Meanwhile Mrs. Denton had apparently made her niece understand that there

was to be no more dallying with Miss Fountain. Whenever she and Laura

met, Ellen lowered her head and ran. Laura found that the girl was not

allowed to wait upon her personally any more. Meanwhile the housekeeper

herself passed Miss Fountain with a manner and a silence which were in

themselves an insult.

And two days after Helbeck's departure, Laura was crossing the hall

towards tea-time, when she saw Mrs. Denton admitting one of the Sisters

from the orphanage. It was the Reverend Mother herself, the portly

shrewd-faced woman who had wished Mr. Helbeck a good wife. Laura passed

her, and the nun saluted her coldly. "Dear me!--you shall have Augustina

to yourself, my good friend," thought Miss Fountain. "Don't be afraid."

And she turned into the garden.

An hour later she came back. As she opened the door in the old wall she

saw the Sister on the steps, talking with Mrs. Denton. At sight of her

they parted. The nun drew her long black cloak about her, ran down the

steps, and hurried away.

And indoors, Laura could not imagine what had happened to her stepmother.

Augustina was clearly excited, yet she would say nothing. Her

restlessness was incessant, and at intervals there were furtive tears.

Once or twice she looked at Laura with the most tragic eyes, but as soon

as Laura approached her she would hastily bury herself in her newspaper,

or begin counting the stitches of her knitting.

At last, after luncheon, Mrs. Fountain suddenly threw down her work with

a sigh that shook her small person from top to toe.

"I wish I knew what was wrong with you," said Laura, coming up behind

her, and dropping a pair of soft hands on her shoulders. "Shall I get you

your new tonic?"

"No!" said Augustina pettishly; then, with a rush of words that she could

not repress:

"Laura, you must--you positively must give up that young man."

Laura came round and seated herself on the fender stool in front of her

stepmother.

"Oh! so that's it. Has anybody else been gossiping?"

"I do wish you wouldn't--you wouldn't take things so coolly!" cried

Augustina. "I tell you, the least trifle is enough to do a young girl of

your age harm. Your father would have been so annoyed."

"I don't think so," said Laura quietly. "But who is it now? The Reverend

Mother?"

Augustina hesitated. She had been recommended to keep things to herself.

But she had no will to set against Laura's, and she was, in fact,

bursting with suppressed remonstrance.

"It doesn't matter, my dear. One never knows where a story of that kind

will go to. That's just what girls don't remember."

"Who told a story, and what? I didn't see the Reverend Mother at the

dance."

"Laura! But you never thought, my dear--you never knew--that there was a

cousin of Father Bowles' there--the man who keeps that little Catholic

shop in Market Street. That's what comes, you see, of going to parties

with people beneath you."

"Oh! a cousin of Father Bowles was there?" said Laura slowly. "Well, did

he make a pretty tale?"

"Laura! you are the most provoking--You don't the least understand what

people think. How could you go with him when everybody remonstrated?"

"Nobody remonstrated," said the girl sharply.

"His sister begged you not to go."

"His sister did nothing of the kind. She was staying the night in the

village, and there was literally nothing for me to do but come home with

Hubert or to throw myself on some stranger."

"And such stories as one hears about this dreadful young man!" cried

Augustina.

"I dare say. There are always stories."

"I couldn't even tell you what they are about!" said Augustina. "Your

father would _certainly_ have forbidden it altogether."

There was a silence. Laura held her head as high as ever. She was, in

fact, in a fever of contradiction and resentment, and the interference of

people like Mrs. Denton and the Sisters was fast bringing about Mason's

forgiveness. Naturally, she was likely to hear the worst of him in that

house. What Helbeck, or what dependent on a Helbeck, would give him the

benefit of any doubt?

Augustina knitted with all her might for a few minutes, and then looked

up.

"Don't you think," she said, with a timid change of tone--"don't you

think, dear, you might go to Cambridge for a few weeks? I am sure the

Friedlands would take you in. You would come in for all the parties,

and--and you needn't trouble about me. Sister Angela's niece could come

and stay here for a few weeks. The Reverend Mother told me so."

Laura rose.

"Sister Angela suggested that? Thank you, I won't have my plans settled

for me by Sister Angela. If you and Mr. Helbeck want to turn me out, why,

of course I shall go."

Augustina held out her hands in terror at the girl's attitude and voice.

"Laura, don't say such things! As if you weren't an angel to me! As if I

could bear the thought of anybody else!"

A quiver ran through Laura's features. "Well, then, don't bear it," she

said, kneeling down again beside her stepmother. "You look quite ill and

excited, Augustina. I think we'll keep the Reverend Mother out in future.

Won't you lie down and let me cover you up?"

So it ended for the time--with physical weakness on Augustina's part, and

caresses on Laura's.

But when she was alone, Miss Fountain sat down and tried to think things

out.

"What are the Sisters meddling for? Do they find me in their way? I'm

flattered! I wish I was. Well!--is drunkenness the worst thing in the

world?" she asked herself deliberately. "Of course, if it goes beyond a

certain point it is like madness--you must keep out of its way, for your

own sake. But papa used to say there were many things a great deal worse.

So there are!--meanness, and shuffling with truth for the sake of your

soul. As for the other tales, I don't believe them. But if I did, I am

not going to marry him!"

She felt herself very wise. In truth, as Stephen Fountain had realised

with some anxiety before his death, among Laura's many ignorances, none

was so complete or so dangerous as her ignorance of all the ugly ground

facts that are strewn round us, for the stumbling of mankind. She was as

determined not to know them, as he was invincibly shy of telling them.

For the rest, her reflections represented, no doubt, many dicta that in

the course of her young life she had heard from her father. To Stephen

Fountain the whole Christian doctrine of sin was "the enemy"; and the

mystical hatred of certain actions and habits, as such, was the fount of

half the world's unreason.

The following day it was Father Bowles' turn. He came over in what seemed

to be his softest and most catlike mood, rubbing his hands over his chest

in a constant glee at his own jokes. He was amiability itself to Laura.

But he, too, had his twenty minutes alone with Augustina; and afterwards

Mrs. Fountain ventured once more to speak to Laura of change and

amusement. Miss Fountain smiled, and replied as before--that, in the

first place she had no invitations, and in the next, she had no dresses.

But again, as before, if Mr. Helbeck should express a wish that her visit

to Bannisdale should come to an end, that would be another matter.

* * * * *

Next morning Laura was taking a walk in the park when a letter was

brought to her by old Wilson, the groom, cowman, and general factotum.

She took it to a sheltered nook by the riverside and read it. It was from

Hubert Mason, in his best commercial hand, and it ran as follows:

"Dear Miss Fountain,--You would not allow me, I know, to call you Cousin

Laura any more, so I don't attempt it. And of course I don't deserve

it--nor that you should ever shake hands with me again. I can't get over

thinking of what I've done. Mother and Polly will tell you that I have

hardly slept at nights--for of course you won't believe me. How I can

have been such a blackguard I don't understand. I must have taken too

much. All I know is it didn't seem much, and but for the agitation of my

mind, I don't believe anything would ever have gone wrong. But I couldn't

bear to see you dancing with that man and despising me. And there it

is--I can never get over it, and you will never forgive me. I feel I

can't stay here any more, and mother has consented at last to let me have

some money on the farm. If I could just see you before I go, to say

good-bye, and ask your pardon, there would be a better chance for me. I

can't come to Mr. Helbeck's house, of course, and I don't suppose you

would come here. I shall be coming home from Kirby Whardale fair

to-morrow night, and shall be crossing the little bridge in the

park--upper end--some time between eight and nine. But I know you won't

be there. I can't expect it, and I feel it pretty badly, I can tell you.

I did hope I might have become something better through knowing you.

Whatever you may think of me I am always

"Your respectful and humble cousin,

"HUBERT MASON."

"Well--upon my word!" said Laura. She threw the letter on to the grass

beside her, and sat, with her hands round her knees, staring at the

river, in a sparkle of anger and amazement.

What audacity!--to expect her to steal out at night--in the dusk,

anyway--to meet him--_him_! She fed her wrath on the imagination of all

the details that would belong to such an escapade. It would be after

supper, of course, in the fast lengthening twilight. Helbeck and his

sister would be in the drawing-room--for Mr. Helbeck was expected home on

the following day--and she might perfectly well leave them, as she often

did, to talk their little Catholic gossip by themselves, and then slip

out by the chapel passage and door, through the old garden, to the gate

in the wall above the river bank, and so to the road that led along the

Greet through the upper end of the park. Nothing, of course, could be

easier--nothing.

Merely to think of it, for a girl of Laura's temperament, was already bit

by bit to incline to it. She began to turn it over, to taste the

adventure of it--to talk very fast to Fricka, under her breath, with

little gusts of laughter. And no doubt there was something mollifying in

the boy's humble expressions. As for his sleepless nights--how salutary!

how very salutary! Only the nail must be driven in deeper--must be turned

in the wound.

It would need a vast amount of severity, perhaps, to undo the effects of

her mere obedience to his call--supposing she made up her mind to obey

it. Well! she would be quite equal to severity. She would speak very

plain things to him--very plain things indeed. It was her first serious

adventure with any of these big, foolish, troublesome creatures of the

male sex, and she rose to it much as Helbeck might have risen to the

playing of a salmon in the Greet. Yes! he should say good-bye to her, let

priests and nuns talk what scandal they pleased. Yes! he should go on his

way forgiven and admonished--if he wished it--for kindred's sake.

Her cheek burned, her heart beat fast. He and she were of one blood--both

of them ill-regarded by aristocrats and holy Romans. As for him, he was

going to ruin at home; and there was in him this strange, artistic gift

to be thought for and rescued. He had all the faults of the young cub.

Was he to be wholly disowned for that? Was she to cast him off for ever

at the mere bidding of the Helbecks and their friends?

He would never, of course, be allowed to enter the Bannisdale

drawing-room, and she had no intention at present of going to Browhead

Farm. Well, then, under the skies and the clouds! A gracious pardon, an

appropriate lecture--and a short farewell.

