month.
+
+She could not tear herself from them. Trembling, she hung over them, and
+her fingers blindly opened a little book which lay on the top. It fell
+apart at a place which had been marked--freshly marked, it seemed to her.
+A few lines had been scored in pencil, with a date beside them. She
+looked closer and read the date of the foregoing Easter Eve. And the
+passage with its scored lines ran thus:
+
+"Drive far from us the crowd of evil spirits who strive to approach us;
+unloose the too firm hold of earthly things; _untie with Thy gentle and
+wounded hands the fibres of our hearts that cling so fast round human
+affections_; let our weary head rest on Thy bosom till the struggle is
+over, and our cold form falls back--dust and ashes."
+
+She stood a moment--looking down upon the book--feeling life one throb of
+anguish. Then wildly she stooped and kissed the pages. Dropping on her
+knees too, she kissed the arm of the chair, the place where his hand
+would rest.
+
+No one came--the solitude held. Gradually she got the better of her
+misery. She rose, replaced the book, and went.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following night, very late, Laura again lay sleepless. But April was
+blowing and plashing outside. The high fell and the lonely farm seemed to
+lie in the very track of the storms, as they rushed from the south-west
+across the open moss to beat themselves upon the mountains.
+
+But the moon shone sometimes, and then the girl's restlessness would
+remind her of the open fell-side, of pale lights upon the distant sea, of
+cool blasts whirling among the old thorns and junipers, and she would
+long to be up and away--escaped from this prison where she could not
+sleep.
+
+How the wind could drop at times--to what an utter and treacherous
+silence! And what strange, misleading sounds the silence brought with it!
+
+She sat up in bed. Surely someone had opened the further gate--the gate
+from the lane? But the wind surged in again, and she had to strain her
+ears. Nothing. Yes!--wheels and hoofs! a carriage of some sort
+approaching.
+
+A sudden thought came to her. The dog-cart--it seemed to be such by the
+sound--drew up at the farm door, and a man descended. She heard the reins
+thrown over the horse's back, then the groping for the knocker, and at
+last blows loud and clear, startling the night.
+
+Mrs. Mason's window was thrown open next, and her voice came out
+imperiously--"What is it?"
+
+Laura's life seemed to hang on the answer.
+
+"Will you please tell Miss Fountain that her stepmother is in great
+danger, and asks her to come at once."
+
+She leapt from her bed, but must needs wait--turned again to stone--for
+the next word. It came after a pause.
+
+"And wha's the message from?"
+
+"Kindly tell her that Mr. Helbeck is here with the dog-cart."
+
+The window closed. Laura slipped into her clothes, and by the time Mrs.
+Mason emerged the girl was already in the passage.
+
+"I heard," she said briefly. "Let us go down."
+
+Mrs. Mason, pale and frowning, led the way. She undid the heavy bars and
+lock, and for the first time in her life stood confronted--on her own
+threshold--with the Papist Squire of Bannisdale.
+
+Mr. Helbeck greeted her ceremoniously. But his black eyes, so deep-set
+and cavernous in his strong-boned face, did not seem to notice her. They
+ran past her to that small shadow in the background.
+
+"Are you ready?" he said, addressing the shadow.
+
+"One moment, please," said Laura. She was tying a thick veil round her
+hat, and struggling with the fastenings of her cloak.
+
+Mrs. Mason looked from one to another like a baffled lioness. But to let
+them go without a word was beyond her. She turned to the Squire.
+
+"Misther Helbeck!--yo'll tell me on your conscience--as it's reet and
+just--afther aw that's passt--'at this yoong woman should go wi yo?"
+
+Laura shivered with rage and shame. Her fingers hastened. Mr. Helbeck
+showed no emotion whatever.
+
+"Mrs. Fountain is dying," he said briefly; and again his eye--anxious,
+imperious--sought for the girl. She came hastily forward from the shadows
+of the kitchen.
+
+Mr. Helbeck mounted the cart, and held out his hand to her.
+
+"Have you got a shawl? The wind is very keen!" He spoke with the careful
+courtesy one uses to a stranger.
+
+"Thank you--I am all right. Please let us go! Cousin Elizabeth!" Laura
+threw herself backwards a moment, as the cart began to move, and kissed
+her hand.
+
+Mrs. Mason made no sign. She watched the cart, slowly picking its way
+over the rough ground of the farm-yard, till it turned the corner of the
+big barn and disappeared in the gusty darkness.
+
+Then she turned housewards. She put down her guttering candle on the
+great oak table of the kitchen, and sank herself upon the settle.
+
+"Soa--that's him!" she said to herself; and her peasant mind in a dull
+heat, like that of the peat fire beside her, went wandering back over the
+hatreds of twenty years.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+As the dog-cart reached the turning of the lane, Mr. Helbeck said to his
+companion:
+
+"Would you kindly take the cart through? I must shut the gate."
+
+He jumped down. Laura with some difficulty--for the high wind coming from
+the fell increased her general confusion of brain--passed the gate and
+took the pony safely down a rocky piece of road beyond.
+
+His first act in rejoining her was to wrap the rugs which he had brought
+more closely about her.
+
+"I had no idea in coming," he said--"that the wind was so keen. Now we
+face it."
+
+He spoke precisely in the same voice that he might have used, say, to
+Polly Mason had she been confided to him for a night journey. But as he
+arranged the rug, his hand for an instant had brushed Laura's; and when
+she gave him the reins, she leant back hardly able to breathe.
+
+With a passionate effort of will, she summoned a composure to match his
+own.
+
+"When did the change come?" she asked him.
+
+"About eight o'clock. Then it was she told me you were here. We thought
+at first of sending over a messenger in the morning. But finally my
+sister begged me to come at once."
+
+"Is there immediate danger?" The girlish voice must needs tremble.
+
+"I trust we shall still find her," he said gently--"but her nurses were
+greatly alarmed."
+
+"And was there--much suffering?"
+
+She pressed her hands together under the coverings that sheltered them,
+in a quick anguish. Oh! had she thought enough, cared enough, for
+Augustina!
+
+As she spoke the horse gave a sudden swerve, as though Mr. Helbeck had
+pulled the rein involuntarily. They bumped over a large stone, and the
+Squire hastily excused himself for bad driving. Then he answered her
+question. As far as he or the Sister could judge there was little active
+suffering. But the weakness had increased rapidly that afternoon, and the
+breathing was much harassed.
+
+He went on to describe exactly how he had left the poor patient, giving
+the details with a careful minuteness. At the same moment that he had
+started for Miss Fountain, old Wilson had gone to Whinthorpe for the
+doctor. The Reverend Mother was there; and the nurses--kind and efficient
+women--were doing all that could be done.
+
+He spoke in a voice that seemed to have no colour or emphasis. One who
+did not know him might have thought he gave his report entirely without
+emotion--that his sister's coming death did not affect him.
+
+Laura longed to ask whether Father Bowles was there, whether the Last
+Sacraments had been given. But she did not dare. That question seemed to
+belong to a world that was for ever sealed between them. And he
+volunteered nothing.
+
+They entered on a steep descent to the main road. The wind came in fierce
+gusts--so that Laura had to hold her hat on with both hands. The carriage
+lamps wavered wildly on the great junipers and hollies, the clumps of
+blossoming gorse, that sprinkled the mountain; sometimes in a pause of
+the wind, there would be a roar of water, or a rush of startled sheep.
+Tumult had taken possession of the fells no less than of the girl's
+heart.
+
+Once she was thrown against the Squire's shoulder, and murmured a hurried
+"I beg your pardon." And at the same moment an image of their parting on
+the stairs at Bannisdale rose on the dark. She saw his tall head
+bending--herself kissing the breast of his coat.
+
+At last they came out above the great prospect of moss and mountain.
+There was just moon enough to see it by; though night and storm held the
+vast open cup, across which the clouds came racing--beating up from the
+coast and the south-west. Ghostly light touched the river courses here
+and there, and showed the distant portal of the sea. Through the cloud
+and wind and darkness breathed a great Nature-voice, a voice of power and
+infinite freedom. Laura suddenly, in a dim passionate way, thought of the
+words "to cease upon the midnight with no pain." If life could just
+cease, here, in the wild dark, while, for the last time in their lives,
+they were once more alone together!--while in this little cart, on this
+lonely road, she was still his charge and care--dependent on his man's
+strength, delivered over to him, and him only--out of all the world.
+
+When they reached the lower road the pony quickened his pace, and the
+wind was less boisterous. The silence between them, which had been
+natural enough in the high and deafening blasts of the fell, began to be
+itself a speech. The Squire broke it.
+
+"I am glad to hear that your cousin is doing so well at Froswick," he
+said, with formal courtesy.
+
+Laura made a fitting reply, and they talked a little of the chances of
+business, and the growth of Froswick. Then the silence closed again.
+
+Presently, as the road passed between stone walls, with a grass strip on
+either side, two dark forms shot up in front of them. The pony shied
+violently. Had they been still travelling on the edge of the steep grass
+slope which had stretched below them for a mile or so after their exit
+from the lane, they must have upset. As it was, Laura was pitched against
+the railing of the dog-cart, and as she instinctively grasped it to save
+herself, her wrist was painfully twisted.
+
+"You are hurt!" said Helbeck, pulling up the pony.
+
+The first cry of pain had been beyond her control. But she would have
+died rather than permit another.
+
+"It is nothing," she said, "really nothing! What was the matter?"
+
+"A mare and her foal, as far as I can see," said Helbeck, looking behind
+him. "How careless of the farm people!" he added angrily.
+
+"Oh! they must have strayed," said Laura faintly. All her will was
+struggling with this swimming brain--it should not overpower her.
+
+The tinkling of a small burn could be heard beside the road. Helbeck
+jumped down. "Don't be afraid; the pony is really quite quiet--he'll
+stand."
