Helbeck introduced the newcomer. Laura's quick eyes travelled over the
young man who bowed to her with a cold awkwardness. She turned aside and
seated herself in a corner of the settle, whither Helbeck came to bend
over her.

"What have you been doing to yourself?" he asked her in a low voice. At
the moment of her entrance she had thought him pale and fatigued. He had
been half over the country that day on Catholic business. But now his
deep-set eyes shone again. He had thrown off the load.

"Experimenting with a Whinthorpe dressmaker," she said; "do you approve?"

Her smile, her brilliance in her pretty dress, intoxicated him. He
murmured some lover's words under his breath. She flushed a little
deeper, then exerted herself to keep him by her. Till supper was
announced they had not a word or look for anyone but each other. The
young "scholastic" talked ceremoniously to Augustina.

"Who talks of Jesuit tyranny now?" said Helbeck, laughing, as he and
Laura led the way to the dining-room. "If it is not too much for him,
Williams has leave to finish some of his work in the chapel while he is
here. But he looks very ill--don't you think so?"

She understood the implied appeal to her sympathy.

"He is extraordinarily handsome," she said, with decision.

At table, however, she came to terms more exactly with her impression.
The face of the young Jesuit was indeed, in some ways, singularly
handsome. The round, dark eyes, the features delicate without weakness,