"But I wonder at Mr. Helbeck didna juist tell yo himsel aboot that
telegram!"

"Do you?" said Laura. Her eyes flashed. She got down from the stile.
"Good-bye, Polly! I must be going home."

Suddenly Polly gripped her by the arm.

"Luke there!" she said in excitement. "Luke!--theer he goes! That's
Teddy--Teddy Williams! I knew as I had summat to tell you--and when you
spoak o' Hubert--it went oot o' my head."

Laura looked at her cousin first, in astonishment, and then at the dark
figure walking on the road below--the straight white road that ran across
the marsh, past the lonely forge of old Ben Williams, the wheelwright, to
the foot of the tall "Scar," opposite, where it turned seaward, and so
vanished in the dimness of the coast. It was the Jesuit certainly. The
two girls saw him plainly in the strong storm light. He was walking
slowly with bent head, and seemed to be reading. His solitary form, black
against the white of the road, made the only moving thing in the wide,
rain-drenched landscape.

Laura instantly guessed that he had been paying his duty visit to his
home. And Polly, it appeared, had been a witness of it.

For the cottage adjoining the wheelwright's workshop and forge, where
Edward Williams had been brought up, was now inhabited by his father and
sister. The sister, Jenny, was an old friend of Polly Mason's, who had
indeed many young memories of the scholastic himself. They had been all
children or schoolmates together.