"Papa taught me--it was life--and I believe him." The old clock in the farther corner of the room struck a quarter to ten--the hour of prayers. The two priests on the farther side of the room stood up, and Augustina sheathed her knitting-needles. Laura turned towards Helbeck and coldly held out her little hand. He touched it, and she crossed the room. "Good-night, Augustina." She kissed her stepmother, and bowed to the two priests. Father Leadham ceremoniously opened the door for her. Then he and Helbeck, Father Bowles and Augustina followed across the dark hall on their way to the chapel. Laura took her candle, and her light figure could be seen ascending the Jacobean staircase, a slim and charming vision against the shadows of the old house. Father Leadham followed it with eyes and thoughts. Then he glanced towards Helbeck. An idea--and one that was singularly unwelcome--was forcing its way into the priest's mind. BOOK II CHAPTER I From that night onwards the relations between Helbeck and his sister's stepdaughter took another tone. He no longer went his own way, with no more than a vague consciousness that a curious and difficult girl was in the house; he watched her with increasing interest; he began to taste, as it were, the thorny charm that was her peculiar possession. Not that he was allowed to see much of the charm. After the conversation of Passion Sunday her manner to him was no less cold and distant than before. Their final collision, on the subject of the child, had, he supposed, undone the effects of his conciliatory words about her father. It must be so, no doubt, since her hostile observation of him and of his friends seemed to be in no whit softened.