+
+In a second or two he was back--and just in time. Laura knew well the
+touch of the little horn cup he put into her cold hand. Many and many a
+time, in the scrambles of their summer walks, had he revived her from it.
+
+She drank eagerly. When he mounted the carriage again, some strange
+instinct told her that he was not the same. She divined--she was sure of
+an agitation in him which at once calmed her own.
+
+She quickly assured him that she was much better, that the pain was fast
+subsiding. Then she begged him to hurry on. She even forced herself to
+smile and talk.
+
+"It was very ghostly, wasn't it? Daffady, our old cow-man, will never
+believe they were real horses. He has a story of a bogle in this road--a
+horse-bogle, too--that makes one creep."
+
+"Oh! I know that story," said Helbeck. "It used to be told of several
+roads about here. Old Wilson once said to me, 'When Aa wor yoong, ivery
+field an ivery lane wor fu o' bogles!' It is strange how the old tales
+have died out, while a brand new one, like our own ghost story, has grown
+up."
+
+Laura murmured a "Yes." Had he forgotten who was once the ghost?
+
+Silence fell again--a silence in which each heart could almost hear the
+other beat. Oh! how wicked--wicked--would she be if she had come
+meddling with his life again, of her own free will!
+
+Here at last was the bridge, and the Bannisdale gate. Laura shut her
+eyes, and reckoned up the minutes that remained. Then, as they sped up
+the park, she wrestled indignantly with herself. She was outraged by her
+own callousness towards this death in front of her. "Oh! let me think of
+her! Let me be good to her!" she cried, in dumb appeal to some power
+beyond herself. She recalled her father. She tried with all her young
+strength to forget the man beside her--and those piteous facts that lay
+between them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In Augustina's room--darkness--except for one shaded light. The doors
+were all open, that the poor tormented lungs might breathe.
+
+Laura went in softly, the Squire following. A nurse rose.
+
+"She has rallied wonderfully," she said in a cheerful whisper, as she
+approached them, finger on lip.
+
+"Laura!" said a sighing voice.
+
+It came from a deep old-fashioned chair, in which sat Mrs. Fountain,
+propped by many pillows.
+
+Laura went up to her, and dropping on a stool beside her, the girl
+tenderly caressed the wasted hand that had itself no strength to move
+towards her.
+
+In the few hours since Laura had last seen her, a great change had passed
+over Mrs. Fountain. Her little face, usually so red, had blanched to
+parchment white, and the nervous twitching of the head, in the general
+failure of strength, had almost ceased. She lay stilled and refined under
+the touch of death; and the sweetness of her blue eyes had grown more
+conscious and more noble.
+
+"Laura--I'm a little better. But you mustn't go again. Alan--she must
+stay!"
+
+She tried to turn her head to him, appealing. The Squire came forward.
+
+"Everything is ready for Miss Fountain, dear--if she will be good enough
+to stay. Nurse will provide--and we will send over for any luggage in the
+morning."
+
+At those words "Miss Fountain," a slight movement passed over the
+sister's face.
+
+"Laura!" she said feebly.
+
+"Yes, Augustina--I will stay. I won't leave you again."
+
+"Your father did wish it, didn't he?"
+
+The mention of her father so startled Laura that the tears rushed to her
+eyes, and she dropped her face for a moment on Mrs. Fountain's hand. When
+she lifted it she was no longer conscious that Helbeck stood behind his
+sister's chair, looking down upon them both.
+
+"Yes--always, dear. Do you remember what a good nurse he was?--so much
+better than I?"
+
+Her face shone through the tears that bedewed it. Already the emotion of
+her drive--the last battles with the wind--had for the moment restored
+the brilliancy of eye and cheek. Even Augustina's dim sight was held by
+her, and by the tumbled gold of her hair as it caught the candle-light.
+
+But the name which had given Laura a thrill of joy had roused a disturbed
+and troubled echo in Mrs. Fountain.
+
+She looked miserably at her brother and asked for her beads. He put them
+across her hand, and then, bending over her chair, he said a "Hail Mary"
+and an "Our Father," in which she faintly joined.
+
+"And Alan--will Father Leadham come to-morrow?"
+
+"Without fail."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little later Laura was in her old room with Sister Rosa. The doctor had
+paid his visit. But for the moment the collapse of the afternoon had been
+arrested; Mrs. Fountain was in no urgent danger.
+
+"Now then," said the nurse cheerily, when Miss Fountain had been supplied
+with all necessaries for sleep, "let us look at that arm, please."
+
+Laura turned in surprise.
+
+"Mr. Helbeck tells me you wrenched your wrist on the drive. He thought
+you would perhaps allow me to treat it."
+
+Laura submitted. It was indeed nearly helpless and much swollen, though
+she had been hardly conscious of it since the little accident happened.
+The brisk, black-eyed Sister had soon put a comforting bandage round it,
+chattering all the time of Mrs. Fountain and the ups and downs of the
+illness.
+
+"She missed you very much after you went yesterday. But now, I suppose,
+you will stay? It won't be long, poor lady!"
+
+The Sister gave a little professional sigh, and Laura, of course,
+repeated that she must certainly stay. As the Sister broke off the cotton
+with which she had been stitching the bandage, she stole a curious glance
+at her patient. She had not frequented the orphanage in her off-time for
+nothing; and she was perfectly aware of the anxiety with which the
+Catholic friends of Bannisdale must needs view the re-entry of Miss
+Fountain. Sister Rosa, who spoke French readily, wondered whether it had
+not been after all "réculer pour mieux sauter."
+
+After a first restless sleep of sheer fatigue, Laura found herself
+sitting up in bed struggling with a sense of horrible desolation.
+Augustina was dead--Mr. Helbeck was gone, was a Jesuit--and she herself
+was left alone in the old house, weeping--with no one, not a living soul,
+to hear. That was the impression; and it was long before she could
+disentangle truth from nightmare.
+
+When she lay down again, sleep was banished. She lit a candle and waited
+for the dawn. There in the flickering light were the old tapestries--the
+princess stepping into her boat, Diana ranging through the wood. Nothing
+was changed in the room or its furniture. But the Laura who had fretted
+or dreamed there; who had written her first letter to Molly Friedland
+from that table; who had dressed for her lover's eye before that rickety
+glass; who had been angry or sullen, or madly happy there--why, the Laura
+who now for the second time watched the spring dawn through that
+diamond-paned window looked back upon her as the figures in Rossetti's
+strange picture meet the ghosts of their old selves--with the same sense
+of immeasurable, irrevocable distance. What childish follies and
+impertinences!--what misunderstanding of others, and misreckoning of the
+things that most concerned her--what blind drifting--what inevitable
+shipwreck!
+
+Ah! this aching of the whole being, physical and moral,--again she asked
+herself, only with a wilder impatience, how long it could be borne.
+
+The wind had fallen, but in the pause of the dawn the river spoke with
+the hills. The light mounted quickly. Soon the first glint of sun came
+through the curtains. Laura extinguished her candle, and went to let in
+the day. As on that first morning, she stood in the window, following
+with her eye the foaming curves of the Greet, or the last streaks of snow
+upon the hills, or the daffodil stars in the grass.
+
+Hush!--what time was it? She ran for her watch. Nearly seven.
+
+She wrapped a shawl about her, and went back to her post, straining to
+see the path on the further side of the river through the mists that
+still hung about it. Suddenly her head dropped upon her hands. One sob
+forced its way. Helbeck had passed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For some three weeks, after this April night, the old house of Bannisdale
+was the scene of one of those dramas of life and death which depend, not
+upon external incident, but upon the inner realities of the heart, its
+inextinguishable affections, hopes, and agonies.
+
+Helbeck and Laura were once more during this time brought into close and
+intimate contact by the claims of a common humanity. They were united by
+the common effort to soften the last journey for Augustina, by all the
+little tendernesses and cares that a sick room imposes, by the pities and
+charities, the small renascent hopes and fears of each successive day and
+night.
+
+But all the while, how deeply were they divided!--how sharp was the clash
+between the reviving strength of passion, which could not but feed itself
+on the daily sight and contact of the beloved person, and those facts of
+character and individuality which held them separated!--facts which are
+always, and in all cases, the true facts of this world.
+
+In Helbeck the shock of Laura's October flight had worked with profound
+and transforming power. After those first desperate days in which he had
+merely sought to recover her, to break down her determination, or to
+understand if he could the grounds on which she had acted, a new
+conception of his own life and the meaning of it had taken possession of
+him. He fell into the profoundest humiliation and self-abasement,
+denouncing himself as a traitor to his faith, who out of mere
+self-delusion, and a lawless love of ease, had endangered his own
+obedience, and neglected the plain task laid upon him. That fear of
+proselytism, that humble dread of his own influence, which had once
+determined his whole attitude towards those about him, began now to seem
+to him mere wretched cowardice and self-will--the caprice of the servant
+who tries to better his master's instructions.
+
+  But now I cast that finer sense
+    And sorer shame aside;
+  Such dread of sin was indolence,
+    Such aim at heaven was pride.
+
+Again and again he said to himself that if he had struck at once for the
+Church and for the Faith at the moment when Laura's young heart was first
+opened to him, when under the earliest influences of her love for
+him--how could he doubt that she had loved him!--her nature was still
+plastic, still capable of being won to God, as it were, by a _coup de
+main_--might not--would not--all have been well? But no!--he must needs
+believe that God had given her to him for ever, that there was room for
+all the gradual softening, the imperceptible approaches by which he had
+hoped to win her. It had seemed to him the process could not be too
+gentle, too indulgent. And meanwhile the will and mind that might have
+been captured at a rush had time to harden--the forces of revolt to
+gather.
