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"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 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!
Had Laura, herself, been a convinced rationalist, or had her father been still alive, she would have merged herself and her attitude in Helbeck's strength of character. Being a work of art, self-consistent and inevitable, the book becomes symbolic.
The next moment he perceived that Miss Fountain was watching him with an expression of astonishment. His first instinct was to let her be. Her manner towards him since her arrival, with hardly a break, had been such as to chill the most sociable temper. And Helbeck's temper was far from sociable. But something in her attitude perhaps its solitariness made him uncomfortable.
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.
She had broken wholly with her brother and with Bannisdale; and Fountain gathered that, after all Helbeck's arguments and entreaties, there had flashed a moment of storm between them, when the fierce "Helbeck temper," traditional through many generations, had broken down the self-control of the ascetic, and Augustina must needs have trembled.
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.
Mason's heavy lids blinked a moment, then she said with slowly quickening emphasis, like one mounting to a crisis: "Wat art tha doin' wi' Bannisdale Hall? What call has thy feyther's dowter to be visitin onder Alan Helbeck's roof?" Laura's open mouth showed first wonderment, then laughter. "Oh! I see," she said impatiently "you don't seem to understand.
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.
And off she flew, running, twisting, turning with the merriest of them, her loosened hair gleaming in the sun, her small feet twinkling. Now it was Helbeck's turn to stand and watch. What a curious grace and purpose there was in all her movements! Even in her play Miss Fountain was a personality. At last a little girl who was running with her began to drag and turn pale.
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