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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.
"It's strange how much more alone I've felt in this place of late than I used to feel," was Helbeck's reflection upon it, at last. "I reckon it's since I sold the Leasowes land. Or is it perhaps " He fell into a reverie marked by a frowning expression, and a harsh drawing down of the mouth.
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.
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?
"If you could wait till to-morrow," he said after a moment, "I could promise you the pony. Unfortunately he is busy this afternoon." "Oh, do wait, Laura!" cried Augustina. "There is so much unpacking to do." "Very well," said the girl unwillingly. As she turned away from him Helbeck's look followed her.
"And she doesn't like Laura not at all." Helbeck raised his head quickly. "She does nothing to make Miss Fountain uncomfortable, I trust?" "Oh no," said Augustina undecidedly. "Besides, it doesn't matter. Laura has got Ellen under her thumb." Helbeck's grave countenance showed a gleam of amusement. "How does Mrs. Denton take that?" "Oh! she has to bear it.
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.
There was just room at the throat of it for a pearl necklace, and at the wrists for some thin gold bracelets. The narcissus were in her hair, which she had coiled and looped in a wonderful way, so that Helbeck's eyes were dazzled by its colour and abundance, and by the whiteness of the slender neck below it.
A good Catholic, it seems, lives in the train, and makes himself the catspaw of all who wish to use him for their own ends! ... As to that old peasant, Scarsbrook, what could be more arbitrary, more absurd, than Mr. Helbeck's behaviour? The matter turns out to be serious.
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.
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