+
+What wonder? Oh! blind--infatuate! How could he have hoped to bring her,
+still untouched, within the circle of his Catholic life, into contact
+with its secrets and its renunciations, without recoil on her part,
+without risk of what had actually happened? The strict regulation of
+every hour, every habit, every thought, at which he aimed as a
+Catholic--what _could_ it seem to her but a dreary and forbidding
+tyranny?--to her who had no clue to it, who was still left free, though
+she loved him, to judge his faith coldly from outside? And when at last
+he had begun to drop hesitation, to change his tone--then, it was too
+late!
+
+_Tyranny!_ She had used that word once or twice, in that first letter
+which had reached him on the evening of her flight, and in a subsequent
+one. Not of anything that had been, apparently--but of that which might
+be. It had wounded him to the very quick.
+
+And yet, in truth, the course of his present thoughts--plainly
+interpreted--meant little else than this--that if, at the right moment,
+he had coerced her with success, they might both have been happy.
+
+Later on he had seen his own self-judgment reflected in the faces, the
+consolations, of his few intimate friends. Father Leadham, for
+instance--whose letters had been his chief support during a period of
+dumb agony when he had felt himself more than once on the brink of some
+morbid trouble of brain.
+
+"I found her adamant," said Father Leadham. "Never was I so powerless
+with any human soul. She would not discuss anything. She would only say
+that she was born in freedom--and free she would remain. All that I urged
+upon her implied beliefs in which she had not been brought up, which were
+not her father's and were not hers. Nor on closer experience had she been
+any more drawn to them--quite the contrary; whatever--and there, poor
+child! her eyes filled with tears--whatever she might feel towards those
+who held them. She said fiercely that you had never argued with her or
+persuaded her--or perhaps only once; that you had promised--this with an
+indignant look at me--that there should be no pressure upon her. And I
+could but feel sadly, dear friend, that you only, under our Blessed Lord,
+could have influenced her; and that you, by some deplorable mistake of
+judgment, had been led to feel that it was wrong to do so. And if ever, I
+will even venture to say, violence--spiritual violence, the violence that
+taketh by storm--could have been justified, it would have been in this
+case. Her affections were all yours; she was, but for you and her
+stepmother, alone in the world; and amid all her charms and gifts, a soul
+more starved and destitute I never met with. May our Lord and His
+Immaculate Mother strengthen you to bear your sorrow! For your friends,
+there are and must be consolations in this catastrophe. The cross that
+such a marriage would have laid upon you must have been heavy indeed."
+
+Harassed by such thoughts and memories Helbeck passed through these
+strange, these miserable days--when he and Laura were once more under the
+same roof, living the same household life. Like Laura, he clung to every
+hour; like Laura, he found it almost more than he could bear. He suffered
+now with a fierceness, a moroseness, unknown to him of old. Every
+permitted mortification that could torment the body or humble the mind he
+brought into play during these weeks, and still could not prevent himself
+from feeling every sound of Laura's voice and every rustle of her dress
+as a rough touch upon a sore.
+
+What was in her mind all the time--behind those clear indomitable eyes?
+He dared not let himself think of the signs of grief that were written so
+plainly on her delicate face and frame. One day he found himself looking
+at her from a distance in a passionate bewilderment. So white--so sad!
+For what? What was this freedom, this atrocious freedom--that a creature
+so fragile, so unfit to wield it, had yet claimed so fatally? His
+thoughts fell back to Stephen Fountain, cursing an influence at once so
+intangible and so strong.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was some relief that they were in no risk of _tête-à-tête_ outside
+Augustina's sick room. One or other of the nurses was always present at
+meals. And on the day after Laura's arrival Father Leadham appeared and
+stayed for ten days.
+
+The relations of the Jesuit towards Miss Fountain during this time were
+curious. It was plain to Helbeck that Father Leadham treated the girl
+with a new respect, and that she on her side showed herself much more at
+ease with him than she had used to be. It was as though they had tested
+each other, with the result that each had found in the other something
+nobler and sincerer than they had expected to find. Laura might be
+spiritually destitute; but it was evident that since his conversation
+with her, Father Leadham had realised for the first time the "charms and
+gifts" which might be supposed to have captured Mr. Helbeck.
+
+So that when they met at meals, or in the invalid's room, the Jesuit
+showed Miss Fountain a very courteous attention. He was fresh from
+Cambridge; he brought her gossip of her friends and acquaintances; he
+said pleasant things of the Friedlands. She talked in return with an ease
+that astonished Helbeck and his sister. She seemed to both to have grown
+years older.
+
+It was the same with all the other Catholic haunters of the house. For
+the first time she discovered how to get on with the Reverend Mother,
+even with Sister Angela--how not to find Father Bowles himself too
+wearisome. She moved among them with a dignity, perhaps an indifference,
+that changed her wholly.
+
+Once, when she had been chatting in the friendliest way with the Reverend
+Mother, she paused for a moment in the passage outside Augustina's room,
+amazed at herself.
+
+It was liberty, no doubt--this strange and desolate liberty in which she
+stood, that made the contrast. By some obscure association she fell on
+the words that Helbeck had once quoted to her--how differently! "My soul
+is escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowler; the snare is
+broken, and we are delivered."
+
+"Ah! but the bird's wings are broken and its breast pierced. What can it
+do with its poor freedom?" she said to herself, in a passion of tears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meanwhile, she realised the force of the saying that Catholicism is the
+faith to die in.
+
+The concentration of all these Catholic minds upon the dying of
+Augustina, the busy fraternal help evoked by every stage of her _via
+dolorosa_, was indeed marvellous to see. "It is a work of art," Laura
+thought, with that new power of observation which had developed in her.
+"It is--it must be--the most wonderful thing of its sort in the world!"
+
+For it was no mere haphazard series of feelings or kindnesses. It was an
+act--a function--this "good death" on which the sufferer and those who
+assisted her were equally bent. Something had to be done, a process to be
+gone through; and everyone was anxiously bent upon doing it in the right,
+the prescribed, way--upon omitting nothing. The physical fact, indeed,
+became comparatively unimportant, except as the evoking cause of certain
+symbolisms--nay, certain actual and direct contacts between earth and
+heaven, which were the distraction of death itself--which took precedence
+of it, and reduced it to insignificance.
+
+When Father Leadham left, Father Bowles came to stay in the house, and
+Communion was given to Mrs. Fountain every day. Two or three times a
+week, also, Mass was said in her room. Laura assisted once or twice at
+these scenes--the blaze of lights and flowers in the old panelled
+room--the altar adorned with splendid fittings brought from the chapel
+below--the small, blanched face in the depths of the great tapestried
+bed--the priest bending over it.
+
+On one of these occasions, in the early morning, when the candles on the
+altar were almost effaced by the first brilliance of a May day, Laura
+stole away from the darkened room where Mrs. Fountain lay soothed and
+sleeping, and stood for long at an open window overlooking the wild
+valley outside.
+
+She was stifled by the scent of flowers and burning wax; still more,
+mentally oppressed. The leaping river, the wide circuit of the fells, the
+blowing of the May wind!--to them, in a great reaction, the girl gave
+back her soul, passionately resting in them. They were no longer a joy
+and intoxication. But the veil lifted between her and them. They became a
+sanctuary and refuge.
+
+From the Martha of the old faith, so careful and troubled about many
+things--sins and penances, creeds and sacraments, the miraculous
+hauntings of words and objects, of water and wafer, of fragments of bone
+and stuff, of scapulars and medals, of crucifixes and indulgences--her
+mind turned to this Mary of a tameless and patient nature, listening and
+loving in the sunlight.
+
+Only, indeed, to destroy her own fancy as soon as woven! Nature was pain
+and combat, too, no less than Faith. But here, at least, was no jealous
+lesson to be learnt; no exclusions, no conditions. Her rivers were deep
+and clear for all; her "generous sun" was lit for all. What she promised
+she gave. Without any preliminary _credo_, her colours glowed, her
+breezes blew for the unhappy. Oh! such a purple shadow on the fells--such
+a red glory of the oak twigs in front of it--such a white sparkle of the
+Greet, parting the valley!
+
+What need of any other sacrament or sign than these--this beauty and
+bounty of the continuing world? Indeed, Friedland had once said to her,
+"The joy that Catholics feel in the sacrament, the plain believer in God
+will get day by day out of the simplest things--out of a gleam on the
+hills--a purple in the distance--a light on the river; still more out of
+any tender or heroic action."
+
+She thought very wistfully of her old friend and his talk; but here also
+with a strange sense of distance, of independence. How the river dashed
+and raced! There had been wild nights of rain amid this May beauty, and
+the stream was high. Day by day, of late, she had made it her comrade.
+Whenever she left Augustina it was always to wander beside it, or to sit
+above it, cradled and lost in that full triumphant song it went uttering
+to the spring.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But there was a third person in the play, by no means so passive an actor
+as Laura was wont to imagine her.
+
+There is often a marvellous education in such a tedious parting with the
+world as Augustina was enduring. If the physical conditions allow it, the
+soul of the feeblest will acquire a new dignity, and perceptions more to
+the point. As she lay looking at the persons who surrounded her,
+Augustina passed without an effort, and yet wonderfully, as it seemed to
+her, into a new stage of thought and desire about them. A fresh, an eager
+ambition sprang up in her, partly of the woman, partly of the believer.
+She had been blind; now she saw. She felt the power of her weakness, and
+she would seize it.
+
+Meanwhile, she made a rally which astonished all the doctors. Towards the
+end of the second week in May she had recovered strength so far that on
+several occasions she was carried down the chapel passage to the garden,
+and placed in a sheltered corner of the beech hedge, where she could see
+the bright turf of the bowling-green and the distant trees of the
+"Wilderness."
+
+One afternoon Helbeck came out to sit with her. He was no sooner there
+than she became so restless that he asked her if he should recall Sister
+Rosa, who had retired to a distant patch of shade.
