Laura was of opinion that his first business might very well have been to see a little more of his widowed sister! She and Augustina spent days and days alone, while Mr. Helbeck pursued the affairs of the Church. One precious attempt indeed had been made to break the dulness of Bannisdale. Miss Fountain's cheeks burned when she thought of it. There had been an afternoon party! though Augustina's widowhood was barely a year old! Mrs. Fountain had been sent about the country delivering notes and cards. And the result:--oh, such a party!--such an interminable afternoon! Where had the people come from?--who were they? If Polly, full of curiosity, asked for some details, Laura would toss her head and reply that she knew nothing at all about it; that Mrs. Denton had provided bad tea and worse cakes, and the guests had "filled their chairs," and there was nothing else to say. Mr. Helbeck's shyness and efforts; the glances of appeal he threw every now and then towards his sister; his evident depression when the thing was done--these things were not told to Polly. There was a place for them in the girl's sore mind; but they did not come to speech. Anyway she believed--nay, was quite sure--that Bannisdale would not be so tried a second time. For whose benefit was it done?--whose! One evening---- As the train crossed the bridge of the estuary, from one stretch of hot sand to another, Laura, staring at the view, saw really nothing but an image of the mind, felt nothing except what came through the magic of memory. The hall of Bannisdale, with the lingering daylight of the north still coming in at ten o'clock through the uncurtained oriel windows--herself at the piano, Augustina on the settle--a scent of night and flowers spreading through the dim place from the open windows of the drawing-room beyond. One candle is beside her--and there are strange glints of moonlight here and there on the panelling. A tall figure enters from the chapel passage. Augustina makes room on the settle--the Squire leans back and listens. And the girl at the piano plays; the stillness and the night seem to lay releasing hands upon her; bonds that have been stifling and cramping the soul break down; she plays with all her self, as she might have talked or wept to a friend--to her father.... And at last, in a pause, the Squire puts a new candle beside her, and his deep shy voice commends her, asks her to go on playing. Afterwards, there is a pleasant and gentle talk for half an hour--Augustina can hardly be made to go to bed--and when at last she rises, the girl's small hand slips into the man's, is lost there, feels a new lingering touch, from which both withdraw in almost equal haste. And the night, for the girl, is broken with restlessness, with wild efforts to draw the old fetters tight again, to clamp and prison something that flutters--that struggles.