* * * * *

All that day and the next Laura gave herself to her whim. She was

perfectly conscious, meanwhile, that it was a reckless and a wilful thing

that she was planning. She liked it none the less for that. In fact, the

scheme was the final crystallisation of all that bitterness of mood that

had poisoned and tormented her ever since her first coming to Bannisdale.

And it gave her for the moment the morbid pleasure that all angry people

get from letting loose the angry word or act.

Meanwhile she became more and more conscious of a certain network of

blame and discussion that seemed to be closing about her and her actions.

It showed itself by a number of small signs. When she went into

Whinthorpe to shop for Augustina she fancied that the assistants in the

shop, and even the portly draper himself, looked at her with a sly

curiosity. The girl's sore pride grew more unmanageable hour by hour. If

there was some ill-natured gossip about her, going the round in the town

and the neighbourhood, had she--till now--given the least shadow of

excuse for it? Not the least shade of a shadow!

* * * * *

Mr. Helbeck, his sister, and Laura were in the drawing-room after supper.

Laura had been observing Mrs. Fountain closely.

"She is longing to have her talk with him," thought the girl; "and she

shall have it--as much as she likes."

The shutters were not yet closed, and the room, with its crackling logs,

was filled with a gentle mingled light. The sun, indeed, was gone, but

the west still glowed, and the tall larches in the front enclosure stood

black against a golden dome of sky. Laura rose and left the room. As she

opened the door she caught Augustina's quick look of relief and the drop

of the knitting-needles.

Fricka was safely prisoned upstairs. Laura slipped on a hat and a dark

cloak that were hanging in the hall, and ran down the passage leading to

the chapel. The heavy seventeenth-century door at the end of it took her

some trouble to open without noise, but it was done at last, and she was

in the old garden.

Her little figure in its cloak, among the dark yews, was hardly to be

seen in the dusk. The garden was silence itself, and the gate in the wall

was open. Once on the road beside the river she could hardly restrain

herself from running, so keen was the air, so free and wide the evening

solitude. All things were at peace; nothing moved but a few birds and the

tiniest intermittent breeze. Overhead, great thunderclouds kept the

sunset; beneath, the blues of the evening were all interwoven with rose;

so, too, were the wood and sky reflections in the gently moving water. In

some of the pools the trout were still lazily rising; pigeons and homing

rooks were slowly passing through the clear space that lay between the

tree-tops and the just emerging stars; and once Laura stopped, holding

her breath, thinking that she saw through the dusk the blue flash of a

kingfisher making for a nest she knew. Even in this dimmed light the

trees had the May magnificence--all but the oaks, which still dreamed of

a best to come. Here and there a few tufts of primroses, on the bosom of

the crag above the river, lonely and self-sufficing, like all loveliest

things, starred the dimness of the rock.

Laura's feet danced beneath her; the evening beauty and her passionate

response flowed as it were into each other, made one beating pulse;

never, in spite of qualms and angers, had she been more physically happy,

more alive. She passed the seat where she and Helbeck had lingered on

Easter Sunday; then she struck into a path high above the river, under

spreading oaks; and presently a little bridge came in sight, with some

steps in the crag leading down to it.

At the near end of the bridge, thrown out into the river a little way for

the convenience of fishermen, was a small wooden platform, with a

railing, which held a seat. The seat was well hidden under the trees and

bank, and Laura settled herself there.

She had hardly waited five minutes, absorbed in the sheer pleasure of the

rippling river and the soft air, when she heard steps approaching the

bank. Looking up, she saw Mason's figure against the sky. He paused at

the top of the rocky staircase, to scan the bridge and its approaches.

Not seeing her, he threw up his hand, with some exclamation that she

could not hear.

She smiled and rose.

As her small form became visible between the paleness of the wooden

platform and a luminous patch in the river, she heard a cry, then a

hurrying down the rock steps.

He stopped about a yard from her. She did not offer her hand, and after

an instant's pause, during which his eyes tried to search her face in the

darkness, he took off his hat and drew his hand across his brow with a

deep breath.

"I never thought you'd come," he said huskily.

"Well, certainly you had no business to ask me! And I can only stay a

very few minutes. Suppose you sit down there."

She pointed to one of the rock steps, while she settled herself again on

the seat, some little distance away from him.

Then there was an awkward silence, which Laura took no trouble to break.

Mason broke it at last in desperation.

"You know that I'm an awful hand at saying anything, Miss--Miss Fountain.

I can't--so it's no good. But I've got my lesson. I've had a pretty rough

time of it, I can tell you, since last week."

"You behaved about as badly as you could--didn't you?" said Laura's soft

yet cutting voice out of the dark.

Mason fidgeted.

"I can't make it no better," he said at last. "There's no saying I can,

for I can't. And if I did give you excuses, you'd not believe 'em. There

was a devil got hold of me that evening--that's the truth on't. And it

was only a glass or two I took. Well, there!--I'd have cut my hand off

sooner."

His tone of miserable humility began to affect her rather strangely. It

was not so easy to drive in the nail.

"You needn't be so repentant," she said, with a little shrinking laugh.

"One has to forget--everything--in good time. You've given Whinthorpe

people something to talk about at my expense--for which I am not at all

obliged to you. You nearly killed me, which doesn't matter. And you

behaved disgracefully to Mr. Helbeck. But it's done--and now you've got

to make up--somehow."

"Has he made you pay for it--since?" said Mason eagerly.

"He? Mr. Helbeck?" She laughed. Then she added, with all the severity

she could muster, "He treated me in a most kind and gentlemanly

way--if you want to know. The great pity is that you--and Cousin

Elizabeth--understand nothing at all about him."

He groaned. She could hear his feet restlessly moving.

"Well--and now you are going to Froswick," she resumed. "What are you

going to do there?"

"There's an uncle of mine in one of the shipbuilding yards there. He's

got leave to take me into the fitting department. If I suit he'll get me

into the office. It's what I've wanted this two years."

"Well, now you've got it," she said impatiently, "don't be dismal. You

have your chance."

"Yes, and I don't care a haporth about it," he said, with sudden energy,

throwing his head up and bringing his fist down on his knee.

She felt her power, and liked it. But she hurried to answer:

"Oh! yes you do! If you're a man, you _must_. You'll learn a lot of new

things--you'll keep straight, because you'll have plenty to do. Why, it

will 'hatch you over again, and hatch, you different,' as somebody said.

You'll see."

He looked at her, trying hard to catch her expression in the dusk.

"And if I do come back different, perhaps--perhaps--soom day you'll not

be ashamed to be seen wi' me? Look here, Miss Laura. From the first time

I set eyes on you--from that day you came up--that Sunday--I haven't been

able to settle to a thing. I felt, right enough, I wasn't fit to speak to

you. And yet I'm your--well, your kith and kin, doan't you see? There

can't be no such tremendous gap atween us as all that. If I can just

manage myself a bit, and find the work that suits me, and get away from

these fellows here, and this beastly farm----"

"Ah!--have you been quarrelling with Daffady all day?"

She looked for him to fly out. But he only stared, and then turned away.

"O Lord! what's the good of talking?" he said, with an accent that

startled her.

She rose from her seat.

"Are you sorry I came to talk to you? You didn't deserve it--did you?"

Her voice was the pearliest, most musical, and yet most distant of

things. He rose, too--held by it.

"And now you must just go and make a man of yourself. That's what you

have to do--you see? I wish papa was alive. He'd tell you how--I can't.

But if you forget your music, it'll be a sin--and if you send me your

song to write out for you, I'll do it. And tell Polly I'll come and see

her again some day. Now good-night! They'll be locking up if I don't

hurry home."

But he stood on the step, barring the way.

"I say, give me something to take with me," he said hoarsely. "What's

that in your hat?"

"In my hat?" she said, laughing--(but if there had been light he would

have seen that her lips had paled). "Why, a bunch of buttercups. I bought

them at Whinthorpe yesterday."

"Give me one," he said.

"Give you a sham buttercup? What nonsense!"

"It's better than nothing," he said doggedly, and he held out his hand.

She hesitated; then she took off her hat and quietly loosened one of the

flowers. Her golden hair shone in the dimness. Mason never took his eyes

off her little head. He was keeping a grip on himself that was taxing a

whole new set of powers--straining the lad's unripe nature in wholly new

ways.

She put the flower in his hand.

"There; now we're friends again, aren't we? Let me pass, please--and

good-night!"

He moved to one side, blindly fighting with the impulse to throw his

powerful arms round her and keep her there, or carry her across the

bridge--at his pleasure.

But her light fearlessness mastered him. He let her go; he watched her

figure on the steps, against the moonlight between the oaks overhead.

"Good-night!" she dropped again, already far away--far above him.

The young man felt a sob in his throat.

"My God! I shan't ever see her again," he said to himself in a sudden

terror. "She is going to that house--to that man!"

For the first time a wild jealousy of Helbeck awoke in him. He rushed

across the bridge, dropped on a stone half-way up the further bank, then

strained his eyes across the river.

... Yes, there she passed, a swift moving whiteness, among the great

trees that stood like watchmen along the high edge of the water. Below

him flowed the stream, a gulf of darkness, rent here and there by sheets

and jags of silver. And she, that pale wraith--across it--far away--was

flitting from his ken.

All the fountains of the youth's nature surged up in one great outcry and

confusion. He thought of his boyish loves and sensualities--of the girls

who had provoked them--of some of the ugly facts connected with them. A

great astonishment, a great sickening, came upon him. He felt the burden

of the flesh, the struggle of the spirit. And through it all, the maddest

and most covetous yearning!--welling up through schemes and hopes, that

like the moonlit ripples on the Greet, dissolved as fast as they took

shape.

* * * * *

Meanwhile Laura went quickly home. A new tenderness, a new remorse

towards the "cub" was in the girl's mind. Ought she to have gone? Had she

been kind? Oh! she would be his friend and good angel--without any

nonsense, of course.

