* * * * * And on the drive she was another being. She talked to him about music, so softly and kindly that the young man's head swam with pleasure. All her own musical enthusiasms and experiences--the music in the college chapels, the music at the Greek plays, the few London concerts and operas she had heard, her teachers and her hero-worships--she drew upon it all in her round light voice, he joining in from time to time with a rough passion and yearning that seemed to transfigure him. In half an hour, as it were, they were friends; their relations changed wholly. He looked at her with all his eyes; hung upon her with all his ears. And she--she forgot that he was vulgar and a clown; such breathless pleasure, such a humble absorption in superior wisdom, would have blunted the sternest standard. As for him, the minutes flew. When at last the bridge over the Bannisdale River came in sight, he began to check the pony. "Let's drive on a bit," he said entreatingly. "No, no--I must get back to Mrs. Fountain." And she took the reins from his hands. "I say, when will you come again?" "Oh, I don't know." She had put on once more the stand-off town-bred manner that puzzled his countryman's sense. "I say, mother shan't talk that stuff to you next time. I'll tell her--" he said imploringly.--"Halloa! let me out, will you?" And to her amazement, before she could draw in the pony, he had jumped out of the cart. "There's Mr. Helbeck!" he said to her with a crimson face. "I'm off. Good-bye!" He shook her hand hastily, turned his back, and strode away. She looked towards the gate in some bewilderment, and saw that Helbeck was holding it open for her. Beside him stood a tall priest--not Father Bowles. It was evident that both of them had seen her parting from her cousin. Well, what then? What was there in that, or in Mr. Helbeck's ceremonious greeting, to make her cheeks hot all in a moment? She could have beaten herself for a silly lack of self-possession. Still more could she have beaten Hubert for his clownish and hurried departure. What was he afraid of? Did he think that she would have shown the smallest shame of her peasant relations? CHAPTER VI "Is that Mrs. Fountain's stepdaughter?" said Helbeck's companion, as Laura and her cart disappeared round a corner of the winding road on which the two men were walking. Helbeck made a sign of assent. "You may very possibly have known her father?" He named the Cambridge college of which Stephen Fountain had been a Fellow. The Jesuit, who was a convert, and had been a distinguished Cambridge man, considered for a moment.