The beautiful old room lay in a half-light. A lamp at either end could do but little against the shadows that seemed to radiate from the panelled walls and from the deep red hangings of the windows. But the wood fire on the hearth sent out a soft glow, which fastened on the few points of brilliance in the darkness--on the ivory of the fretted ceiling, on the dazzling dress of the Romney, on the gold of Miss Fountain's hair. Laura looked up with some surprise as Helbeck approached her; then, seeing that he apparently wished to talk, she made a place for him among the old "Books of Beauty" with which she had been bestrewing the seat that ran round the window. "I trust the pony behaved himself this morning?" he said, as he sat down. Laura answered politely. "And you found your way without difficulty?" "Oh, yes! Your directions were exact." Inwardly she said to herself, "Does he want to cross-examine me about the Masons?" Then, suddenly, she noticed the scar under his hair--a jagged mark, testifying to a wound of some severity--and it made her uncomfortable. Nay, it seemed in some curious way to put her in the wrong, to shake her self-reliance. But Helbeck had not come with the intention of talking about the Masons. His avoidance of their name was indeed a pointed one. He drew out her admiration of the daffodils and of the view from Browhead Lane. "After Easter we must show you something of the high mountains. Augustina tells me you admire the country. The head of Windermere will delight you." His manner of offering her these civilities was somewhat stiff and conventional--the manner of one who had been brought up among country gentry of the old school, apart from London and the _beau monde_. But it struck Laura that, for the first time, he was speaking to her as a man of his breeding might be expected to speak to a lady visiting his house. There was consideration, and an apparent desire to please. It was as though she had grown all at once into something more in his eyes than Mrs. Fountain's little stepdaughter, who was, no doubt, useful as a nurse and a companion, but radically unwelcome and insignificant none the less. Inevitably the girl's vanity was smoothed. She began to answer more naturally; her smile became more frequent. And gradually an unwonted ease and enjoyment stole over Helbeck also. He talked with so much animation at last as to draw the attention of another person in the room. Father Leadham, who had been leaning with some languor against the high, carved mantel, while Father Bowles and Augustina babbled beneath him, began to take increasing notice of Miss Fountain, and of her relation to the Bannisdale household. For a girl who had "no training, moral or intellectual," she was showing herself, he thought, possessed of more attraction than might have been expected, for the strict master of the house.