+
+"No--no! Alan, I want to say something. Will you raise my pillow a
+little?"
+
+He did so, and she looked at him for a moment with her haunting blue
+eyes, without speaking. But at last she said:
+
+"Where is Laura?"
+
+"Indoors, I believe."
+
+"Don't call her. I have been talking to her, Alan, about--about what she
+means to do."
+
+"Did she tell you her plans?"
+
+He spoke very calmly, holding his sister's hand.
+
+"She doesn't seem to have any. The Friedlands have offered her a home, of
+course. Alan!--will you put your ear down to me?"
+
+He stooped, and she whispered brokenly, holding him several times when he
+would have drawn back.
+
+But at last he released himself. A flush had stolen over his fine and
+sharpened features.
+
+"My dear sister, if it were so--what difference can it make?"
+
+He spoke with a quick interrogation. But his glance had an intensity, it
+expressed a determination, which made her cry out--
+
+"Alan--if she gave way?"
+
+"She will _never_ give way. She has more self-control; but her mind is in
+precisely the same bitter and envenomed state. Indeed, she has grown more
+fixed, more convinced. The influence of her Cambridge friends has been
+decisive. Every day I feel for what she has to bear and put up with--poor
+child!--in this house."
+
+"It can't be for long," said Augustina with tears; and she lay for a
+while, pondering, and gathering force. But presently she made her brother
+stoop to her again.
+
+"Alan--please listen to me! If Laura _did_ become a Catholic--is there
+anything in the way--anything you can't undo?"
+
+He raised himself quickly. He would have suffered these questions from no
+one else. The stern and irritable temper that he inherited from his
+father had gained fast upon the old self-control since the events of
+October. Even now, with Augustina, he was short.
+
+"I shall take no vows, dear, before the time. But it would please me--it
+would console me--if you would put all these things out of your head. I
+see the will of God very plainly. Let us submit to it."
+
+"It hurts me so--to see you suffer!" she said, looking at him piteously.
+
+He bent over the grass, struggling for composure.
+
+"I shall have something else to do before long," he said in a low voice,
+"than to consider my own happiness."
+
+She was framing another question, when there was a sound of footsteps on
+the gravel behind them.
+
+Augustina exclaimed, with the agitation of weakness, "Don't let any
+visitors come!" Helbeck looked a moment in astonishment, then his face
+cleared.
+
+"Augustina!--it is the relic--from the Carmelite nuns. I recognise their
+Confessor."
+
+Augustina clasped her hands; and Sister Rosa, obeying Helbeck's signal,
+came quickly over to her. Mr. Helbeck bared his head and walked over the
+grass to meet the strange priest, who was carrying a small leather box.
+
+Soon there was a happy group round Augustina's couch. The Confessor who
+had brought this precious relic of St. John of the Cross had opened the
+case, and placed the small and delicate reliquary that it contained in
+Mrs. Fountain's hands. She lay clasping it to her breast, too weak to
+speak, but flushed with joy. The priest, a southern-eyed kindly man, with
+an astonishing flow of soft pietistic talk, sat beside her, speaking
+soothingly of the many marvels of cure or conversion that had been
+wrought by the treasure she held. He was going on to hold a retreat at a
+convent of the order near Froswick, and would return, he said, by
+Bannisdale in a week's time, to reclaim his charge. The nuns, he repeated
+with gentle emphasis, had never done such an honour to any sick person
+before. But for Mr. Helbeck's sister nothing was too much. And a novena
+had already been started at the convent. The nuns were praying--praying
+hard that the relic might do its holy work.
+
+He was still talking when there was a step and a sound of low singing
+behind the beech hedge. The garden was so divided by gigantic hedges of
+the eighteenth century, which formed a kind of Greek cross in its centre,
+that many different actions or conversations might be taking place in it
+without knowing anything one of the other. Laura, who had been away for
+an hour, was not aware that Augustina was in the garden till she came
+through a little tunnel in the hedge, and saw the group.
+
+The priest looked up, startled by the appearance of the young lady. Laura
+had marked the outburst of warm weather by the donning of a white dress
+and her summer hat. In one hand she held a bunch of lilac that she had
+been gathering for her stepmother; in the other a volume of a French life
+of St. Theresa that she had taken an hour before from Augustina's table.
+In anticipation of the great favor promised her by the Carmelite nuns,
+Augustina had been listening feebly from time to time to her brother's
+reading from the biography of the greatest of Carmelite saints and
+founders.
+
+"Laura!" said Mrs. Fountain faintly.
+
+Helbeck's expression changed. He bent over his sister, and said in a low
+decided voice, "Will you give me the relic, dear? I will return it to its
+case."
+
+"Oh, no, Alan," she said imploringly. "Laura, do you know what those kind
+dear nuns have done? They have sent me their relic. And I feel so much
+better already--so relieved!" Mrs. Fountain raised the little case and
+kissed it fervently. Then she held it out for Laura to see.
+
+The girl bent over it in silence.
+
+"What is it?" she said.
+
+"It is a relic of St. John of the Cross," said the priest opposite,
+glancing curiously at Miss Fountain, "It once belonged to the treasury of
+the Cathedral of Seville, and was stolen during the great war. But it has
+been now formally conveyed to our community by the Archbishop and
+Chapter."
+
+"Wasn't it kind of the dear nuns, Laura?" said Augustina fervently.
+
+"I--I suppose so," said Laura, in a low embarrassed voice. Helbeck, who
+was watching her, saw that she could hardly restrain the shudder of
+repulsion that ran through her.
+
+Her extraordinary answer threw a silence on the party. The tears started
+to the sick woman's eyes. The priest rose to take his leave. Mrs.
+Fountain asked him for an absolution and a blessing. He gave them, coldly
+bowed to Laura, shook hands with Sister Rosa, and took his departure,
+Helbeck conducting him.
+
+"Oh, Laura!" said Mrs. Fountain reproachfully. The girl's lips were quite
+white. She knelt down by her stepmother and kissed her hand.
+
+"Dear, I wouldn't have hurt you for the world! It was something I had
+been reading--it--it seemed to me horrible!--just for a moment. Of course
+I'm glad it comforts you, poor darling!--of course--of course, I am!"
+
+Mrs. Fountain was instantly appeased--for herself.
+
+"But Alan felt it so," she said restlessly, as she closed her eyes--"what
+you said. I saw his face."
+
+It was time for the invalid to be moved, and Sister Rosa had gone for
+help. Laura was left for a moment kneeling by her stepmother. No one
+could see her; the penitence and pain in the girl's feeling showed in her
+pallor, her pitiful dropping lip.
+
+Helbeck was heard returning. Laura looked up. Instinctively she rose and
+proudly drew herself together. Never yet had she seen that face so
+changed. It breathed the sternest, most concentrated anger--a storm of
+feeling that, in spite of the absolute silence that held it in curb, yet
+so communicated itself to her that her heart seemed to fail in her
+breast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few minutes later Miss Fountain, having gathered together a few
+scattered possessions of the invalid, was passing through the chapel
+passage. A step approached from the hall, and Helbeck confronted her.
+
+"Miss Fountain--may I ask you a kindness?"
+
+What a tone of steel! Her shoulders straightened--her look met his in a
+common flash.
+
+"Augustina is weak. Spare her discussion--the sort of discussion with
+which, no doubt, your Cambridge life makes you familiar. It can do
+nothing here, and "--he paused, only to resume unflinchingly--"the dying
+should not be disturbed."
+
+Laura wavered in the dark passage like one mortally struck. His pose as
+the protector of his sister--the utter distance and alienation of his
+tone--unjust!--incredible!
+
+"I discussed nothing," she said, breathing fast.
+
+"You might be drawn to do so," he said coldly. "Your contempt for the
+practices that sustain and console Catholics is so strong that no one can
+mistake the difficulty you have in concealing it. But I would ask you to
+conceal it for her sake."
+
+"I thank you," she said quietly, as she swept past him. "But you _are_
+mistaken."
+
+She walked away from him and mounted the stairs without another word.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Laura sat crouched and rigid in her own room. How had it happened, this
+horrible thing?--this break-down of the last vestiges and relics of the
+old relation--this rushing in of a temper and a hostility that stunned
+her!
+
+She looked at the book on her knee. Then she remembered. In the
+"Wilderness" she had been reading that hideous account which appears in
+all the longer biographies, of the mutilation of St. Theresa's body three
+years after her death by some relic-hunting friars from Avila. In a
+ruthless haste, these pious thieves had lifted the poor embalmed corpse
+from its resting-place at Alba; they had cut the old woman's arm from the
+shoulder; they had left it behind in the rifled coffin, and then hastily
+huddling up the body, they had fled southwards with their booty, while
+the poor nuns, who had loved and buried their dead "mother," who had been
+shut by a trick into their own choir while the awful thing was done, were
+still singing the office, ignorant and happy.
+
+The girl had read the story with sickening. Then Augustina had held up to
+her the relic case, with that shrivelled horror inside it. A finger, was
+it? or a portion of one. Perhaps torn from some poor helpless one in the
+same way. And to such aids and helps must a human heart come in dying!
+
+She had not been quick enough to master herself. Oh! that was wrong--very
+wrong. But had it deserved a stroke so cruel--so unjust?
+
+Oh! miserable, miserable religion! Her wild nature rose against
+it--accused--denounced it.
+
+That night Augustina was marvellously well. She lay with the relic case
+beside her in a constant happiness.
+
+"Oh, Laura! Laura, dear!--even you must see what it has done for me!"
+
+So she whispered, when Sister Rosa had withdrawn into the next room and
+she and Laura were left together.
+
+"I am so glad," said the girl gently, "so very glad."
+
+"You are so dreadfully pale, Laura!"
