Augustina--all contradiction with himself. The Froswick plan was already
on foot--and he had furthered it--out of a piteous wish to propitiate
her, to make her happy. What harm could happen to her? The sister would
go with her and bring her back. Why must he always play the disobliging
and tyrannical host? Could he undo the blood-relationship between her and
the Masons? If for mere difficulty and opposition's sake there were
really any fancy in her mind for this vulgar lad, perhaps after all it
were the best thing to let her see enough of him for disenchantment!
There are instincts that can be trusted.

Such had been the thoughts of the morning. They do not help him through
these night hours, when, in spite of all the arguments of common sense,
he recurs again and again to the image of her as alone, possibly
defenceless, in Mason's company.

Suddenly he perceived that the light was changing. He put his lamp out
and threw back the curtain. A pale gold was already creeping up the east.
The strange yew forms in the garden began to emerge from the night. A
huge green lion showed his jaw, his crown, his straight tail quivering in
the morning breeze; a peacock nodded stiffly on its pedestal; a great H
that had been reared upon its post supports before Dryden's death stood
black against the morning sky, and everywhere between the clumsy crowding
forms were roses, straggling and dew-drenched, or wallflowers in a June
wealth of bloom, or peonies that made a crimson flush amid the yews. The
old garden, so stiff and sad through all the rest of the year, was in its
moment of glory.

Helbeck opened one of the lattices of the oriel, and stood there gazing.
Six months before there had been a passionate oneness between him and his
inheritance, between his nature and the spirit of his race. Their