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!"

*****

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