+
+Laura said nothing. She raised the poor hand she held, and laid it softly
+against her cheek. Augustina looked at her wistfully. Gradually her
+resolution rose.
+
+"Laura, I must say it--God tells me to say it!"
+
+"What! dear Augustina?"
+
+"Laura--you could save Alan!--you could alter his whole life. And you are
+breaking his heart!"
+
+Laura stared at her, letting the hand slowly drop upon the bed. What was
+happening in this strange, strange world?
+
+"Laura, come here!--I can't bear it. He suffers so! You don't see it, but
+I do. He has the look of my father when my mother died. I know that he
+will go to the Jesuits. They will quiet him, and pray for him--and prayer
+saves you. But you, Laura--_you_ might save him another way--oh! I must
+call it a happier way." She looked up piteously to the crucifix that hung
+on the wall opposite. "You thought me unkind when you were engaged--I
+know you did. I didn't know what to think--I was so upset by it all. But,
+oh! how I have prayed since I came back that he might marry, and have
+children,--and a little happiness. He is not forty yet--and he has had a
+hard life. How he will be missed here, too! Who can ever take his place?
+Why, he has made it all! And he loves his work. Of course I see
+that--now--he thinks it a sin--what happened last year--your engagement.
+But all the same, he can't tear his heart away from you. I can't
+understand it. It seems to me almost terrible--to love as he loves you."
+
+"Dear Augustina, don't--don't say such things." The girl fell on her
+knees beside her stepmother. Her pride was broken; her face convulsed.
+"Why, you don't know, dear! He has lost all love for me. He says hard
+things to me even. He judges me like--like a stranger." She looked at
+Augustina imploringly through her tears.
+
+"Did he scold you just now about the relic? But it was _because_ it was
+you. Nobody else could have made him angry about such a thing. Why, he
+would have just laughed and pitied them!--you know he would. But you--oh,
+Laura, you torture him!"
+
+Laura hid her face, shaking with the sobs she tried to control. Her heart
+melted within her. She thought of that marked book upon his table.
+
+"And Laura," said the sighing thread of a voice, "how _can_ you be wiser
+than all the Church?--all these generations? Just think, dear!--you
+against the Saints and the Fathers, and the holy martyrs and confessors,
+from our Lord's time till now! Oh! your poor father. I know. But he never
+came near the faith, Laura--how could he judge? It was not offered to
+him. That was my wicked fault. If I had been faithful I might have gained
+my husband. But Laura"--the voice grew so eager and sharp--"we judge no
+one. We must believe for ourselves the Church is the only way. But God is
+so merciful! But you--it _is_ offered to you, Laura. And Alan's love with
+it. Just so little on your part--the Church is so tender, so indulgent!
+She does not expect a perfect faith all at once. One must just make the
+step blindly--_obey_--throw oneself into her arms. Father Leadham said so
+to me one day---not minding what one thinks and believes--not looking at
+oneself--just obeying--and it will all come!"
+
+But Laura could not speak. Little Augustina, full of a pleading, an
+apostolic strength, looked at her tenderly.
+
+"He hardly sleeps, Laura. As I lie awake, I hear him moving about at all
+hours. I said to Father Leadham the other day--'his heart is broken. When
+you take him, he will be able to do what you tell him, perhaps. But--for
+this world--it will be like a dead man.' And Father Leadham did not deny
+it. He _knows_ it is true."
+
+And thus, so long as her poor strength lasted, Augustina lay and
+whispered--reporting all the piteous history of those winter
+months--things that Laura had never heard and never dreamed--a tale of
+grief so profound and touching that, by the time it ended, every landmark
+was uprooted in the girl's soul, and she was drifting on a vast tide of
+pity and passion, whither she knew not.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The next day there was no outing for Augustina. The south-west wind was
+again let loose upon the valley and the moss, with violent rain from the
+sea. In the grass the daffodils lay all faded and brown. But the
+bluebells were marching fast over the copses--as though they sprang in
+the traces of the rain.
+
+Laura sat working beside Augustina, or reading to her, from morning till
+dark. Mr. Helbeck had gone into Whinthorpe as usual before breakfast, and
+was not expected home till the evening. Mrs. Fountain was perhaps more
+restless and oppressed than she had been the day before. But she would
+hardly admit it. She lay with the relic beside her, and took the most
+hopeful view possible of all her symptoms.
+
+Miss Fountain herself that day was in singular beauty. The dark circles
+round her eyes did but increase their brilliance; the hot fire in
+Augustina's rooms made her cheeks glow; and the bright blue cotton of her
+dress had been specially chosen by Molly Friedland to set off the gold of
+her hair.
+
+She was gay too, to Augustina's astonishment. She told stories of Daffady
+and the farm; she gossiped with Sister Rosa; she alternately teased and
+coaxed Fricka. Sister Rosa had been a little cool to her at first after
+the affair of the relic. But Miss Fountain was so charming this
+afternoon, so sweet to her stepmother, so amiable to other people, that
+the little nurse could not resist her.
+
+And at regular intervals she would walk to the window, and report to
+Augustina the steady rising of the river.
+
+"It has flooded all that flat bank opposite the first seat--and of that
+cattle-rail, that bar--what do you call it?--just at the bend--you can
+only see the very top line. And such a current under the otter cliff!
+It's splendid, Augustina!--it's magnificent!"
+
+And she would turn her flushed face to her stepmother in a kind of
+triumph.
+
+"It will wash away the wooden bridge if it goes on," said Augustina
+plaintively, "and destroy all the flowers."
+
+But Laura seemed to exult in it. If it had not been for the curb of Mrs.
+Fountain's weakness she could not have kept still at all as the evening
+drew on, and the roar of the water became continuously audible even in
+this high room. And yet every now and then it might perhaps have been
+thought that she was troubled or annoyed by the sound--that it prevented
+her from hearing something else.
+
+Mrs. Fountain did not know how to read her. Once, when they were alone,
+she tried to reopen the subject of the night before. But Laura would not
+even allow it to be approached. To-day she had the lightest, softest ways
+of resistance. But they were enough.
+
+Mrs. Fountain could only sigh and yield.
+
+Towards seven o'clock she began to fidget about her brother. "He
+certainly meant to be home for dinner," she said several times, with
+increasing peevishness.
+
+"I am going to have dinner here!" said Laura, smiling.
+
+"Why?" said Augustina, astonished.
+
+"Oh! let me, dear. Mr. Helbeck is sure to be late. And Sister Rosa will
+look after him. Teaching Fricka has made me as hungry as that!"--and she
+opened her hands wide, as a child measures.
+
+Augustina looked at her sadly, but said nothing. She remembered that the
+night before, too, Laura, would not go downstairs.
+
+The little meal went gayly. Just as it was over, and while Laura was
+still chattering to her stepmother as she had not chattered for months, a
+step was heard in the passage.
+
+"Ah! there is Alan!" cried Mrs. Fountain.
+
+The Squire came in tired and mud-stained. Even his hair shone with rain,
+and his clothes were wet through.
+
+"I must not come too near you," he said, standing beside the door.
+
+Mrs. Fountain bade him dress, get some dinner, and come back to her. As
+she spoke, she saw him peering through the shadows of the room. She too
+looked round. Laura was gone.
+
+"At the first sound of his step!" thought Augustina. And she wept a
+little, but so secretly that even Sister Rosa did not discover it. Her
+ambition--her poor ambition--was for herself alone. What chance had
+it?--alas! Never since Stephen's death surely had Augustina seen Laura
+shed such tears as she had shed the night before. But no words, no
+promises--nothing! And where, now, was any sign of it?
+
+She drew out her beads for comfort. And so, sighing and praying, she fell
+asleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After supper Helbeck was in the hall smoking. He was half abashed that he
+should find so much comfort in his pipe, and that he should dread so much
+the prospect of giving it up.
+
+His thoughts, however, were black enough--black as the windy darkness
+outside.
+
+A step on the stairs--at which his breath leapt. Miss Fountain, in her
+white evening dress, was descending.
+
+"May I speak to you, Mr. Helbeck?"
+
+He flung down his pipe and approached her. She stood a little above him
+on one of the lower steps; and instantly he felt that she came in
+gentleness.
+
+An agitation he could barely control took possession of him. All day long
+he had been scourging himself for the incident of the night before. They
+had not met since. He looked at her now humbly--with a deep sadness--and
+waited for what she had to say.
+
+"Shall we go into the drawing-room? Is there a light?"
+
+"We will take one."
+
+He lifted a lamp, and she led the way. Without another word, she opened
+the door into the deserted room. Nobody had entered it since the
+orphanage function, when some extra service had been hastily brought in
+to make the house habitable. The mass of the furniture was gathered into
+the centre of the carpet, with a few tattered sheets flung across it. The
+gap made by the lost Romney spoke from the wall, and the windows stood
+uncurtained to the night.
+
+Laura, however, found a chair and sank into it. He put down the lamp, and
+stood expectant.
+
+They were almost in their old positions. How to find strength and voice!
+That room breathed memories.
+
+When she did speak, however, her intonation was peculiarly firm and
+clear.
+
+"You gave me a rebuke last night, Mr. Helbeck--and I deserved it!"
+
+He made a sudden movement--a movement which seemed to trouble her.
+
+"No!--don't!"--she raised her hand involuntarily--"don't please say
+anything to make it easier for me. I gave you great pain. You were
+right--oh! quite right--to express it. But you know----"
+
+She broke off suddenly.
+
+"You know, I can't talk--if you stand there like that! Won't you
+come here, and sit down"--she pointed to a chair near her--"as if we
+were friends still? We can be friends, can't we? We ought to be
+for Augustina's sake. And I very much want to discuss with
+you--seriously--what I have to say."
