Then she turned housewards. She put down her guttering candle on the great oak table of the kitchen, and sank herself upon the settle. "Soa--that's him!" she said to herself; and her peasant mind in a dull heat, like that of the peat fire beside her, went wandering back over the hatreds of twenty years. CHAPTER III As the dog-cart reached the turning of the lane, Mr. Helbeck said to his companion: "Would you kindly take the cart through? I must shut the gate." He jumped down. Laura with some difficulty--for the high wind coming from the fell increased her general confusion of brain--passed the gate and took the pony safely down a rocky piece of road beyond. His first act in rejoining her was to wrap the rugs which he had brought more closely about her. "I had no idea in coming," he said--"that the wind was so keen. Now we face it." He spoke precisely in the same voice that he might have used, say, to Polly Mason had she been confided to him for a night journey. But as he arranged the rug, his hand for an instant had brushed Laura's; and when she gave him the reins, she leant back hardly able to breathe. With a passionate effort of will, she summoned a composure to match his own. "When did the change come?" she asked him. "About eight o'clock. Then it was she told me you were here. We thought at first of sending over a messenger in the morning. But finally my sister begged me to come at once." "Is there immediate danger?" The girlish voice must needs tremble. "I trust we shall still find her," he said gently--"but her nurses were greatly alarmed." "And was there--much suffering?" She pressed her hands together under the coverings that sheltered them, in a quick anguish. Oh! had she thought enough, cared enough, for Augustina! As she spoke the horse gave a sudden swerve, as though Mr. Helbeck had pulled the rein involuntarily. They bumped over a large stone, and the Squire hastily excused himself for bad driving. Then he answered her question. As far as he or the Sister could judge there was little active suffering. But the weakness had increased rapidly that afternoon, and the breathing was much harassed. He went on to describe exactly how he had left the poor patient, giving the details with a careful minuteness. At the same moment that he had started for Miss Fountain, old Wilson had gone to Whinthorpe for the doctor. The Reverend Mother was there; and the nurses--kind and efficient women--were doing all that could be done. He spoke in a voice that seemed to have no colour or emphasis. One who did not know him might have thought he gave his report entirely without emotion--that his sister's coming death did not affect him. Laura longed to ask whether Father Bowles was there, whether the Last Sacraments had been given. But she did not dare. That question seemed to belong to a world that was for ever sealed between them. And he volunteered nothing.