puts it all down to some secret sin on Alan's part. She spends a great
part of the night--that she told me--in praying for him in the chapel."

Father Bowles sighed.

"I believe that our dear Reverend Mother has often and often prayed for a
good wife for Mr. Helbeck. Miss Fountain, no doubt, is a very attractive
and accomplished young lady, but--"

"Oh, don't, please, go through the 'buts,'" said Mrs. Fountain with a
shrug of despair. "I don't know what's to become of us all--I don't
indeed. It isn't as though Laura could hold her tongue. Since we came
back I can see her father in her all day long. I had a talk with the
Bishop yesterday," she said in a lower voice, looking plaintively at her
companion.

He bent forward.

"Oh! he's just, broken-hearted. He can hardly bring himself to speak to
Alan about it at all. Of course, Alan will get his dispensation for the
marriage. They can't refuse it to him when they give it to so many
others. But!"--she threw up her hands--"the Bishop asked me if Laura had
been really baptized. I told him there was no doubt at all about
it--though it was a very near thing. But her mother did insist that once.
And it appears that if she hadn't----"

She looked interrogatively at the priest.

"The marriage could not have taken place," he said slowly. "No Catholic
priest could have celebrated it, at least. There would have been a