+
+He obeyed her. He came to sit beside her, recovering his
+composure--bending forward that he might give her his best attention.
+
+She paused a moment--knitting her brows.
+
+"I thought afterwards, a long time, of what had happened. I talked, too,
+to Augustina. She was much distressed--she appealed to me. And I saw a
+great deal of force in what she said. She pointed out that it was absurd
+for me to judge before I knew; that I never--never--had been willing to
+know; that everything--even the Catholic Church"--she smiled
+faintly--"takes some learning. She pleaded with me--and what she said
+touched me very much. I do not know how long I may have to stay in your
+house--and with her. I would not willingly cause you pain. I would gladly
+_understand_, at least, more than I do--I should like to learn--to be
+instructed. Would--would Father Leadham, do you think, take the trouble
+to correspond with me--to point me out the books, for instance, that I
+might read?"
+
+Helbeck's black eyes fastened themselves upon her.
+
+"You--you would like to correspond with Father Leadham?" he repeated, in
+stupefaction.
+
+She nodded. Involuntarily she began a little angry beating with her foot
+that he knew well. It was always the protest of her pride, when she could
+not prevent the tears from showing themselves.
+
+He controlled himself. He turned his chair so as to come within an easy
+talking distance.
+
+"Will you pardon me," he said quietly, "if I ask for more information?
+Did you only determine on this last night?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+He hesitated.
+
+"It is a serious step, Miss Fountain! You should not take it only from
+pity for Augustina--only from a wish to give her comfort in dying!"
+
+She turned away her face a little. That penetrating look pierced too
+deeply. "Are there not many motives?" she said, rather hoarsely--"many
+ways? I want to give Augustina a happiness--and--and to satisfy many
+questions of my own. Father Leadham is bound to teach, is he not, as a
+priest? He could lose nothing by it."
+
+"Certainly he is bound," said Helbeck.
+
+He dropped his head, and stared at the carpet, thinking.
+
+"He would recommend you some books, of course."
+
+The same remembrance flew through both. Absently and involuntarily,
+Helbeck shook his head, with a sad lifting of the eyebrows. The colour
+rushed into Laura's cheeks.
+
+"It must be something very simple," she said hurriedly. "Not 'Lives of
+the Saints,' I think, and not 'Catechisms' or 'Outlines.' Just a building
+up from the beginning by somebody--who found it hard, _very_ hard, to
+believe--and yet did believe. But Father Leadham will know--of course he
+would know."
+
+Helbeck was silent. It suddenly appeared to him the strangest, the most
+incredible conversation. He felt the rise of a mad emotion--the beating
+in his breast choked him.
+
+Laura rose, and he heard her say in low and wavering tones:
+
+"Then I will write to him to-morrow--if you think I may."
+
+He sprang to his feet, and as she passed him the fountains of his being
+broke up. With a wild gesture he caught her in his arms.
+
+"Laura!"
+
+It was not the cry of his first love for her. It was a cry under which
+she shuddered. But she submitted at once. Nay, with a womanly
+tenderness--how unlike that old shrinking Laura--she threw her arm round
+his neck, she buried her little head in his breast.
+
+"Oh, how long you were in understanding!" she said with a deep sigh. "How
+long!"
+
+"Laura!--what does it mean?--my head turns!"
+
+"It means--it means--that you shall never--never again speak to me as you
+did yesterday; that either you must love me or--well, I must just die!"
+she gave a little sharp sobbing laugh. "I have tried other things--and
+they can't--they can't be borne. And if you can't love me unless I am a
+Catholic--now, I know you wouldn't--I must just _be_ a Catholic--if any
+power in the world can make me one. Why, Father Leadham can persuade
+me--he must!" She drew away from him, holding him, almost fiercely, by
+her two small hands. "I am nothing but an ignorant, foolish girl. And he
+has persuaded so many wise people--you have often told me. Oh, he
+must--he must persuade me!"
+
+She hid herself again on his breast. Then she looked up, feeling the
+tears on his cheek.
+
+"But you'll be very, very patient with me--won't you? Oh! I'm so dead to
+all those things! But if I say whatever you want me to say--if I do what
+is required of me--you won't ask me too many questions--you won't press
+me too hard? You'll trust to my being yours--to my growing into your
+heart? Oh! how did I ever bear the agony of tearing myself away!"
+
+It was an ecstasy--a triumph. But it seemed to him afterwards in looking
+back upon it, that all through it was also an anguish! The revelation of
+the woman's nature, of all that had lived and burned in it since he last
+held her in his arms, brought with it for both of them such sharp pains
+of expansion, such an agony of experience and growth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Very soon, however, she grew calmer. She tried to tell him what had
+happened to her since that black October day. But conversation was not
+altogether easy. She had to rush over many an hour and many a
+thought--dreading to remember. And again and again he could not rid
+himself of the image of the old Laura, or could not fathom the new. It
+was like stepping from the firmer ground of the moss on to the softer
+patches where foot and head lost themselves. He could see her as she had
+been, or as he had believed her to be, up to twenty-four hours
+before--the little enemy and alien in the house; or as she had lived
+beside him those four months--troubled, petulant, exacting. But this
+radiant, tender Laura--with this touch of feverish extravagance in her
+love and her humiliation--she bewildered him; or rather she roused a new
+response; he must learn new ways of loving her.
+
+Once, as he was holding her hand, she looked at him timidly.
+
+"You would have left Bannisdale, wouldn't you?"
+
+He quickly replied that he had been in correspondence with his old Jesuit
+friends. But he would not dwell upon it. There was a kind of shame in the
+subject, that he would not have had her penetrate. A devout Catholic does
+not dwell for months on the prospects and secrets of the religious life
+to put them easily and in a moment out of his hand--even at the call of
+the purest and most legitimate passion. From the Counsels, the soul
+returns to the Precepts. The higher, supremer test is denied it. There is
+humbling in that--a bitter taste, not to be escaped.
+
+Perhaps she did penetrate it. She asked him hurriedly if he regretted
+anything. She could so easily go away again--for ever. "I could do it--I
+could do it now!" she said firmly. "Since you kissed me. You could always
+be my friend."
+
+He smiled, and raised her hands to his lips. "Where thou livest, dear, I
+will live, and where----"
+
+She withdrew a hand, and quickly laid it on his mouth.
+
+"No--not to-night! We have been so full of death all these weeks! Oh! how
+I want to tell Augustina!"
+
+But she did not move. She could not tear herself from this comfortless
+room--this strange circle of melancholy light in which they sat--this
+beating of the rain in their ears as it dashed against the old and
+fragile casements.
+
+"Oh! my dear," he said suddenly as he watched her, "I have grown so old
+and cross. And so poor! It has taken far more than the picture"--he
+pointed to the vacant space--"to carry me through this six months. My
+schemes have been growing--what motive had I for holding my hand? My
+friends have often remonstrated--the Jesuits especially. But at last I
+have had my way. I have far--far less to offer you than I had before."
+
+He looked at her in a sad apology.
+
+"I have a little money," she said shyly. "I don't believe you ever knew
+it before."
+
+"Have you?" he said in astonishment.
+
+"Just a tiny bit. I shall pay my way"--and she laughed happily.
+"Alan!--have you noticed--how well I have been getting on with the
+Sisters?--what friends Father Leadham and I made? But no!--you didn't
+notice anything. You saw me all _en noir_--_all_" she repeated with a
+mournful change of voice.
+
+Then her eyelids fell, and she shivered.
+
+"Oh! how you hurt--how you _hurt_!--last night."
+
+He passionately soothed her, denouncing himself, asking her pardon. She
+gave a long sigh. She had a strange sense of having climbed a long stair
+out of an abyss of misery. Now she was just at the top--just within light
+and welcome. But the dark was so close behind--one touch! and she was
+thrust down to it again.
+
+"I have only hated two people this last six months," she said at last, _à
+propos_, apparently, of nothing. "Your cousin, who was to have
+Bannisdale--and--and--Mr. Williams. I saw him at Cambridge."
+
+There was a pause; then Helbeck said, with an agitation that she felt
+beneath her cheek as her little head rested on his shoulder:
+
+"You saw Edward Williams? How did he dare to present himself to you?"
+
+He gently withdrew himself from her, and went to stand before the hearth,
+drawn up to his full stern height. His dark head and striking pale
+features were fitly seen against the background of the old wall. As he
+stood there he was the embodiment of his race, of its history, its
+fanaticisms, its "great refusals" at once of all mean joys and all new
+freedoms. To a few chosen notes in the universe, tender response and
+exquisite vibration--to all others, deaf, hard, insensitive, as the stone
+of his old house.
+
+Laura looked at him with a mingled adoration and terror. Then she hastily
+explained how and where she had met Williams.
+
+"And you felt no sympathy for him?" said Helbeck, wondering.
+
+She flushed.
+
+"I knew what it must have been to you. And--and--he showed no sense of
+it."
+
+Her tone was so simple, so poignant, that Helbeck smiled only that he
+might not weep. Hurriedly coming to her he kissed her soft hair.
+
+"There were temptations of his youth," he said with difficulty, "from
+which the Faith rescued him. Now these same temptations have torn him
+from the faith. It has been all known to me from first to last. I see no
+hope. Let us never speak of him again."
+
+"No," she said trembling.
+
+He drew a long breath. Suddenly he knelt beside her.
+
+"And you!" he said in a low voice--"you! What love--what sweetness--shall
+be enough for you! Oh! my Laura, when I think of what you have done
+to-night--of all that it means, all that it promises--I humble myself
+before you. I envy and bless you. Yours has been no light struggle--no
+small sacrifice. I can only marvel at it. Dear, the Church will draw you
+so softly--teach you so tenderly! You have never known a mother. Our Lady
+will be your Mother. You have had few friends--they will be given to you
+in all times and countries--and this will you are surrendering will come
+back to you strengthened a thousand-fold for my support--and your own."
