Laura tripped and climbed, applauded by his eye, helped by his hand. But
though her colour came back, her spirits were still to seek. She was
often silent, and he hardly ever spoke to her without feeling a start run
through the hand he held.

His grey eye tried to read her, but in vain. At last he wooed her from
the fell-side where they were scrambling. "Come down to the river and
rest."

Hand in hand they descended the steep slope to that rock-seat where he
had found her on the morning of Easter Sunday. The great thorn which
overhung it was then in bud; now the berries which covered the tree were
already reddening to winter. Before her spread the silver-river, running
to lose itself in the rocky bosom of that towering scar which closed the
distance, whereon, too, all the wealth of the woods on either hand
converged--the woods that hid the outer country, and all that was not
Bannisdale and Helbeck's.

To-day, however, Laura felt no young passion of pleasure in the beauty at
her feet. She was ill at ease, and her look fled his as he glanced up to
her from the turf where he had thrown himself.

"Do you like me to read your books?" she said abruptly, her question
swooping hawk-like upon his and driving it off the field.

He paused--to consider, and to smile.

"I don't know. I believe you read them perversely!"

"I know what you read this morning. Do you--do you think St. Francis