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Updated: June 24, 2025
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.
Augustina of course dislikes the prospect of the Froswick day. But, really, Augustina must put up with it! The Reverend Mother will come for the afternoon, and keep her company.
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.
"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.
Denton was speaking, but now she approached the settle. Mrs. Denton threw a sour look at her, and flounced out of her way. Helbeck silently made room for her. As she passed him, she felt instinctively that his distant politeness had become something more pronounced. He left her questions to Augustina to answer, and himself thrust his hands into his pockets and moved away.
In a minute she was back again, and as she passed his room Helbeck saw that she was carrying a bunch of white narcissus. Then more sounds of laughter and chatter overhead. At last Augustina hurried down and looked in upon him again, flurried and smiling. "Alan, you really must see her. She looks so pretty." "I am afraid I'm busy," he said, still writing.
A few instants passed by in silence. The hush of the noonday heat lay upon the drowsy, blazing fields. 'Speaking of women, Shubin began again, 'how is it no one looks after Stahov? Did you see him in Moscow? 'No. 'The old fellow's gone clean off his head. He sits for whole days together at his Augustina Christianovna's, he's bored to death, but still he sits there.
"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.
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.
Afterwards, there is a pleasant and gentle talk for half an hour Augustina can hardly be made to go to bed and when at last she rises, the girl's small hand slips into the man's, is lost there, feels a new lingering touch, from which both withdraw in almost equal haste.
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