+
+He looked at her with emotion. Oh! how pale she had grown under these
+words of benediction. There was a moment's silence--then she rose feebly.
+
+"Now--let me go! To-morrow--will you tell Augustina? Or to-night, if she
+were awake, and strong enough? How can one be sure--?"
+
+"Let us come and see."
+
+He took her hand, and they moved a few steps across the room, when they
+were startled by the thunder of the storm upon the windows. They stopped
+involuntarily. Laura's face lit up.
+
+"How the river roars! I love it so. Yesterday I was on the top of the
+otter cliff when it was coming down in a torrent! To-morrow it will be
+superb."
+
+"I wish you wouldn't go there till I have had some fencing done," said
+Helbeck with decision. "The rain has loosened the moss and made it all
+slippery and unsafe. I saw some people gathering primroses there to-day,
+and I told Murphy to warn them off. We must put a railing----"
+
+Laura turned her face to the hall.
+
+"What was that?" she said, catching his arm.
+
+A sudden cry--loud and piercing--from the stairs.
+
+"Mr. Helbeck--Miss Fountain!"
+
+They rushed into the hall. Sister Rosa ran towards them.
+
+"Oh! Mr. Helbeck--come at once--Mrs. Fountain----"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Augustina still sat propped in her large chair by the fire.
+
+But a nurse looked up with a scared face as they entered.
+
+"Oh come--_come_--Mr. Helbeck! She is just going."
+
+Laura threw herself on her knees beside her stepmother. Helbeck gave one
+look at his sister, then also kneeling he took her cold and helpless
+hand, and said in a steady voice--
+
+"Receive thy servant, O Lord, into the place of salvation, which she
+hopes from Thy mercy."
+
+The two nurses, sobbing, said the "Amen."
+
+"Deliver, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant from all the perils of hell,
+from pains and all tribulations."
+
+"Amen."
+
+Mrs. Fountain's head fell gently back upon the cushions. The eyes
+withdrew themselves in the manner that only death knows, the lids dropped
+partially.
+
+"Augustina--dear Augustina--give me one look!" cried Laura in despair.
+She wrapped her arms round her stepmother and laid her head on the poor
+wasted bosom.
+
+But Helbeck possessed himself of one of the girl's hands, and with his
+own right he made the sign of the Cross upon his sister's brow.
+
+"Depart, O Christian soul, from this world, in the name of God the Father
+Almighty, who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, the son of the
+living God, who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost, who has
+been poured out upon thee; in the name of the angels and archangels; in
+the name of the thrones and dominations; in the name of the
+principalities and powers; in the name of the cherubim and seraphim; in
+the name of the patriarchs and prophets; in the name of the holy apostles
+and evangelists; in the name of the holy martyrs and confessors; in the
+name of the holy monks and hermits; in the name of the holy virgins, and
+of all the saints of God; let thy place be this day in peace, and thy
+abode in the Holy Sion; through Christ our Lord. Amen."
+
+There was silence, broken only by Laura's sobs and the nurses' weeping.
+Helbeck alone was quite composed. He gazed at his sister, not with
+grief--rather with a deep, mysterious joy. When he rose, still looking
+down upon Augustina, he questioned the nurses in low tones.
+
+There had been hardly any warning. Suddenly a stifled cry--a gurgling in
+the throat--a spasm. Sister Rosa thought she had distinguished the words
+"Jesus!--" "Alan--" but there had been no time for any message, any
+farewell. The doctors had once warned the brother that it was possible,
+though not likely, that the illness would end in this way.
+
+"Father Bowles gave her Communion this morning?" said Helbeck, with a
+grave exactness, like one informing himself of all necessary things.
+
+"This morning and yesterday," said Sister Rosa eagerly; "and dear Mrs.
+Fountain confessed on Saturday."
+
+Laura rose from her knees and wrung her hands.
+
+"Oh! I can't bear it!" she said to Helbeck. "If I had been there--if we
+could just have told her! Oh, how strange--how _strange_ it is!"
+
+And she looked wildly about her, seized by an emotion, a misery, that
+Helbeck could not altogether understand. He tried to soothe her,
+regardless of the presence of the nurses. Laura, too, did not think of
+them. But when he put his arm round her, she withdrew herself in a
+restlessness that would not be controlled.
+
+"How strange--_how strange_!" she repeated, as she looked down on the
+little blanched and stiffening face.
+
+Helbeck stooped and kissed the brow of the dead woman.
+
+"If I had only loved her better!" he said with emotion.
+
+Laura stared at him. His words brought back to her a rush of
+memories--Augustina's old fear of him--those twelve years in which no
+member of the Fountain household had ever seen Mrs. Fountain's brother.
+So long as Augustina had been Stephen Fountain's wife, she had been no
+less dead for Helbeck, her only brother, than she was now.
+
+The girl shuddered. She looked pitifully at the others.
+
+"Please--please--leave me alone with her a little! She was my father's
+wife--my dear father's wife!"
+
+And again she sank on her knees, hiding her face against the dead. The
+nurses hesitated, but Helbeck thought it best to let her have her way.
+
+"We will go for half an hour," he said, stooping to her. Then, in a
+whisper that only she could hear--"My Laura--you are mine now--let me
+soon come back and comfort you!"
+
+When they returned they found Laura sitting on a stool beside her
+stepmother. One hand grasped that of Augustina, while the other dropped
+listlessly in front of her. Her brow under its weight of curly hair hung
+forward. The rest of the little face almost disappeared behind the fixed
+and sombre intensity of the eyes.
+
+She took no notice when they came in, and it was Helbeck alone who could
+rouse her. He persuaded her to go, on a promise that the nurses would
+soon recall her.
+
+When all was ready she returned. Augustina was lying in a white pomp of
+candles and flowers; the picture of the Virgin, the statue of St. Joseph,
+her little praying table, were all garlanded with light; every trace of
+the long physical struggle had been removed; the great bed, with its
+meek, sleeping form and its white draperies, rose solitary amid its
+lights--an altar of death in the void of the great panelled room.
+
+Laura stood opposite to Helbeck, her hands clasped, as white and
+motionless from head to foot as Augustina herself. Once amid the prayers
+and litanies he was reciting with the Sisters, he lifted his head and
+found that she was looking at him and not at Augustina. Her expression
+was so forlorn and difficult to read, that he felt a vague uneasiness.
+But his Catholic sense of the deep awe of what he was doing made him try
+to concentrate himself upon it, and when he raised his eyes again Laura
+was gone.
+
+At four o'clock, in the dawn, he went himself to rest awhile, a little
+surprised, perhaps, that Laura had not come back to share the vigils of
+the night, but thankful, nevertheless, that she had been prudent enough
+to spare herself.
+
+Some little time before he went, while it was yet dark, Sister Rosa had
+gone to lie down for a while. Her room was just beyond Laura's. As she
+passed Miss Fountain's door she saw that there was a light within, and
+for some time after the tired nurse had thrown herself on her bed, she
+was disturbed by sounds from the next room. Miss Fountain seemed to be
+walking up and down. Once or twice she broke out into sobs, then again
+there were periods of quiet, and once a sharp sound that might have been
+made by tearing a letter. But Sister Rosa did not listen long. It was
+natural that Miss Fountain should sorrow and watch, and the nurse's
+fatigue soon brought her sleep.
+
+She had rejoined her companion, however, and Mr Helbeck had been in his
+room about half an hour, when the door of the death chamber opened
+softly, and Miss Fountain appeared.
+
+The morning light was already full, though still rosily clear and cold,
+and it fell upon the strangest and haggardest figure. Miss Fountain was
+in a black dress, covered with a long black cloak. Her dress and cloak
+were bedraggled with mud and wet. Her hat and hair were both in a
+drenched confusion, and the wind had laid a passing flush, like a mask,
+upon the pallor of her face. In her arms she held some boughs of wild
+cherry, and a mass of wild clematis, gathered from a tree upon the house
+wall, for which Augustina had cherished a particular affection.
+
+She paused just inside the door, and looked at the nurses uncertainly,
+like one who hardly knew what she was doing.
+
+Sister Rosa went to her.
+
+"They are so wet," she whispered with a troubled look, "and I went to the
+most sheltered places. But I should like to put them by her. She loved
+the cherry blossom--and this clematis."
+
+The nurse took her into the next room, and between them they dried and
+shook the beautiful tufted branches. As Laura was about to take them back
+to the bed, Sister Rosa asked if she would not take off her wet cloak.
+
+"Oh no!" said the girl, as though with a sudden entreaty. "No! I am going
+out again. It shan't touch anything."
+
+And daintily holding it to one side, she returned with the flowers in a
+basket. She took them out one by one, and laid them beside Augustina,
+till the bed was a vision of spring, starred and wreathed from end to
+end, save for that waxen face and hands in the centre.
+
+"There is no room for more," said the nurse gently, beside her.
+
+Laura started.
+
+"No--but----"
+
+She looked vaguely round the walls, saw a pair of old Delft vases still
+empty, and said eagerly, pointing, "I will bring some for those. There is
+a tree--a cherry tree," the nurse remembered afterwards that she had
+spoken with a remarkable slowness and clearness, "just above the otter
+cliff. You don't know where that is. But Mr. Helbeck knows."
+
+The nurse glanced at her, and wondered. Miss Fountain, no doubt, had been
+dazed a little by the sudden shock. She had learnt, however, not to
+interfere with the first caprices of grief, and she did not try to
+dissuade the girl from going.
+
+When the flowers were all laid, Laura went round to the further side of
+the bed and dropped on her knees. She gazed steadily at Augustina for a
+little; then she turned to the faldstool beside the bed and the shelf
+above it, with Augustina's prayer-books, and on either side of the St.