She hurried through the trees and along the dimly gleaming path. Suddenly

she perceived in the distance the sparkle of a lantern.

How vexatious! Was there no escape for her? She looked in some trouble at

the climbing woods above, at the steep bank below.

Ah! well, her hat was large, and hid her face. And her dress was all

covered by her cloak. She hastened on.

It was a man--an old man--carrying a bundle and a lantern. He seemed to

waver and stop as she approached him, and at the actual moment of her

passing him, to her amazement, he suddenly threw himself against one of

the trees on the mountain side of the path, and his lantern showed her

his face for an instant--a white face, stricken with--fear, was it? or

what?

Fright gained upon herself. She ran on, and as she ran it seemed to her

that she heard something fall with a clang, and, afterwards, a cry. She

looked back. The old man was still there, erect, but his light was gone.

Well, no doubt he had dropped his lantern. Let him light it again. It was

no concern, of hers.

Here was the door in the wall. It opened to her touch. She glided

in--across the garden--found the chapel door ajar, and in a few more

seconds was safe in her own room.

CHAPTER III

Laura was standing before her looking-glass straightening the curls that

her rapid walk had disarranged, when her attention was caught by certain

unusual sounds in the house. There was a hurrying of distant feet--calls,

as though from the kitchen region--and lastly, the deep voice of Mr.

Helbeck. Miss Fountain paused, brush in hand, wondering what had

happened.

A noise of fluttering skirts, and a cry for "Laura!"--Miss Fountain

opened her door, and saw Augustina, who never ran, hurrying as fast as

her feebleness would let her, towards her stepdaughter.

"Laura!--where is my sal volatile? You gave me some yesterday, you

remember, for my headache. There's somebody ill, downstairs."

She paused for breath.

"Here it is," said Laura, finding the bottle, and bringing it. "What's

wrong?"

"Oh, my dear, such an adventure! There's an old man fainted in the

kitchen. He came to the back door to ask for a light for his lantern.

Mrs. Denton says he was shaking all over when she first saw him, and as

white as her apron. He told her he'd seen the ghost! 'I've often heard

tell o' the Bannisdale Lady,' he said, 'an now I've seen her!' She asked

him to sit down a minute to rest himself, and he fainted straight away.

He's that old Scarsbrook, you know, whose wife does our washing. They

live in that cottage by the weir, the other end of the park. I must go!

Mrs. Denton's giving him some brandy--and Alan's gone down. Isn't it an

extraordinary thing?"

"Very," said Laura, accompanying her stepmother along the passage. "What

did he see?"

She paused, laying a restraining hand on Augustina's arm--cudgelling her

brains the while. Yes! she could remember now a few contemptuous remarks

of Mr. Helbeck to Father Leadham on the subject of a ghost story that had

sprung up during the Squire's memory in connection with the park and the

house--a quite modern story, according to Helbeck, turning on the common

motive of a gypsy woman and her curse, started some forty years before

this date, with a local success not a little offensive, apparently, to

the owner of Bannisdale.

"What did he see?" repeated the girl. "Don't hurry, Augustina; you know

the doctor told you not. Shall I take the sal volatile?"

"Oh, no!--they want me." In any matter of doctoring small or great,

Augustina had the happiest sense of her own importance. "I don't know

what he saw exactly. It was a lady, he says--he knew it was, by the hat

and the walk. She was all in black--with 'a Dolly Varden hat'--fancy the

old fellow!--that hid her face--and a little white hand, that shot out

sparks as he came up to her! Did you ever hear such, a tale? Now, Laura,

I'm all right. Let me go. Come when you like."

Augustina hurried off; Laura was left standing pensive in the passage.

"H'm, that's unlucky," she said to herself.

Then she looked down at her right hand. An old-fashioned diamond ring

with a large centre stone, which had been her mother's, shone on the

third finger. With an involuntary smile, she drew off the ring, and went

back to her room.

"What's to be done now?" she thought, as she put the ring in a drawer.

"Shall I go down and explain--say I was out for a stroll?"--She shook her

head.--"Won't do now--I should have had more presence of mind a minute

ago. Augustina would suspect a hundred things. It's really dramatic.

Shall I go down? He didn't see my face--no, that I'll answer for! Here's

for it!"

She pulled out the golden mass of her hair till it made a denser frame

than usual round her brow, looked at her white dress--shook her head

dubiously--laughed at her own flushed face in the glass, and calmly went

downstairs.

She found an anxious group in the great bare servants' hall. The old man,

supported by pillows, was stretched on a wooden settle, with Helbeck,

Augustina, and Mrs. Denton standing by. The first things she saw were the

old peasant's closed eyes and pallid face--then Helbeck's grave and

puzzled countenance above him. The Squire turned at Miss Fountain's step.

Did she imagine it--or was there a peculiar sharpness in his swift

glance?

Mrs. Denton had just been administering a second dose of brandy, and was

apparently in the midst of her own report to her master of Scarsbrook's

story.

"'I wor just aboot to pass her,' he said, 'when I nawticed 'at her feet

made noa noise. She keäm glidin--an glidin--an my hair stood reet oop--it

lifted t'whole top o' my yed. An she gaed passt me like a puff o'

wind--as cauld as ice--an I wor mair deed nor alive. An I luked afther

her, an she vanisht i' th' varra middle o' t' path. An my leet went

oot--an I durstn't ha gane on, if it wor iver so--so I juist crawled back

tet hoose----'"

"The door in the wall!" thought Laura. "He didn't know it was there."

She had remained in the background while Mrs. 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.

"Have you sent for anyone?" said Laura to Mrs. Fountain.

"Yes. Wilson's gone in the pony cart for the wife. And if he doesn't come

round by the time she gets here--some one will have to go for the doctor,

Alan?"

She looked round vaguely.

"Of course. Wilson must go on," said Helbeck from the distance. "Or I'll

go myself."

"But he is coming round," said Laura, pointing.

"If yo'll nobbut move oot o' t' way, Miss, we'll be able to get at 'im,"

said Mrs. Denton sharply. Laura hastily obeyed her. The housekeeper

brought more brandy; then signs of returning force grew stronger, and by

the time the wife appeared the old fellow was feebly beginning to move

and look about him.

Amid the torrent of lamentations, questions, and hypotheses that the wife

poured forth, Laura withdrew into the background. But she could not

prevail on herself to go. Daring or excitement held her there, till the

old man should be quite himself again.

He struggled to his feet at last, and said, with a long sigh that was

still half a shudder, "Aye--noo I'll goa home--Lisbeth."

He was a piteous spectacle as he stood there, still trembling through all

his stunted frame, his wrinkled face drawn and bloodless, his grey hair

in a tragic confusion. Suddenly, as he looked at his wife, he said with a

clear solemnity, "Lisbeth--I ha' got my death warrant!"

"Don't say any such thing, Scarsbrook," said Helbeck, coming forward to

support him. "You know I don't believe in this ghost business--and never

did. You saw some stranger in the park--and she passed you too quickly

for you to see where she went to. You may be sure that'll turn out to be

the truth. You remember--it's a public path--anybody might be there. Just

try and take that view of it--and don't fret, for your wife's sake. We'll

make inquiries, and I'll come and see you to-morrow. And as for death

warrants, we're all in God's care, you know--don't forget that."

He smiled with a kindly concern and pity on the old man. But Scarsbrook

shook his head.

"It wur t' Bannisdale Lady," he repeated; "I've often heerd on

her--often--and noo I've seen her."

"Well, to-morrow you'll be quite proud of it," said Helbeck cheerfully.

"Come, and let me put you into the cart. I think, if we make a

comfortable seat for you, you'll be fit to drive home now."

Supported by the Squire's strong arm on one side, and his wife on the

other, Scarsbrook managed to hobble down the long passage leading to the

door in the inner courtyard, where the pony cart was standing. It was

evident that his perceptions were still wholly dazed. He had not

recognised or spoken to anyone in the room but the Squire--not even to

his old crony Mrs. Denton.

Laura drew a long breath.

"Augustina, do go to bed," she said, going up to her stepmother--"or

you'll be ill next."

Augustina allowed herself to be led upstairs. But it was long before she

would let her stepdaughter leave her. She was full of supernatural

terrors and excitements, and must talk about all the former appearances

of the ghost--the stories that used to be told in her childhood--the new

or startling details in the old man's version, and so forth. "What could

he have meant by the light on the hand?" she said wondering. "I never

heard of that before. And she used always to be in grey; and now he says

that she had a black dress from top to toe."

"Their wardrobes are so limited--poor damp, sloppy things!" said Laura

flippantly, as she brushed her stepmother's hair. "Do you suppose this

nonsense will be all over the country-side to-morrow, Augustina?"

"What do you _really_ think he saw, Laura?" cried Mrs. Fountain, wavering

between doubt and belief.

"Goodness!--don't ask me." Miss Fountain shrugged her small shoulders. "I

don't keep a family ghost."

* * * * *

When at last Augustina had been settled in bed, and persuaded to take

some of her sleeping medicine, Laura was bidding her good-night, when

Mrs. Fountain said, "Oh! I forgot, Laura--there was a letter brought in

for you from the post-office, by Wilson this afternoon--he gave it to

Mrs. Denton, and she forgot it till after dinner----"

"Of course--because it was mine," said Laura vindictively. "Where is it?"

"On the drawing-room chimney-piece."

"All right. I'll go for it. But I shall be disturbing Mr. Helbeck."

"Oh! no--it's much too late. Alan will have gone to his study."

Miss Fountain stood a moment outside her stepmother's door, consulting

her watch.

For she was anxious to get her letter, and not at all anxious to fall in

with Mr. Helbeck. At least, so she would have explained herself had

anyone questioned her. In fact, her wishes and intentions were in

tumultuous confusion. All the time that she was waiting on Augustina, her

brain, her pulse was racing. In the added touch of stiffness which she

had observed in Helbeck's manner, she easily divined the result of that

conversation he had no doubt held with Augustina after dinner, while she

was by the river. Did he think even worse of her than he had before?

