He stood still, and with an effort of iron resolution put from him the fancies that were thronging on the brain. If it were possible for him to conquer her, conceivable that he might win her--such a dream was forbidden to him, Alan Helbeck, a thousandfold! Such a marriage would be the destruction of innumerable schemes for the good of the Church, for the perfecting of his own life. It would be the betrayal of great trusts, the abandonment of great opportunities. "My life would centre in her. She would come first--the Church second. Her nature would work on mine--not mine on hers. Could I ever speak to her even of what I believe?--the very alphabet of it is unknown to her. I shrink from proselytism. God forgive me!--it is her wild pagan self that I love--that I desire----" The blast of human longing, human pain, was hard to meet--hard to subdue. But the Catholic fought--and conquered. "I am not my own--I have taken tasks upon me that no honest man could betray. There are vows on me also, that bind me specially to our Lord--to his Church. The Church frowns on such a love--such marriages. She does not forbid them--but they pain her heart. I have accepted her judgment till now, without difficulty, without conflict. Now to obey is hard. But I can obey--we are not asked impossibilities." He walked to the crucifix, and threw himself down before it. A midnight stillness brooded over the house. * * * * * But far away, in an upper room, Laura Fountain had cried herself to sleep--only to wake again and again, with the tears flooding her cheeks. Was it merely a disagreeable and exciting scene she had gone through? What was this new invasion of her life?--this new presence to the inward eye of a form and look that at once drew her and repulsed her. A hundred alien forces were threatening and pressing upon her--and out from the very heart of them came this strange drawing--this magnetism--this troubling misery. To be prisoned in Bannisdale--under Mr. Helbeck's roof--for months and months longer--this thought was maddening to her. But when she imagined herself free to go--and far away once more from this old and melancholy house--among congenial friends and scenes--she was no happier than before. A little moan of anger and pain came, that she stifled against her pillow, calling passionately on the sleep that would, that must, chase all these phantoms of fatigue or excitement--and give her back her old free self. BOOK III CHAPTER I "We shall get there in capital time--that's nice!" said Polly Mason, putting down the little railway guide she had just purchased at Marsland Station, with a general rustle of satisfaction.