"It is my last possession of any value." Several times during the fortnight that she had known him, Laura had heard him speak with a similar simplicity about his personal and pecuniary affairs. That anyone so stately should treat himself and his own worldly concerns with so much _naïveté_ had been a source of frequent surprise to her. To what, then, did his dignity, his reserve apply? Nevertheless, because, childishly, she had already taken a side, as it were, about the picture, his manner, with its apparent indifference, annoyed her. She drew back. "Yes, Augustina told me. But isn't it cruel? isn't it unkind? A picture like that is alive. It has been here so long--one could hardly feel it belonged only to oneself. It is part of the house, isn't it?--part of the family? Won't other people--people who come after--reproach you?" Helbeck lifted his shoulders, his dark face half amused, half sad. "She died a hundred years ago, pretty creature! She has had her turn; so have we--in the pleasure of looking at her." "But she belongs to you," said the girl insistently. "She is your own kith and kin." He hesitated, then said, with a new emphasis that answered her own: "Perhaps there are two sorts of kindred----" The girl's cheek flushed. "And the one you mean may always push out the other? I know, because one of your children told me a story to-day--such a frightful story!--of a saint who would not go to see his dying brother, for obedience' sake. She asked me if I liked it. How could I say I liked it! I told her it was horrible! I wondered how people could tell her such tales." Her bearing was again all hostility--a young defiance. She was delighted to confess herself. Her crime, untold, had been pressing upon her conscience, hurting her natural frankness. Helbeck's face changed. He looked at her attentively, the fine dark eye, under the commanding brow, straight and sparkling. "You said that to the child?" "Yes." Her breast fluttered. She trembled, he saw, with an excitement she could hardly repress. He, too, felt a novel excitement--the excitement of a strong will provoked. It was clear to him that she meant to provoke him--that her young personality threw itself wantonly across his own. He spoke with a harsh directness. "You did wrong, I think--quite wrong. Excuse the word, but you have brought me to close quarters. You sowed the seeds of doubt, of revolt, in a child's mind." "Perhaps," said Laura quickly. "What then?" She wore her half-wild, half-mocking look. Everything soft and touching had disappeared. The eyes shone under the golden mass of hair; the small mouth was close and scornful. Helbeck looked at her in amazement, his own pulse hurrying. "What then?" he echoed, with a sternness that astonished himself. "Ask your own feeling. What has a child--a little child under orders--to do with doubt, or revolt? For her--for all of us--doubt is misery." Laura rose. She forced down her agitation--made herself speak plainly.