At last Helbeck said a hoarse word to Sister Rosa. She led the others away. ... In that long agony, Helbeck's soul parted for ever with the first fresh power to suffer. Neither life nor death could ever stab in such wise again. The half of personality--the chief forces of that Helbeck whom Laura had loved, were already dead with Laura, when, after many hours, his arms gave her back to the Sisters, and she dropped gently from his hold upon her bed of death, in a last irrevocable submission. * * * * * Far on in the day, Sister Rosa discovered on Laura's table a sealed letter addressed to Dr. Friedland of Cambridge. She brought it to Helbeck. He looked at it blindly, then gradually remembered the name and the facts connected with it. He wrote and sent a message to Dr. and Mrs. Friedland asking them of their kindness to come to Bannisdale. * * * * * The Friedlands arrived late at night. They saw the child to whom they had given their hearts lying at peace in the old tapestried room. Some of the flowers she had herself brought for Augustina had been placed about her. The nurses had exhausted themselves in the futile cares that soothe good women at such a time. The talk throughout the household was of sudden and hopeless accident. Miss Fountain had gone for cherry blossom to the otter cliff; the cliff was unsafe after the rain; only twenty-four hours before, Mr. Helbeck had given orders on the subject to the old keeper. And the traces of a headlong fall just below a certain flowery bent where a wild cherry stood above a bank of primroses, were plainly visible. Then, as the doctor and Mrs. Friedland entered their own room, Laura's letter was brought to them. They shut themselves in to read it, expecting one of those letters, those unsuspicious letters of every day, which sudden death leaves behind it. But this was what they read: "Dear, dear friend,--Last night, nearly five hours ago, I promised for the second time to marry Mr. Helbeck, and I promised, too, that I would be a Catholic. I asked him to procure for me Catholic teaching and instruction. I could not, you see, be his wife without it. His conscience now would not permit it. And besides, last summer I saw that it could not be. "... Then we were called to Augustina. It was she who finally persuaded me. I did not do it merely to please her. Oh! no--_no_. I have been on the brink of it for days--perhaps weeks. I have so hungered to be his again.... But it gave it sweetness that Augustina wished it so much--that I could tell her and make her happy before she died.