Well!--if he and Augustina could do without her, let them send her

away--by all manner of means! She had her own friends, her own money, was

in all respects her own mistress, and only asked to be allowed to lead

her life as she pleased.

Nevertheless--as she crossed the darkness of the hall, with her candle in

her hand--Laura Fountain was very near indeed to a fit of wild weeping.

During the months following her father's death, these agonies of crying

had come upon her night after night--unseen by any human being. She felt

now the approach of an old enemy and struggled with it. "One mustn't have

this excitement every night!" she said to herself, half mocking. "No

nerves would stand it."

A light under the library door. Well and good. How--she wondered--did he

occupy himself there, through so many solitary hours? Once or twice she

had heard him come upstairs to bed, and never before one or two o'clock.

Suddenly she stood abashed. She had thrown open the drawing-room door,

and the room lay before her, almost in darkness. One dim lamp still

burned at the further end, and in the middle of the room stood Mr.

Helbeck, arrested in his walk to and fro, and the picture of

astonishment.

Laura drew back in real discomfiture. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr.

Helbeck! I had no notion that anyone was still here."

"Is there anything I can do for you?" he said advancing.

"Augustina told me there was a letter for me this evening."

"Of course. It is here on the mantelpiece. I ought to have remembered

it."

He took up the letter and held it towards her. Then suddenly he paused,

and sharply withdrawing it, he placed it on a table beside him, and laid

his hand upon it. She saw a flash of quick resolution in his face, and

her own pulses gave a throb.

"Miss Fountain, will you excuse my detaining you for a moment? I have

been thinking much about this old man's story, and the possible

explanation of it. It struck me in a very singular way. As you know, I

have never paid much attention to the ghost story here--we have never

before had a testimony so direct. Is it possible--that you might throw

some light upon it? You left us, you remember, after dinner. Did you by

chance go into the garden?--the evening was tempting, I think. If so,

your memory might possibly recall to you some--slight thing."

"Yes," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "I did go into the garden."

His eye gleamed. He came a step nearer.

"Did you see or hear anything--to explain what happened?"

She did not answer for a moment. She made a vague movement, as though to

recover her letter--looked curiously into a glass case that stood beside

her, containing a few Stuart relics and autographs. Then, with absolute

self-possession, she turned and confronted him, one hand resting on the

glass case.

"Yes; I can explain it all. I was the ghost!"

There was a moment's silence. A smile--a smile that she winced under,

showed itself on Helbeck's lip.

"I imagined as much," he said quietly.

She stood there, torn by different impulses. Then a passion of annoyance

with herself, and anger with him, descended on her.

"Now perhaps you would like to know why I concealed it?" she said, with

all the dignity she could command. "Simply, because I had gone out to

meet and say good-bye to a person--who is my relation--whom I cannot meet

in this house, and against whom there is here an unreasonable--" She

hesitated; then resumed, leaning obstinately on the words--"Yes! take it

all in all, it _is_ an unreasonable prejudice."

"You mean Mr. Hubert Mason?"

She nodded.

"You think it an unreasonable prejudice after what happened the other

night?"

She wavered.

"I don't want to defend what happened the other night," she said, while

her voice shook.

Helbeck observed her carefully. There was a great decision in his manner,

and at the same time a fine courtesy.

"You knew, then, that he was to be in the park? Forgive my questions.

They are not mere curiosity."

"Perhaps not," she said indifferently. "But I think I have told you all

that needs to be told. May I have my letter?"

She stepped forward.

"One moment. I wonder, Miss Fountain,"--he chose his words slowly--"if I

could make you understand my position. It is this. My sister brings a

young lady, her stepdaughter, to stay under my roof. That young lady

happens to be connected with a family in this neighbourhood, which is

already well known to me. For some of its members I have nothing but

respect--about one I happen to have a strong opinion. I have reasons, for

my opinion. I imagine that very few people of any way of thinking would

hold me either unreasonable or prejudiced in the matter. Naturally, it

gives me some concern that a young lady towards whom I feel a certain

responsibility should be much seen with this young man. He is not her

equal socially, and--pardon me--she knows nothing at all about the type

to which he belongs. Indirectly I try to warn her. I speak to my sister

as gently as I can. But from the first she rejects all I have to say--she

gives me credit for no good intention--and she will have none of my

advice. At last a disagreeable incident happens--and unfortunately the

knowledge of it is not confined to ourselves----"

Laura threw him a flashing look.

"No!--there are people who have taken care of that!" she said.

Helbeck took no notice.

"It is known not only to ourselves," he repeated steadily. "It starts

gossip. My sister is troubled. She asks you to put an end to this state

of things, and she consults me, feeling that indeed we are all in some

way concerned."

"Oh, say at once that I have brought scandal on you all!" cried Laura.

"That of course is what Sister Angela and Father Bowles have been saying

to Augustina. They are pleased to show the greatest anxiety about me--so

much so, that they most kindly wish to relieve me of the charge of

Augustina.--So I understand! But I fear I am neither docile nor

grateful!--that I never shall be grateful----"

Helbeck interrupted.

"Let us come to that presently. I should like to finish my story. While

my sister and I are consulting, trying to think of all that can be done

to stop a foolish talk and undo an unlucky incident, this same young

lady"--his voice took a cold clearness--"steals out by night to keep an

appointment with this man, who has already done her so great a

disservice. Now I should like to ask her, if all this is kind--is

reasonable--is generous towards the persons with whom she is at present

living--if such conduct is not"--he paused--"unwise towards

herself--unjust towards others."

His words came out with a strong and vibrating emphasis. Laura confronted

him with crimson cheeks.

"I think that will do, Mr. Helbeck!" she cried. "You have had your

say.--Now just let me say this,--these people were my relations--I have

no other kith and kin in the world."

He made a quick step forward as though in distress. But she put up her

hand.

"I want very much to say this, please. I knew perfectly well when I came

here that you couldn't like the Masons--for many reasons." Her voice

broke again. "You never liked Augustina's marriage--you weren't likely to

want to see anything of papa's people. I didn't ask you to see them. All

my standards and theirs are different from yours. But I prefer

theirs--not yours! I have nothing to do with yours. I was brought

up--well, to _hate_ yours--if one must tell the truth."

She paused, half suffocated, her chest heaving. Helbeck's glance

enveloped her--took in the contrast between her violent words and the

shrinking delicacy of her small form. A great melting stole over the

man's dark face. But he spoke dryly enough.

"I imagine the standards of Protestants and Catholics are pretty much

alike in matters of this kind. But don't let us waste time any more over

what has already happened. I should like, I confess, to plead with you as

to the future."

He looked at her kindly, even entreatingly. All through this scene she

had been unwittingly, angrily conscious of his personal dignity and

charm--a dignity that seemed to emerge in moments of heightened action or

feeling, and to slip out of sight again under the absent hermit-manner of

his ordinary life. She was smarting under his words--ready to concentrate

a double passion of resentment upon them, as soon as she should be alone

and free to recall them. And yet----

"As to the future," she said coldly. "That is simple enough as far as one

person is concerned. Hubert Mason is going to Froswick immediately, into

business."

"I am glad to hear it--it will be very much for his good."

He stopped a moment, searching for the word of persuasion and

conciliation.

"Miss Fountain!--if you imagine that certain incidents which happened

here long before you came into this neighbourhood had anything to do with

what I have been saying now, let me assure you--most earnestly--that it

is not so! I recognise fully that with regard to a certain case--of which

you may have heard--the Masons and their friends honestly believed that

wrong and injustice had been done. They attempted personal violence. I

can hardly be expected to think it argument! But I bear them no malice. I

say this because you may have heard of something that happened three or

four years ago--a row in the streets, when Father Bowles and I were set

upon. It has never weighed with me in the slightest, and I could have

shaken hands with old Mason--who was in the crowd, and refused to stop

the stone throwing--the day after. As for Mrs. Mason"--he looked up with

a smile--"if she could possibly have persuaded herself to come with her

daughter and see you here, my welcome would not have been wanting. But,

you know, she would as soon visit Gehenna! Nobody could be more conscious

than I, Miss Fountain, that this is a dreary house for a young lady to

live in--and----"

The colour mounted into his face, but he did not shrink from what he

meant to say.

"And you have made us all feel that you regard the practices and

observances by which we try to fill and inspire our lives, as mere

hateful folly and superstition!" He checked himself. "Is that too

strong?" he added, with a sudden eagerness. "If so, I apologise for and

withdraw it!"

Laura, for a moment, was speechless. Then she gathered her forces, and

said, with a voice she in vain tried to compose:

"I think you exaggerate, Mr. Helbeck; at any rate, I hope you do. But the

fact is, I--I ought not to have tried to bear it. Considering all that

had happened at home--it was more than I had strength for! And

perhaps--no good will come of going on with it--and it had better cease.

Mr. Helbeck!--if your Superior can really find a good nurse and companion

at once, will you kindly communicate with her? I will go to Cambridge

immediately, as soon as I can arrange with my friends. Augustina, no

doubt, will come and stay with me somewhere at the sea, later on in the

year."

Helbeck had been listening to her--to the sharp determination of her

voice--in total silence. He was leaning against the high mantelpiece, and

his face was hidden from her. As she ceased to speak, he turned, and his

mere aspect beat down the girl's anger in a moment. He shook his head

sadly.

"Dr. MacBride stopped me on the bridge yesterday, as he was coming away

from the house."

Laura drew back. Her eyes fastened upon him.

"He thinks her in a serious state. We are not to alarm her, or interfere

with her daily habits. There is valvular disease--as I think you

know--and it has advanced. Neither he nor anyone can forecast."

The girl's head fell. She recognised that the contest was over. She could

not go; she could not leave Augustina; and the inference was clear. There

had not been a word of menace, but she understood. Mr. Helbeck's will

must prevail. She had brought this humiliating half-hour on herself--and

she would have to bear the consequences of it. She moved towards Helbeck.

