She could not tear herself from them. Trembling, she hung over them, and her fingers blindly opened a little book which lay on the top. It fell apart at a place which had been marked--freshly marked, it seemed to her.

A few lines had been scored in pencil, with a date beside them. She looked closer and read the date of the foregoing Easter Eve. And the pa.s.sage with its scored lines ran thus:

"Drive far from us the crowd of evil spirits who strive to approach us; unloose the too firm hold of earthly things; _untie with Thy gentle and wounded hands the fibres of our hearts that cling so fast round human affections_; let our weary head rest on Thy bosom till the struggle is over, and our cold form falls back--dust and ashes."

She stood a moment--looking down upon the book--feeling life one throb of anguish. Then wildly she stooped and kissed the pages. Dropping on her knees too, she kissed the arm of the chair, the place where his hand would rest.

No one came--the solitude held. Gradually she got the better of her misery. She rose, replaced the book, and went.

The following night, very late, Laura again lay sleepless. But April was blowing and plashing outside. The high fell and the lonely farm seemed to lie in the very track of the storms, as they rushed from the south-west across the open moss to beat themselves upon the mountains.

But the moon shone sometimes, and then the girl's restlessness would remind her of the open fell-side, of pale lights upon the distant sea, of cool blasts whirling among the old thorns and junipers, and she would long to be up and away--escaped from this prison where she could not sleep.

How the wind could drop at times--to what an utter and treacherous silence! And what strange, misleading sounds the silence brought with it!

She sat up in bed. Surely someone had opened the further gate--the gate from the lane? But the wind surged in again, and she had to strain her ears. Nothing. Yes!--wheels and hoofs! a carriage of some sort approaching.

A sudden thought came to her. The dog-cart--it seemed to be such by the sound--drew up at the farm door, and a man descended. She heard the reins thrown over the horse's back, then the groping for the knocker, and at last blows loud and clear, startling the night.

Mrs. Mason's window was thrown open next, and her voice came out imperiously--"What is it?"

Laura's life seemed to hang on the answer.

"Will you please tell Miss Fountain that her stepmother is in great danger, and asks her to come at once."

She leapt from her bed, but must needs wait--turned again to stone--for the next word. It came after a pause.

"And wha's the message from?"

"Kindly tell her that Mr. Helbeck is here with the dog-cart."

The window closed. Laura slipped into her clothes, and by the time Mrs.

Mason emerged the girl was already in the pa.s.sage.

"I heard," she said briefly. "Let us go down."

Mrs. Mason, pale and frowning, led the way. She undid the heavy bars and lock, and for the first time in her life stood confronted--on her own threshold--with the Papist Squire of Bannisdale.

Mr. Helbeck greeted her ceremoniously. But his black eyes, so deep-set and cavernous in his strong-boned face, did not seem to notice her. They ran past her to that small shadow in the background.

"Are you ready?" he said, addressing the shadow.

"One moment, please," said Laura. She was tying a thick veil round her hat, and struggling with the fastenings of her cloak.

Mrs. Mason looked from one to another like a baffled lioness. But to let them go without a word was beyond her. She turned to the Squire.

"Misther Helbeck!--yo'll tell me on your conscience--as it's reet and just--afther aw that's pa.s.st--'at this yoong woman should go wi yo?"

Laura shivered with rage and shame. Her fingers hastened. Mr. Helbeck showed no emotion whatever.

"Mrs. Fountain is dying," he said briefly; and again his eye--anxious, imperious--sought for the girl. She came hastily forward from the shadows of the kitchen.

Mr. Helbeck mounted the cart, and held out his hand to her.

"Have you got a shawl? The wind is very keen!" He spoke with the careful courtesy one uses to a stranger.

"Thank you--I am all right. Please let us go! Cousin Elizabeth!" Laura threw herself backwards a moment, as the cart began to move, and kissed her hand.

Mrs. Mason made no sign. She watched the cart, slowly picking its way over the rough ground of the farm-yard, till it turned the corner of the big barn and disappeared in the gusty darkness.

Then she turned housewards. She put down her guttering candle on the great oak table of the kitchen, and sank herself upon the settle.

"Soa--that's him!" she said to herself; and her peasant mind in a dull heat, like that of the peat fire beside her, went wandering back over the hatreds of twenty years.

CHAPTER III

As the dog-cart reached the turning of the lane, Mr. Helbeck said to his companion:

"Would you kindly take the cart through? I must shut the gate."

He jumped down. Laura with some difficulty--for the high wind coming from the fell increased her general confusion of brain--pa.s.sed the gate and took the pony safely down a rocky piece of road beyond.

His first act in rejoining her was to wrap the rugs which he had brought more closely about her.

"I had no idea in coming," he said--"that the wind was so keen. Now we face it."

He spoke precisely in the same voice that he might have used, say, to Polly Mason had she been confided to him for a night journey. But as he arranged the rug, his hand for an instant had brushed Laura's; and when she gave him the reins, she leant back hardly able to breathe.

With a pa.s.sionate effort of will, she summoned a composure to match his own.

"When did the change come?" she asked him.

"About eight o'clock. Then it was she told me you were here. We thought at first of sending over a messenger in the morning. But finally my sister begged me to come at once."

"Is there immediate danger?" The girlish voice must needs tremble.

"I trust we shall still find her," he said gently--"but her nurses were greatly alarmed."

"And was there--much suffering?"

She pressed her hands together under the coverings that sheltered them, in a quick anguish. Oh! had she thought enough, cared enough, for Augustina!

As she spoke the horse gave a sudden swerve, as though Mr. Helbeck had pulled the rein involuntarily. They b.u.mped over a large stone, and the Squire hastily excused himself for bad driving. Then he answered her question. As far as he or the Sister could judge there was little active suffering. But the weakness had increased rapidly that afternoon, and the breathing was much hara.s.sed.