+Joseph, on the wall, the portraits of Helbeck and his mother. The two
+nurses moved away to the window that she might be left a little to
+herself. They had seen enough, naturally, to make them divine a new
+situation, and feel towards her with a new interest and compassion.
+
+When she rejoined them, they were alternately telling their beads and
+looking at the glory of the sunrise as it came marching from the distant
+fells over the park. The rain had ceased, but the trees and grass were
+steeped, and the river came down in a white flood under the pure greenish
+spaces, and long pearly clouds of the morning sky.
+
+Laura gave it all one look. Then she drew her cloak round her again.
+
+"Dear Miss Fountain," whispered Sister Rosa, entreating, "don't be long.
+And when you come in, let me get you dry things, and make you some tea."
+
+The girl made a sign of assent.
+
+"Good-bye," she said under her breath, and she gently kissed first Sister
+Rosa, and then the other nurse, Sister Mary Raphael, who did not know her
+so well, and was a little surprised perhaps to feel the touch of the cold
+small lips.
+
+They watched her close the door, and some dim anxiety made them wait at
+the window till they saw her emerge from the garden wall into the park.
+She was walking slowly with bent head. She seemed to stand for a minute
+or two at the first seat commanding the bend of the river; then the rough
+road along the Greet turned and descended. They saw her no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little before eight o'clock, Helbeck, coming out of his room, met
+Sister Rosa in the passage. She looked a little disturbed.
+
+"Is Miss Fountain there?" asked Helbeck in the voice natural to those who
+keep house with death. He motioned toward his sister's room.
+
+"I have not seen Miss Fountain since she went out between four and five
+o'clock," said the nurse.
+
+"She went out for some flowers. As she did not come back to us, we
+thought that she was tired and had gone straight to bed. But now I have
+been to see. Miss Fountain is not in her room."
+
+Helbeck stopped short.
+
+"Not in her room! And she went out between four and five o'clock!"
+
+"She told us she was going for some flowers to the otter cliff," said
+Sister Rosa, with cheeks that were rapidly blanching. "I remember her
+saying so very plainly. She said you would know where it was."
+
+He stared at her, his face turning to horror. Then he was gone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Laura was not far to seek. The tyrant river that she loved, had received
+her, had taken her life, and then had borne her on its swirl of waters
+straight for that little creek where, once before, it had tossed a human
+prey upon the beach.
+
+There, beating against the gravelly bank, in a soft helplessness, her
+bright hair tangled among the drift of branch and leaf brought down by
+the storm, Helbeck found her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He brought her home upon his breast. Those who had come to search with
+him followed at a distance.
+
+He carried her through the garden, and at the chapel entrance nurses and
+doctors met him. Long and fruitless efforts were made before all was
+yielded to despair; but the river had done its work.
+
+At last Helbeck said a hoarse word to Sister Rosa. She led the others
+away.
+
+... In that long agony, Helbeck's soul parted for ever with the first
+fresh power to suffer. Neither life nor death could ever stab in such
+wise again. The half of personality--the chief forces of that Helbeck
+whom Laura had loved, were already dead with Laura, when, after many
+hours, his arms gave her back to the Sisters, and she dropped gently from
+his hold upon her bed of death, in a last irrevocable submission.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Far on in the day, Sister Rosa discovered on Laura's table a sealed
+letter addressed to Dr. Friedland of Cambridge. She brought it to
+Helbeck. He looked at it blindly, then gradually remembered the name and
+the facts connected with it. He wrote and sent a message to Dr. and Mrs.
+Friedland asking them of their kindness to come to Bannisdale.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Friedlands arrived late at night. They saw the child to whom they had
+given their hearts lying at peace in the old tapestried room. Some of the
+flowers she had herself brought for Augustina had been placed about her.
+The nurses had exhausted themselves in the futile cares that soothe good
+women at such a time.
+
+The talk throughout the household was of sudden and hopeless accident.
+Miss Fountain had gone for cherry blossom to the otter cliff; the cliff
+was unsafe after the rain; only twenty-four hours before, Mr. Helbeck had
+given orders on the subject to the old keeper. And the traces of a
+headlong fall just below a certain flowery bent where a wild cherry stood
+above a bank of primroses, were plainly visible.
+
+Then, as the doctor and Mrs. Friedland entered their own room, Laura's
+letter was brought to them.
+
+They shut themselves in to read it, expecting one of those letters, those
+unsuspicious letters of every day, which sudden death leaves behind it.
+
+But this was what they read:
+
+
+"Dear, dear friend,--Last night, nearly five hours ago, I promised for
+the second time to marry Mr. Helbeck, and I promised, too, that I would
+be a Catholic. I asked him to procure for me Catholic teaching and
+instruction. I could not, you see, be his wife without it. His conscience
+now would not permit it. And besides, last summer I saw that it could not
+be.
+
+"... Then we were called to Augustina. It was she who finally persuaded
+me. I did not do it merely to please her. Oh! no--_no_. I have been on
+the brink of it for days--perhaps weeks. I have so hungered to be his
+again.... But it gave it sweetness that Augustina wished it so much--that
+I could tell her and make her happy before she died.
+
+"Then, she was dead!--all in a moment--without a word--before we came to
+her almost. She had prayed so--and yet God would not leave her a moment
+in which to hear it. That struck me so. It was so strange, after all the
+pains--all the clinging to Him--and entreating. It might have been a
+sign, and there!--she never gave a thought to us. It seemed like an
+intrusion, a disturbance even to touch her. How horrible it is that death
+is so _lonely_! Then something was said that reminded me of my father. I
+had forgotten him for so long. But when they left me with her, I seemed
+to be holding not her hand, but his. I was back in the old life--I heard
+him speaking quite distinctly. 'Laura, you cannot do it--_you cannot do
+it_!' And he looked at me in sorrow and displeasure. I argued with him so
+long, but he beat me down. And the voice I seemed to hear was not his
+only,--it was the voice of my own life, only far stronger and crueller
+than I had ever known it.
+
+"Cruel!--I hardly know what I am writing--who has been cruel! I!--only I!
+To open the old wounds--to make him glad for an hour--then to strike and
+leave him--could anything be more pitiless? Oh! my best--best beloved....
+But to live a lie--upon his heart, in his arms--that would be worse. I
+don't know what drives me exactly--but the priests want my inmost
+will--want all that is I--and I know when I sit down to think quietly,
+that I cannot give it. I knew it last October. But to be with him, to see
+him, was too much. Oh! if God hears, may He forgive me--I prayed to-night
+that He would give me courage.
+
+"He must always think it an accident--he will. I see it all so
+plainly.--But I am afraid of saying or doing something to make the others
+suspect.--My head is not clear. I can't remember from one moment to
+another.
+
+"You understand--I must trouble him no more. And there is no other way.
+This winter has proved it. Because death puts an _end_.
+
+"This letter is for you three only, in all the world. Dear, dear Molly--I
+sit here like a coward--but I can't go without a sign.--You wouldn't
+understand me--I used to be so happy as a little child--but since Papa
+died--since I came here--oh! I am not angry now, not proud--no, no.--It
+is for love--for love.
+
+"Good-bye--good-bye. You were all so good to me--think of me, grieve for
+me sometimes.--
+
+"Your ever grateful and devoted
+
+"LAURA."
+
+
+Next morning early, Helbeck entered the dining-room, where Dr. Friedland
+was sitting. He approached the doctor with an uncertain step, like one
+finding his way in the dark.
+
+"You had a letter," he said. "Is it possible that you could show it
+me--or any part of it? Only a few hours before her death the old
+relations between myself--and Miss Fountain--were renewed. We were to
+have been husband and wife. That gives me a certain claim."
+
+Dr. Friedland grew pale.
+
+"My dear sir," he said, rising to meet his host,--"that letter contained
+a message for my daughter which was not intended for other eyes than
+hers. I have destroyed it."
+
+And then speech failed him. The old man stood in a guilty confusion.
+
+Helbeck lifted his deep eyes with the steady and yet muffled gaze of one
+who, in the silence of the heart, lets hope go. Not another word was
+said. The doctor found himself alone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Three days later, the doctor wrote to his wife, who had gone back to
+Cambridge to be with Molly.
+
+"Yesterday Mrs. Fountain was buried in the Catholic graveyard at
+Whinthorpe. To-day we carried Laura to a little chapel high in the hills.
+A. lonely yet a cheerful spot! After these days and nights of horror,
+there was a moment--a breath--of balm. The Westmoreland rocks and trees
+will be about her for ever. She lies in sight, almost, of the Bannisdale
+woods. Above her the mountain rises to the sky. One of those wonderful
+Westmoreland dogs was barking and gathering the sheep on the crag-side,
+while we stood there. And when it was all over I could hear the river in
+the valley--a gay and open stream, with little bends and shadows--not
+tragic like the Greet.
+
+"Many of the country people came. I saw her cousins, the Masons; that
+young fellow--you remember?--with a face swollen with tears. Mr. Helbeck
+stood in the distance. He did not come into the chapel.
+
+"How she loved this country! And now it holds her tenderly. It gives her
+its loveliest and best. Poor, poor child!
+
+"As for Mr. Helbeck, I have hardly seen him. He seems to live a life all
+within. We must be as shadows to him; as men like trees walking. But I
+have had a few conversations with him on necessary business; I have
+observed his bearing under this intolerable blow. And always I have felt
+myself in the presence of a good and noble man. In a few months, or even
+weeks, they say he will have entered the Jesuit Novitiate. It gives me a
+deep relief to think of it.
+
+"What a fate!--that brought them across each other, that has left him
+nothing but these memories, and led her, step by step, to this last
+bitter resource--this awful spending of her young life--this blind
+witness to august things!"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II, by 
+Mrs. Humphry Ward
+
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