"Well then, I must stay," she said huskily, "and I must try to--to

remember where I am in future. I ought to be able to hide everything I

feel--of course! But that unfortunately is what I never learnt.

And--there are some ways of life--that--that are too far apart.

However!"--she raised her hand to her brow, frowned, and thought a

little--"I can't make any promise about my cousins, Mr. Helbeck. _I_ know

perfectly well--whatever may be said--that I have done nothing whatever

to be ashamed of. I have wanted to--to help my cousin. He is worth

helping--in spite of everything--and I _will_ help him, if I can! But if

I am to remain your guest, I see that I must consult your wishes----"

Helbeck tried again to stop her with a gesture, but she hurried on.

"As far as this house and neighbourhood are concerned, no one shall have

any reason--to talk."

Then she threw her head back with a sudden flush.

"Of course, if people are born to say and think ill-natured things!--like

Mrs. Denton----"

Helbeck exclaimed.

"I will see to that," he said. "You shall have no reason to complain,

there."

Laura shrugged her shoulders.

"Will you kindly give me my letter?"

As he handed it to her, she made him a little bow, walked to the door

before he could open it for her, and was gone.

Helbeck turned back, with a smothered exclamation. He put the lamps out,

and went slowly to his study.

* * * * *

As the master of Bannisdale closed the door of his library behind him,

the familiar room produced upon him a sharp and singular impression. The

most sacred and the most critical hours of his life had been passed

within its walls. As he entered it now, it seemed to repulse him, to be

no longer his.

The room was not large. It was the old library of the house, and the

Helbecks in their palmiest days had never been a literary race. There was

a little seventeenth century theology; and a few English classics. There

were the French books of Helbeck's grandmother--"Madame," as she was

always known at Bannisdale; and amongst them the worn brown volumes of

St. François de Sales, with the yellowish paper slips that Madame had put

in to mark her favourite passages, somewhere in the days of the First

Empire. Near by were some stray military volumes, treatises on tactics

and fortification, that had belonged to a dashing young officer in the

Dillon Regiment, close to some "Epîtres Amoureux," a translation of

"Daphnis and Chloe," and the like--all now sunk together into the same

dusty neglect.

On the wall above Helbeck's writing-table were ranged the books that had

been his mother's, together with those that he himself habitually used.

Here every volume was an old friend, a familiar tool. Alan Helbeck was

neither a student nor a man of letters; but he had certain passionate

prejudices, instincts, emotions, of which some books were the source and

sustenance.

For the rest--during some years he had been a member of the Third Order

of St. Francis, and in its other features the room was almost the room of

a religious. A priedieu stood against the inner wall, and a crucifix hung

above it. A little further on was a small altar of St. Joseph with its

pictures, its statuette, and its candles; and a poor lithograph of Pio

Nono looked down from the mantelpiece. The floor was almost bare, save

for a few pieces of old matting here and there. The worn Turkey carpet

that had formerly covered it had been removed to make the drawing-room

comfortable for Augustina; so had most of the chairs. Those left were of

the straightest and hardest.

In that dingy room, however, Helbeck had known the most blessed, the most

intimate moments of the spiritual life. To-night he entered it with a

strange sense of wrench--of mortal discouragement. Mechanically he went

to his writing-table, and, sitting down before it, he took a key from his

watch-chain and opened a large locked note-book that lay upon it.

The book contained a number of written meditations, a collection of

passages and thoughts, together with some faded photographs of his

mother, and of his earliest Jesuit teachers at Stonyhurst.

On the last page was a paragraph that only the night before he had copied

from one of his habitual books of devotion--copying it as a spiritual

exercise--making himself dwell upon every word of it.

"_When shall I desire Thee alone--feed on Thee alone--O my Delight, my

only good! O my loving and almighty Lord! free now this wretched heart

from every attachment, from every earthly affection; adorn it with Thy

holy virtues, and with a pure intention of doing all things to please

Thee, that so I may open it to Thee, and with gentle violence compel Thee

to come in, that Thou, O Lord, mayest work therein without resistance all

those effects which from all Eternity Thou hast desired to produce in

me._"

He lingered a little on the words, his face buried in his hands. Then

slowly he turned back to an earlier page--

"_Man must use creatures as being in themselves indifferent. He must not

be under their power, but use them for his own purpose, his own first and

chiefest purpose, the salvation of his soul._"

A shudder passed through him. He rose hastily from his seat, and began to

pace the room. He had already passed through a wrestle of the same kind,

and had gone away to fight down temptation. To-night the struggle was

harder. The waves of rising passion broke through him.

"Little pale, angry face! I gave her a scolding like a child--what joy to

have forgiven her like a child!--to have asked her pardon in return--to

have felt the soft head against my breast. She was very fierce with

me--she hates me, I suppose. And yet--she is not indifferent to me!--she

knows when I am there. Downstairs she was conscious of me all through--I

knew it. Her secret was in her face. I guessed it--foolish child--from

the first moment. Strange, stormy nature!--I see it all--her passion for

her father, and for these peasants as belonging to him--her hatred of me

and of our faith, because her father hated us--her feeling for

Augustina--that rigid sense, of obligation she has, just on the two or

three points--points of natural affection. It is this sense, perhaps,

that makes the soul of her struggle with this house--with me. How she

loathes all that we love--humility, patience, obedience! She would sooner

die than obey. Unless she loved! Then what an art, what an enchantment to

command her! It would tax a lover's power, a lover's heart, to the

utmost. Ah!"

He stood still, and with an effort of iron resolution put from him the

fancies that were thronging on the brain. If it were possible for him to

conquer her, conceivable that he might win her--such a dream was

forbidden to him, Alan Helbeck, a thousandfold! Such a marriage would be

the destruction of innumerable schemes for the good of the Church, for

the perfecting of his own life. It would be the betrayal of great trusts,

the abandonment of great opportunities. "My life would centre in her. She

would come first--the Church second. Her nature would work on mine--not

mine on hers. Could I ever speak to her even of what I believe?--the very

alphabet of it is unknown to her. I shrink from proselytism. God forgive

me!--it is her wild pagan self that I love--that I desire----"

The blast of human longing, human pain, was hard to meet--hard to subdue.

But the Catholic fought--and conquered.

"I am not my own--I have taken tasks upon me that no honest man could

betray. There are vows on me also, that bind me specially to our Lord--to

his Church. The Church frowns on such a love--such marriages. She does

not forbid them--but they pain her heart. I have accepted her judgment

till now, without difficulty, without conflict. Now to obey is hard. But

I can obey--we are not asked impossibilities."

He walked to the crucifix, and threw himself down before it. A midnight

stillness brooded over the house.

* * * * *

But far away, in an upper room, Laura Fountain had cried herself to

sleep--only to wake again and again, with the tears flooding her cheeks.

Was it merely a disagreeable and exciting scene she had gone through?

What was this new invasion of her life?--this new presence to the inward

eye of a form and look that at once drew her and repulsed her. A hundred

alien forces were threatening and pressing upon her--and out from the

very heart of them came this strange drawing--this magnetism--this

troubling misery.

To be prisoned in Bannisdale--under Mr. Helbeck's roof--for months and

months longer--this thought was maddening to her.

But when she imagined herself free to go--and far away once more from

this old and melancholy house--among congenial friends and scenes--she

was no happier than before. A little moan of anger and pain came, that

she stifled against her pillow, calling passionately on the sleep that

would, that must, chase all these phantoms of fatigue or excitement--and

give her back her old free self.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

"We shall get there in capital time--that's nice!" said Polly Mason,

putting down the little railway guide she had just purchased at Marsland

Station, with a general rustle of satisfaction.

Polly indeed shone with good temper and new clothes. Her fringe--even

halved--was prodigious. Her cheap lemon-coloured gloves were cracking on

her large hands; and round her beflowered hat she had tied clouds on

clouds of white tulle, which to some extent softened the tans and

crimsons of her complexion. Her dress was of a stiff white cotton stuff,

that fell into the most startling folds and angles; and at every movement

of it, the starch rattled.

On the opposite seat of the railway carriage was Laura Fountain--an open

book upon her knee that she was not reading. She made no answer, however,

to Polly's remark; the impression left by her attitude was that she took

no interest in it. Miss Fountain herself hardly seemed to have profited

much by that Westmoreland air whereof the qualities were to do so much

for Augustina. It was now June, the end of June, and Laura was certainly

paler, less blooming, than she had been in March. She seemed more

conscious; she was certainly less radiant. Whether her prettiness had

gained by the slight change, might be debated. Polly's eyes, indeed, as

they sped along, paid her cousin one long covetous tribute. The

difficulty that she always had in putting on her own clothes, and

softening her own physical points, made her the more conscious of Laura's

delicate ease, of all the yielding and graceful lines into which the

little black and white muslin frock fell so readily, of all that natural

kinship between Laura and her hats, Laura and her gloves, which poor

Polly fully perceived, knowing well and sadly that she herself could

never attain to it.

Nevertheless--pretty, Miss Fountain might be; elegant she certainly was;

but Polly did not find her the best of companions for a festal day. They

were going to Froswick--the big town on the coast--to meet Hubert and

another young man, one Mr. Seaton, foreman in a large engineering

concern, whose name Polly had not been able to mention without bridling,

for some time past.

It was more than a fortnight since the sister, driven by Hubert's

incessant letters, had proposed to Laura that they two should spend a

summer day at Froswick and see the great steel works on which the fame of

that place depended, escorted and entertained by the two young men. Laura

at first had turned a deaf ear. Then all at once--a very flare of

eagerness and acceptance!--a sudden choosing of day and train. And now

that they were actually on their way, with everything arranged, and a

glorious June sun above their heads, Laura was so silent, so reluctant,

so irritable--you might have thought----

Well!--Polly really did not know what to think. She was not quite happy

herself. From time to time, as her look dwelt on Laura, she was conscious

of certain guilty reserves and concealments in her own breast. She wished

Hubert had more sense--she hoped to goodness it would all go off nicely!

