Soon there was a happy group round Augustina's couch. The Confessor who had brought this precious relic of St. John of the Cross had opened the case, and placed the small and delicate reliquary that it contained in Mrs. Fountain's hands. She lay clasping it to her breast, too weak to speak, but flushed with joy. The priest, a southern-eyed kindly man, with an astonishing flow of soft pietistic talk, sat beside her, speaking soothingly of the many marvels of cure or conversion that had been wrought by the treasure she held. He was going on to hold a retreat at a convent of the order near Froswick, and would return, he said, by Bannisdale in a week's time, to reclaim his charge. The nuns, he repeated with gentle emphasis, had never done such an honour to any sick person before. But for Mr. Helbeck's sister nothing was too much. And a novena had already been started at the convent. The nuns were praying--praying hard that the relic might do its holy work. He was still talking when there was a step and a sound of low singing behind the beech hedge. The garden was so divided by gigantic hedges of the eighteenth century, which formed a kind of Greek cross in its centre, that many different actions or conversations might be taking place in it without knowing anything one of the other. Laura, who had been away for an hour, was not aware that Augustina was in the garden till she came through a little tunnel in the hedge, and saw the group. The priest looked up, startled by the appearance of the young lady. Laura had marked the outburst of warm weather by the donning of a white dress and her summer hat. In one hand she held a bunch of lilac that she had been gathering for her stepmother; in the other a volume of a French life of St. Theresa that she had taken an hour before from Augustina's table. In anticipation of the great favor promised her by the Carmelite nuns, Augustina had been listening feebly from time to time to her brother's reading from the biography of the greatest of Carmelite saints and founders. "Laura!" said Mrs. Fountain faintly. Helbeck's expression changed. He bent over his sister, and said in a low decided voice, "Will you give me the relic, dear? I will return it to its case." "Oh, no, Alan," she said imploringly. "Laura, do you know what those kind dear nuns have done? They have sent me their relic. And I feel so much better already--so relieved!" Mrs. Fountain raised the little case and kissed it fervently. Then she held it out for Laura to see. The girl bent over it in silence. "What is it?" she said. "It is a relic of St. John of the Cross," said the priest opposite, glancing curiously at Miss Fountain, "It once belonged to the treasury of the Cathedral of Seville, and was stolen during the great war. But it has been now formally conveyed to our community by the Archbishop and Chapter." "Wasn't it kind of the dear nuns, Laura?" said Augustina fervently.