It was liberty, no doubt--this strange and desolate liberty in which she stood, that made the contrast. By some obscure association she fell on the words that Helbeck had once quoted to her--how differently! "My soul is escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowler; the snare is broken, and we are delivered." "Ah! but the bird's wings are broken and its breast pierced. What can it do with its poor freedom?" she said to herself, in a passion of tears. * * * * * Meanwhile, she realised the force of the saying that Catholicism is the faith to die in. The concentration of all these Catholic minds upon the dying of Augustina, the busy fraternal help evoked by every stage of her _via dolorosa_, was indeed marvellous to see. "It is a work of art," Laura thought, with that new power of observation which had developed in her. "It is--it must be--the most wonderful thing of its sort in the world!" For it was no mere haphazard series of feelings or kindnesses. It was an act--a function--this "good death" on which the sufferer and those who assisted her were equally bent. Something had to be done, a process to be gone through; and everyone was anxiously bent upon doing it in the right, the prescribed, way--upon omitting nothing. The physical fact, indeed, became comparatively unimportant, except as the evoking cause of certain symbolisms--nay, certain actual and direct contacts between earth and heaven, which were the distraction of death itself--which took precedence of it, and reduced it to insignificance. When Father Leadham left, Father Bowles came to stay in the house, and Communion was given to Mrs. Fountain every day. Two or three times a week, also, Mass was said in her room. Laura assisted once or twice at these scenes--the blaze of lights and flowers in the old panelled room--the altar adorned with splendid fittings brought from the chapel below--the small, blanched face in the depths of the great tapestried bed--the priest bending over it. On one of these occasions, in the early morning, when the candles on the altar were almost effaced by the first brilliance of a May day, Laura stole away from the darkened room where Mrs. Fountain lay soothed and sleeping, and stood for long at an open window overlooking the wild valley outside. She was stifled by the scent of flowers and burning wax; still more, mentally oppressed. The leaping river, the wide circuit of the fells, the blowing of the May wind!--to them, in a great reaction, the girl gave back her soul, passionately resting in them. They were no longer a joy and intoxication. But the veil lifted between her and them. They became a sanctuary and refuge.