But of course it would. Polly was an optimist and took all things simply.

Her anxieties for Laura did not long resist the mere pleasure of the

journey and the trip, the flatteries of expectation. What a very

respectable and, on the whole, good-looking young man was Mr. Seaton!

Polly had met him first at the Browhead dance; so that what was a mere

black and ugly spot in Laura's memory shone rosy-red in her cousin's.

Meanwhile Laura, mainly to avoid Polly's conversation, was looking hard

out of window. They were running along the southern shore of a great

estuary. Behind the loitering train rose the hills they had just left,

the hills that sheltered the stream and the woods of Bannisdale. That

rich, dark patch beneath the further brow was the wood in which the house

stood. To the north, across the bay, ran the line of high mountains, a

dim paradise of sunny slopes and steeps, under the keenest and brightest

of skies--blue ramparts from which the gently opening valleys flowed

downwards, one beside the other, to the estuary and the sea.

Not that the great plunging sea itself was much to be seen as yet.

Immediately beyond the railway line stretched leagues of firm reddish

sand, pierced by the innumerable channels of the Greet. The sun lay hot

and dazzling on the wide flat surfaces, on the flocks of gulls, on the

pools of clear water. The window was open, and through the June heat

swept a sharp, salt breath. Laura, however, felt none of the physical

exhilaration that as a rule overflowed in her so readily. Was it because

the Bannisdale Woods were still visible? What made the significance of

that dark patch to the girl's restless eye? She came back to it again and

again. It was like a flag, round which a hundred warring thoughts had

come to gather.

Why?

Were not she and Mr. Helbeck on the best of terms? Was not Augustina

quite pleased--quite content? "I always knew, my dear Laura, that you and

Alan would get on, in time. Why, anyone could get on with Alan--he's so

kind!" When these things were said, Laura generally laughed. She did not

remind Mrs. Fountain that she, at one time of her existence, had not

found it particularly easy and simple to "get on with Alan"; but the girl

did once allow herself the retort--"It's not so easy to quarrel, is it,

when you don't see a person from week's end to week's end?" "Week's end

to week's end?" Mrs. Fountain repeated vaguely. "Yes--Alan is away a

great deal--people trust him so much--he has so much business."

Laura was of opinion that his first business might very well have been to

see a little more of his widowed sister! She and Augustina spent days and

days alone, while Mr. Helbeck pursued the affairs of the Church. One

precious attempt indeed had been made to break the dulness of Bannisdale.

Miss Fountain's cheeks burned when she thought of it. There had been an

afternoon party! though Augustina's widowhood was barely a year old! Mrs.

Fountain had been sent about the country delivering notes and cards. And

the result:--oh, such a party!--such an interminable afternoon! Where had

the people come from?--who were they? If Polly, full of curiosity, asked

for some details, Laura would toss her head and reply that she knew

nothing at all about it; that Mrs. Denton had provided bad tea and worse

cakes, and the guests had "filled their chairs," and there was nothing

else to say. Mr. Helbeck's shyness and efforts; the glances of appeal he

threw every now and then towards his sister; his evident depression when

the thing was done--these things were not told to Polly. There was a

place for them in the girl's sore mind; but they did not come to speech.

Anyway she believed--nay, was quite sure--that Bannisdale would not be so

tried a second time. For whose benefit was it done?--whose!

One evening----

As the train crossed the bridge of the estuary, from one stretch of hot

sand to another, Laura, staring at the view, saw really nothing but an

image of the mind, felt nothing except what came through the magic of

memory.

The hall of Bannisdale, with the lingering daylight of the north still

coming in at ten o'clock through the uncurtained oriel windows--herself

at the piano, Augustina on the settle--a scent of night and flowers

spreading through the dim place from the open windows of the drawing-room

beyond. One candle is beside her--and there are strange glints of

moonlight here and there on the panelling. A tall figure enters from the

chapel passage. Augustina makes room on the settle--the Squire leans back

and listens. And the girl at the piano plays; the stillness and the night

seem to lay releasing hands upon her; bonds that have been stifling and

cramping the soul break down; she plays with all her self, as she might

have talked or wept to a friend--to her father.... And at last, in a

pause, the Squire puts a new candle beside her, and his deep shy voice

commends her, asks her to go on playing. 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. And the night, for the girl, is broken

with restlessness, with wild efforts to draw the old fetters tight again,

to clamp and prison something that flutters--that struggles.

Then next morning, there is an empty chair at the breakfast table. "The

Squire left early on business." Without any warning--any courteous

message? One evening at home, after a long absence, and then--off again!

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. Fright blanches the old fellow's beard and hair; he takes to his

bed, and the doctor talks of severe "nervous shock"--very serious, often

deadly, at the patient's age. Why not confess everything at once, set

things straight, free the poor shaken mind from its oppression? Who's

afraid?--what harm is there in an after-dinner stroll?

But there!--truth apparently is what no one wants, what no one will

have--least of all, Mr. Helbeck. She sees a meeting in the park, under

the oaks--the same tall man and the girl--the girl bound impetuously for

confession, and the soothing of old Scarsbrook's terrors once for

all--the man standing in the way, as tough and prickly as one of his own

hawthorns. Courtesy, of course! there is no one can make courtesy so

galling; and then such a shooting out of will and personality, so sudden,

so volcanic a heat of remonstrance! And a woman is such a poor ill-strung

creature, even the boldest of them! She yields when she should have

pressed forward--goes home to rage, when she should have stayed to

wrestle.

Afterwards, another absence--the old house silent as the grave--and

Augustina so fretful, so wearisome! But she is better, much better. How

unscrupulous are doctors, and those other persons who make them say

exactly what suits the moment!

The dulness seems to grow with the June heat. Soon it becomes

intolerable. Nobody comes, nobody speaks; no mind offers itself to yours

for confidence and sympathy. Well, but change and excitement of some sort

one _must_ have!--who is to blame, if you get it where you can?

A day in Froswick with Hubert Mason? Yes--why not? Polly proposes it--has

proposed it once or twice before to no purpose. For two months now the

young man has been in training. Polly writes to him often; Laura

sometimes wonders whether the cross-examinations through which Polly puts

her may not partly be for Hubert's benefit. She herself has written twice

to him in answer to some half-dozen letters, has corrected his song for

him--has played altogether a very moral and sisterly part. Is the youth

really in love? Perhaps. Will it do him any harm?

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. Such civility of late on the part of

all the Catholic friends of Bannisdale towards Miss Fountain!--a civility

always on the watch, week by week, day by day--that never yields itself

for an instant, has never a human impulse, an unguarded tone. Father

Leadham is there one day--he makes a point of talking with Miss Fountain.

He leads the conversation to Cambridge, to her father--his keen glance

upon her all the time, the hidden life of the convert and the mystic

leaping every now and then to the surface, and driven down again by a

will that makes itself felt--even by so cool a listener--as a living

tyrannous thing, developed out of all proportion to, nay at the cruel

expense of, the rest of the personality. Yet it is no will of the man's

own--it is the will of his order, of his faith. And why these repeated

stray references to Bannisdale--to its owner--to the owner's goings and

comings? They are hardly questions, but they might easily have done the

work of questions had the person addressed been willing. Laura laughs to

think of it.

Ah! well--but discretion to-day, discretion to-morrow, discretion always,

is not the most amusing of diets. How dumb, how tame, has she become!

There is no one to fight with, nothing whereon to let loose the

sharp-edged words and sayings that lie so close behind the girl's shut

lips. How amazing that one should positively miss those fuller activities

in the chapel that depend on the Squire's presence! Father Bowles says

Mass there twice a week; the light still burns before the altar; several

times a day Augustina disappears within the heavy doors. But when Mr.

Helbeck is at home, the place becomes, as it were, the strong heart of

the house. It beats through the whole organism; so that no one can ignore

or forget it.

What is it that makes the difference when he returns? Unwillingly, the

mind shapes its reply. A sense of unity and law comes back into the

house--a hidden dignity and poetry. The Squire's black head carries with

it stern reminders, reminders that challenge or provoke; but "he nothing

common does nor mean," and smaller mortals, as the weeks go by, begin to

feel their hot angers and criticisms driven back upon themselves, to

realise the strange persistency and force of the religious life.

Inhuman force! But force of any kind tends to draw, to conquer. More than

once Laura sees herself at night, almost on the steps of the chapel, in

the dark shadows of the passage--following Augustina. But she has never

yet mounted the steps--never passed the door. Once or twice she has

angrily snatched herself from listening to the distant voice.

... Mr. Helbeck makes very little comment on the Froswick plan. One swift

involuntary look at breakfast, as who might say--"Our compact?" But there

was no compact. And go she will.

And at last all opposition clears away. It must be Mr. Helbeck who has

silenced Augustina--for even she complains no more. Trains are looked

out; arrangements are made to fetch Polly from a half-way village; a fly

is ordered to meet the 9.10 train at night. Why does one feel a culprit

all through? Absurdity! Is one to be mewed up all one's life, to throw

over all fun and frolic at Mr. Helbeck's bidding--Mr. Helbeck, who now

scarcely sets foot in Bannisdale, who seems to have turned his back upon

his own house, since that precise moment when his sister and her

stepdaughter came to inhabit it? Never till this year was he restless in

this way--so says Mrs. Denton, whose temper grows shorter and shorter.

Oh--as to fun and frolic! The girl yawns as she looks out of window. What

a long hot day it is going to be--and how foolish are all expeditions,

all formal pleasures! 9.10 at Marsland--about seven, she supposes, at

Froswick? Already her thoughts are busy, hungrily busy with the evening,

and the return.

