"My God! I shan't ever see her again," he said to himself in a sudden terror. "She is going to that house--to that man!" For the first time a wild jealousy of Helbeck awoke in him. He rushed across the bridge, dropped on a stone half-way up the further bank, then strained his eyes across the river. ... Yes, there she passed, a swift moving whiteness, among the great trees that stood like watchmen along the high edge of the water. Below him flowed the stream, a gulf of darkness, rent here and there by sheets and jags of silver. And she, that pale wraith--across it--far away--was flitting from his ken. All the fountains of the youth's nature surged up in one great outcry and confusion. He thought of his boyish loves and sensualities--of the girls who had provoked them--of some of the ugly facts connected with them. A great astonishment, a great sickening, came upon him. He felt the burden of the flesh, the struggle of the spirit. And through it all, the maddest and most covetous yearning!--welling up through schemes and hopes, that like the moonlit ripples on the Greet, dissolved as fast as they took shape. * * * * * Meanwhile Laura went quickly home. A new tenderness, a new remorse towards the "cub" was in the girl's mind. Ought she to have gone? Had she been kind? Oh! she would be his friend and good angel--without any nonsense, of course. She hurried through the trees and along the dimly gleaming path. Suddenly she perceived in the distance the sparkle of a lantern. How vexatious! Was there no escape for her? She looked in some trouble at the climbing woods above, at the steep bank below. Ah! well, her hat was large, and hid her face. And her dress was all covered by her cloak. She hastened on. It was a man--an old man--carrying a bundle and a lantern. He seemed to waver and stop as she approached him, and at the actual moment of her passing him, to her amazement, he suddenly threw himself against one of the trees on the mountain side of the path, and his lantern showed her his face for an instant--a white face, stricken with--fear, was it? or what? Fright gained upon herself. She ran on, and as she ran it seemed to her that she heard something fall with a clang, and, afterwards, a cry. She looked back. The old man was still there, erect, but his light was gone. Well, no doubt he had dropped his lantern. Let him light it again. It was no concern, of hers. Here was the door in the wall. It opened to her touch. She glided in--across the garden--found the chapel door ajar, and in a few more seconds was safe in her own room. CHAPTER III Laura was standing before her looking-glass straightening the curls that her rapid walk had disarranged, when her attention was caught by certain unusual sounds in the house. There was a hurrying of distant feet--calls, as though from the kitchen region--and lastly, the deep voice of Mr. Helbeck. Miss Fountain paused, brush in hand, wondering what had happened.