done in this poor house for my sister's comfort, and yours, I should wish
done. My resources are not great, but my will is good."

He raised his eyelids, and she saw the eyes beneath, full, for the first
time,--eyes grey like her own, but far darker and profounder. She felt a
momentary flutter, perhaps of compunction. Then she thanked him and went
her way.

* * * * *

When she had made her stepmother comfortable for the night, Laura
Fountain went back to her room, shielding her candle with difficulty from
the gusts that seemed to tear along the dark passages of the old house.
The March rawness made her shiver, and she looked shrinkingly into the
gloom before her, as she paused outside her own door. There, at the end
of the passage, lay the old tower; so Mrs. Denton had told her. The
thought of all the locked and empty rooms in it,--dark, cold
spaces,--haunted perhaps by strange sounds and presences of the past,
seemed to let loose upon her all at once a little whirlwind of fear. She
hurried into her room, and was just setting down her candle before
turning to lock her door, when a sound from the distant hall caught her
ear.

A deep monotonous sound, rising and falling at regular intervals, Mr.
Helbeck reading prayers, with the two maids, who represented the only
service of the house.

Laura lingered with her hand on the door. In the silence of the ancient
house, there was something touching in the sound, a kind of appeal. But
it was an appeal which, in the girl's mind, passed instantly into