* * * * *

The train sped along. They passed a little watering-place under the steep

wooded hills--a furnace of sun on this hot June day, in winter a soft and

sheltered refuge from the north. Further on rose the ruins of a great

Cistercian abbey, great ribs and arches of red sandstone, that still, in

ruin, made the soul and beauty of a quiet valley; then a few busy towns

with mills and factories, the fringe of that industrial district which

lies on the southern and western border of the Lake Country; more wide

valleys sweeping back into blue mountains; a wealth of June leaf and

blossoming tree; and at last docks and buildings, warehouses and "works,"

a network of spreading railway lines, and all the other signs of an

important and growing town. The train stopped amid a crowd, and Polly

hurried to the door.

"Why, Hubert!--Mr. Seaton!--Here we are!"

She beckoned wildly, and not a few passers-by turned to look at the

nodding clouds of tulle.

"We shall find them, Polly--don't shout," said Laura behind her, in some

disgust.

Shout and beckon, however, Polly did and would, till the two young men

were finally secured.

"Why, Hubert, you never towd me what a big place 'twas," said Polly

joyously. "Lor, Mr. Seaton, doant fash yoursel. This is Miss Fountain--my

cousin. You'll remember her, I knaw."

Mr. Seaton began a polite and stilted speech while possessing himself of

Polly's shawl and bag. He was a very superior young man of the clerk or

foreman type, somewhat ill put together at the waist, with a flat back to

his head, and a cadaverous countenance. Laura gave him a rapid look. But

her chief curiosity was for Hubert. And at her first glance she saw the

signs of that strong and silent process perpetually going on amongst us

that tames the countryman to the life and habits of the town. It was only

a couple of months since the young athlete from the fells had been

brought within its sway, and already the marks of it were evident in

dress, speech, and manner. The dialect was almost gone; the black Sunday

coat was of the most fashionable cut that Froswick could provide; and as

they walked along, Laura detected more than once in the downcast eyes of

her companion, a stealthy anxiety as to the knees of his new grey

trousers. So far the change was not an embellishment. The first loss of

freedom and rough strength is never that. But it roused the girl's

notice, and a sort of secret sympathy. She too had felt the curb of an

alien life!--she could almost have held out her hand to him as to a

comrade in captivity.

Outside the station, to Laura's surprise--considering the object of the

expedition--Hubert made a sign to his sister, and they two dropped behind

a little.

"What's the matter with her?" said Hubert abruptly, as soon as he judged

that they were out of hearing of the couple in front.

"Who do you mean? Laura? Why, she's well enoof!"

"Then she don't look it. She's fretting. What's wrong with her?"

As Hubert looked down upon his sister, Polly was startled by the

impatient annoyance of look and manner. And how red-rimmed and weary were

the lad's eyes! You might have thought he had not slept for a week.

Polly's mind ran through a series of conjectures; and she broke out with

Westmoreland plainness--

"Hubert, I do wish tha wouldn't be sich a fool! I've towd tha so times

and times."

"Aye, and you may tell me so till kingdom come--I shan't mind you," he

said doggedly. "There's something between her and the Squire, I know

there is. I know it by the look of her."

Polly laughed.

"How you jump! I tell tha she never says a word aboot him."

Hubert looked moodily at Laura's little figure in front.

"All the more reason!" he said between his teeth. "She'd talk about him

when she first came. But I'll find out--never fear."

"For goodness' sake, Hubert, let her be!" said Polly, entreating. "Sich

wild stuff as thoo's been writin me! Yan might ha thowt yo'd be fer

cuttin yor throat, if yo' didn't get her doon here.--What art tha thinkin

of, lad? She'll never marry tha! She doan't belong to us--and there's noa

undoin it."

Hubert made no reply, but unconsciously his muscular frame took a

passionate rigidity; his face became set and obstinate.

"Well, you keep watch," he said. "You'll see--I'll make it worth your

while."

Polly looked up--half laughing. She understood his reference to herself

and her new sweetheart. Hubert would play her game if she would play his.

Well--she had no objection whatever to help him to the sight of Laura

when she could. Polly's moral sense was not over-delicate, and as to the

upshot and issues of things, her imagination moved but slowly. She did

not like to let herself think of what might have been Hubert's relations

to women--to one or two wild girls about Whinthorpe for instance. But

Laura--Laura who was so much their social better, whose manners and

self-possession awed them both, what smallest harm could ever come to her

from any act or word of Hubert's? For this rustic Westmoreland girl,

Laura Fountain stood on a pedestal robed and sceptred like a little

queen. Hubert was a fool to fret himself--a fool to go courting some one

too high for him. What else was there to say or think about it?

At the next street corner Laura made a resolute stop. Polly should not

any longer be defrauded of her Mr. Seaton. Besides she, Laura, wished to

talk to Hubert. Mr. Beaton's long words, and way of mouthing his highly

correct phrases, had already seemed to take the savour out of the

morning.

When the exchange was made--Mr. Seaton alas! showing less eagerness than

might have been expected--Laura quietly examined her companion. It seemed

to her that he was taller than ever; surely she was not much higher than

his elbow! Hubert, conscious that he was being scrutinised, turned red,

looked away, coughed, and apparently could find nothing to say.

"Well--how are you getting on?" said the light voice, sending its

vibration through all the man's strong frame.

"I suppose I'm getting on all right," he said, switching at the railings

beside the road with his stick.

"What sort of work do you do?"

He gave her a stumbling account, from which she gathered that he was for

the time being the factotum of an office, sent on everybody's errands,

and made responsible for everybody's shortcomings.

She threw him a glance of pity. This young Hercules, with his open-air

traditions, and his athlete's triumphs behind him, turned into the butt

and underling of half a dozen clerks in a stuffy office!

"I don't mind," he said hastily. "All the others paid for their places; I

didn't pay for mine. I'll be even with them all some day. It was the

chance I wanted, and my uncle gives me a lift now and then. It was to

please him they gave me the berth; he's worth thousands and thousands a

year to them!"

And he launched into a boasting account of the importance and abilities

of his uncle, Daniel Mason, who was now managing director of the great

shipbuilding yard into which Hubert had been taken, as a favour to his

kinsman.

"He began at the bottom, same as me--only he was younger than me," said

Hubert, "so he had the pull. But you'll see, I'll work up. I've learnt a

lot since I've been here. The classes at the Institute--well, they're

fine!"

Laura showed an astonished glance. New sides of the lad seemed to be

revealing themselves.

She inquired after his music. But he declared he was too busy to think of

it. By-and-by in the winter he would have lessons. There was a violin

class at the Institute--perhaps he'd join that. Then abruptly, staring

down upon her with his wide blue eyes--

"And how have you been getting on with the Squire?"

He thought she started, but couldn't be quite sure.

"Getting on with the Squire? Why, capitally! Whenever he's there to get

on with."

"What--he's been away?" he said eagerly.

She raised her shoulders.

"He's always away----"

"Why, I thought they'd have made a Papist of you by now," he said.

His laugh was rough, but his eyes held her with a curious insistence.

"Think something more reasonable, please, next time! Now, where are we

going to lunch?"

"We've got it all ready. But we must see the yard first.... Miss

Fountain--Laura--I've got that flower you gave me."

His voice was suddenly hoarse.

She glanced at him, lifting her eyebrows.

"Very foolish of you, I'm sure.... Now do tell me, how did you get off so

early?"

He sulkily explained to her that work was unusually slack in his own

yard; that, moreover, he had worked special overtime during the week in

order to get an hour or two off this Saturday, and that Seaton was on

night duty at a large engineering "works," and lord therefore of his

days. But she paid small attention. She was occupied in looking at the

new buildings and streets, the brand new squares and statues of Froswick.

"How can people build and live in such ugly places?" she said at last,

standing still that she might stare about her--"when there are such

lovely things in the world; Cambridge, for instance--or--Bannisdale."

The last word slipped out, dreamily, unaware.

The lad's face flushed furiously.

"I don't know what there is to see in Bannisdale," he said hotly. "It's a

damp, dark, beastly hole of a place."

"I prefer Bannisdale to this, thank you," said Laura, making a little

face at the very ample bronze gentleman in a frock coat who was standing

in the centre of a great new-built empty square, haranguing a phantom

crowd. "Oh! how ugly it is to succeed--to have money!"

Mason looked at her with a half-puzzled frown--a frown that of late had

begun to tease his handsome forehead habitually.

"What's the harm of having a bit of brass?" he said angrily. "And what's

the beauty o' livin in an old ramshackle place, without a sixpence in

your pocket, and a pride fit to bring you to the workhouse!"

Laura's little mouth showed amusement, an amusement that stung. She

lifted a little fan that hung at her girdle.

"Is there any shade in Froswick?" she said, looking round her.

Mason was silenced, and as Polly and Mr. Seaton joined them, he recovered

his temper with a mighty effort and once more set himself to do the

honours--the slighted honours--of his new home.

... But oh! the heat of the ship-building yard. Laura was already tired

and faint, and could hardly drag her feet up and down the sides of the

great skeleton ships that lay building in the docks, or through the

interminable "fitting" sheds with their piles of mahogany and teak, their

whirring lathes and saws, their heaps of shavings, their resinous wood

smell. And yet the managing director appeared in person for twenty

minutes, a thin, small, hawk-eyed man, not at all unwilling to give a

brief patronage to the young lady who might be said to link the houses of

Mason and Helbeck in a flattering equality.

"He wad never ha doon it for _us_!" Polly whispered in her awe to Miss

Fountain. "It's you he's affther!"

Laura, however, was not grateful. She took her industrial lesson ill,

with much haste and inattention, so that once when the director and his

nephew fell behind, the great man, whose speech to his kinsman in private

was often little less broad than Mrs. Mason's own--said scornfully:

"An I doan't think much o' your fine cousin, mon! she's nobbut a flighty

miss."

The young man said nothing. He was still slavishly ill at ease with his

uncle, on whose benevolence all his future depended.

"Is there something more to see?" said Laura languidly.

"Only the steel works," said Mr. Seaton, with a patronising smile. "You

young ladies, I presume, would hardly wish to go away without seeing our

chief establishment. Froswick Steel and Hematite Works employ three

thousand workmen."

