"You don't know anything about him, Laura," said Mrs. Fountain, with an attempt at spirit. Then she added reproachfully: "And I'm sure he wants to be kind to you." "He thinks me a little heretical toad, thank you!" said Laura, spinning round on the bare boards, and dropping a curtsey to the Romney. "But never mind, Augustina--we shall get on quite properly. Now, aren't there a great many more rooms to see?" Augustina rose uncertainly. "There is the chapel, of course," she said, "and Alan's study----" "Oh! we needn't go there," said Laura hastily. "But show me the chapel." Mr. Helbeck was still absent, and they had been exploring Bannisdale. It was a melancholy progress they had been making through a house that had once--when Augustina left it--stood full of the hoardings and the treasures of generations, and was now empty and despoiled. It was evident that, for his sister's welcome, Mr. Helbeck had gathered into the drawing-room, as into her bedroom upstairs, the best of what still remained to him. Chairs and tables, and straight-lined sofas, some of one date, some of another, collected from the garrets and remote corners of the old house, and covered with the oddest variety of faded stuffs, had been stiffly set out by Mrs. Denton upon an old Turkey carpet, whereof the rents and patches had been concealed as much as possible. Here at least was something of a cosmos--something of order and of comfort. The hall too, and the dining-room, in spite of their poor new furnishings, were still human and habitable. But most of the rooms on which Laura and Mrs. Fountain had been making raid were like that first one Laura had visited, mere homes of lumber and desolation. Blinds drawn; dust-motes dancing in the stray shafts of light that struck across the gloom of the old walls and floors. Here and there some lingering fragment of fine furniture; but as a rule bareness, poverty, and void--nothing could be more piteous, or, to Mrs. Fountain's memory, more surprising. For some years before she left Bannisdale, her father had not known where to turn for a pound of ready money. Yet when she fled from it, the house and its treasures were still intact. The explanation of course was very simple. Alan Helbeck had been living upon his house, as upon any other capital. Or rather he had been making alms of it. The house stood gashed and bare that Catholic orphans might be put to school--was that it? Laura hardly listened to Augustina's plaintive babble as they crossed the hall. It was all about Alan, of course--Alan's virtues, Alan's charities. As for the orphans, the girl hated the thought of them. Grasping little wretches! She could see them all in a sanctimonious row, their eyes cast up, and rosaries--like the one Augustina was always trying to hide from her--in their ugly little hands. They turned down a long stone passage leading to the chapel. As they neared the chapel door there was a sound of voices from the hall at their back.