"Do they?--and does it matter?" said Laura, playing with the salt.

She wore a little plaintive, tired air, which suited her soft paleness,

and made her extraordinarily engaging in the eyes of both the young men.

Mason watched her perpetually, anticipating her slightest movement,

waiting on her least want. And Mr. Seaton, usually so certain of his own

emotions and so wholly in command of them, began to feel himself

confused. It was with a distinct slackening of ardour that he looked from

Miss Fountain to Polly--his Polly, as he had almost come to think of her,

honest managing Polly, who would have a bit of "brass," and was in all

respects a tidy and suitable wife for such a man as he. But why had she

wrapped all that silly white stuff round her head? And her hands!--Mr.

Seaton slyly withdrew his eyes from Polly's reddened members to fix them

on the thin white wrist that Laura was holding poised in air, and the

pretty fingers twirling the salt spoon.

Polly meantime sat up very straight, and was no longer talkative. Lunch

had not improved her complexion, as the mirror hanging opposite showed

her. Every now and then she too threw little restless glances across at

Laura.

"Why, we needn't go to the works at all if we don't like," said Polly.

"Can't we get a fly, Hubert, and take a jaunt soomwhere?"

Hubert bent forward with alacrity. Of course they could. If they went

four miles up the river or so, they would come to real nice country and a

farmhouse where they could have tea.

"Well, I'm game," said Mr. Seaton, magnanimously slapping his pocket.

"Anything to please these ladies."

"I don't know about that seven o'clock train," said Mason doubtfully.

"Well, if we can't get that, there's a later one."

"No, that's the last."

"You may trust me," said Seaton pompously. "I know my way about a railway

guide. There's one a little after eight."

Hubert shook his head. He thought Seaton was mistaken. But Laura settled

the matter.

"Thank you--we'll not miss our train," she said, rising to put her hat

straight before the glass--"so it's the works, please. What is

it--furnaces and red-hot things?"

In another minute or two they were in the street again. Mr. Seaton

settled the bill with a magnificent "Damn the expense" air, which annoyed

Mason--who was of course a partner in all the charges of the day--and

made Laura bite her lip. Outside he showed a strong desire to walk with

Miss Fountain that he might instruct her in the details of the Bessemer

process and the manufacture of steel rails. But the ease with which the

little nonchalant creature disposed of him, the rapidity with which he

found himself transferred to Polly, and left to stare at the backs of

Laura and Hubert hurrying along in front, amazed him.

"Isn't she nice looking?" said poor Polly, as she too stared helplessly

at the distant pair.

Her shawl weighed upon her arm, Mr. Seaton had forgotten to ask for it.

But there was a little sudden balm in the irritable vexation of his

reply:

"Some people may be of that opinion, Miss Mason. I own I prefer a greater

degree of balance in the fair sex."

"Oh! does he mean me?" thought Polly.

And her spirits revived a little.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, as Laura and Hubert walked along to the desolate road that led

to the great steel works, Hubert knew a kind of jealous and tormented

bliss. She was there, fluttering beside him, her delicate face often

turned to him, her feet keeping step with his. And at the same time what

strong intangible barriers between them! She had put away her mocking

tone--was clearly determined to be kind and cousinly. Yet every word only

set the tides of love and misery swelling more strongly in the lad's

breast. "She doan't belong to us, an there's noa undoin it." Polly's

phrase haunted his ear. Yet he dared ask her no more questions about

Helbeck; small and frail as she was, she could wrap herself in an

unapproachable dignity; nobody had ever yet solved the mystery of Laura's

inmost feeling against her will; and Hubert knew despairingly that his

clumsy methods had small chance with her. But he felt with a kind of rage

that there were signs of suffering about her; he divined something to

know, at the same time that he realised with all plainness it was not for

his knowing. Ah! that man--that ugly starched hypocrite--after all had he

got hold of her? Who could live near her without feeling this pain--this

pang?... Was she to be surrendered to him without a struggle--to that

canting, droning fellow, with his jail of a house? Why, he would crush

the life out of her in six months!

There was a rush and whirl in the lad's senses. A cry of animal

jealousy--of violence--rose in his being.

* * * * *

"How wonderful!--how enchanting!" cried Laura, her glance sparkling, her

whole frame quivering with pleasure.

They had just entered the great main shed of the steel works. The

foreman, who had been induced by the young men to take them through, was

in the act of placing Laura in the shelter of a brick screen, so as to

protect her from a glowing shower of sparks that would otherwise have

swept over her; and the girl had thrown a few startled looks around her.

A vast shed, much of it in darkness, and crowded with dim forms of iron

and brick--at one end, and one side, openings, where the June day came

through. Within--a grandiose mingling of fire and shadow--a vast glare of

white or bluish flame from a huge furnace roaring against the inner wall

of the shed--sparks, like star showers, whirling through dark

spaces--ingots of glowing steel, pillars of pure fire passing and

repassing, so that the heat of them scorched the girl's shrinking

cheek--and everywhere, dark against flame, the human movement answering

to the elemental leap and rush of the fire, black forms of men in a

constant activity, masters and ministers at once of this crackling terror

round about them.

"Aye!" said their guide, answering the girl's questions as well as he

could in the roar--"that's the great furnace where they boil the steel.

Now you watch--when the flame--look! it's white now--turns blue--that

means the process is done--the steel's cooked. Then they'll bring the vat

beneath--turn the furnace over--you'll see the steel pour out."

"Is that a railway?"

She pointed to a raised platform in front of the furnace. A truck bearing

a high metal tub was running along it.

"Yes--it's from there they feed the furnace--in a minute you'll see the

tub tip over."

There was a signal bell--a rattle of machinery. The tub tilted--a great

jet of white flame shot upwards from the furnace--the great mouth had

swallowed down its prey.

"And those men with their wheelbarrows? Why do they let them go so

close?"

She shuddered and put her hand over her eyes.

The foreman laughed.

"Why, it's quite safe!--the tub's moved out of the way. You see the

furnace has to be fed with different stuffs---the tub brings one sort and

the barrows another. Now look--they're going to turn it over. Stand

back!"

He held up his hand to bid Mason come under shelter.

Laura looked round her.

"Where are the other two?" she asked.

"Oh! they've gone to see the bar-testing--they'll be here soon. Seaton

knows the man in charge of the testing workshop."

Laura ceased to think of them. She was absorbed in the act before her.

The great lip of the furnace began to swing downwards; fresh showers of

sparks fled in wild curves and spirals through the shed; out flowed the

stream of liquid steel into the vat placed beneath. Then slowly the fire

cup righted itself; the flame roared once more against the wall; the

swarming figures to either side began once more to feed the monster--men

and trucks and wheelbarrow, the little railway line, and the iron pillars

supporting it, all black against the glare----

Laura stood breathless--her wild nature rapt by what she saw. But while

she hung on the spectacle before her, Mason never spared it a glance. He

was conscious of scarcely anything but her--her childish form, in the

little clinging dress, her white face, every soft feature clear in the

glow, her dancing eyes, her cloud of reddish hair, from which her wide

black hat had slipped away in the excitement of her upward gaze. The lad

took the image into his heart--it burnt there as though it too were fire.

"Now let's look at something else!" said Laura at last, turning away with

a long breath.

And they took her to see the vat that had been filled from the furnace,

pouring itself into the ingot moulds--then the four moulds travelling

slowly onwards till they paused under a sort of iron hand that descended

and lifted them majestically from the white-hot steel beneath, uncovering

the four fiery pillars that reddened to a blood colour as they moved

across the shed--till, on the other side, one ingot after another was

lowered from the truck, and no sooner felt the ground than it became the

prey of some unseen force, which drove it swiftly onwards from beneath,

to where it leapt with a hiss and crunch into the jaws of the mill. Then

out again on the further side, lengthened, and pared, the demon in it

already half tamed!--flying as it were from the first mill, only to be

caught again in the squeeze of the second, and the third--until at last

the quivering rail emerged at the further end, a twisting fire serpent,

still soft under the controlling rods of the workmen. On it glided, on,

and out of the shed, into the open air, till it reached a sort of

platform over a pit, where iron claws caught at it from beneath, and

brought it to a final rest, in its own place, beside its innumerable

fellows, waiting for the market and its buyers.

"Mayn't we go back once more to the furnace?" said Miss Fountain eagerly

to her guide--"just for a minute!"

He smiled at her, unable to say no.

And they walked back across the shed, to the brick shelter. The great

furnace was roaring as before, the white sheet of flame was nearing its

last change of colour, tub after tub, barrow after barrow poured its

contents into the vast flaring throat. Behind the shelter was an elderly

woman with a shawl over her head. She had brought a jar of tea for some

workmen, and was standing like any stranger, watching the furnace and

hiding from the sparks.

Now there is only one man more--and after that, one more tub to be

lowered--and the hell-broth is cooked once again, and will come streaming

forth.

The man advances with his barrow. Laura sees his blackened face in the

intolerable light, as he turns to give a signal to those behind him. An

electric bell rings.

Then----

What was that?

God!--what was that?

A hideous cry rang through the works. Laura drew her hand in bewilderment

across her eyes. The foreman beside her shouted and ran forward.

"Where's the man?" she said helplessly to Mason.

But Mason made no answer. He was clinging to the brick wall, his eyes

staring out of his head. A great clamour rose from the little

railway--from beneath it--from all sides of it. The shed began to swarm

with running men, all hurrying towards the furnace. The air was full of

their cries. It was like the loosing of a maddened hive.

Laura tottered, fell back against the wall. The old woman who had come to

bring the tea rushed up to her.

"Oh, Lord, save us!--Lord, save us!" she cried, with a wail to rend the

heart.

And the two women fell into each other's arms, shuddering, with wild

broken words, which neither of them heard or knew.

END OF VOL. I

End of Project Gutenberg's Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I, by Mrs. Humphry Ward