"I was just starting to see if the train had brought you." "No--I walked--a great part of the way, at least. Will you help me up? It's very foolish, but I can't stand." She rose, tottering, and leaning heavily upon his hand. She drew her own across her forehead. "It's only hunger. And I had some milk. Was Augustina in a great way?" "She was anxious, of course. We both were." "Yes! it was stupid. But look--" she clung to him. "Will you take me into the drawing-room, and get me some wine--before I see Augustina?" "Lean on me." She obeyed, and he led her in. The drawing-room door was open, and she sank into the nearest chair. As she looked up she saw the Romney lady shining from the wall in the morning sunlight. The blue-eyed beauty looked down, as though with a careless condescension, upon the pale and tattered Laura. But Laura was neither envious nor ashamed. As Helbeck left her to get wine, she lay still and white; but in the solitude of the room while he was gone, a little smile, ghostly as the dawn itself, fluttered suddenly beneath her closed lids and was gone again. When he returned, she did her best to drink and eat what she was told. But her exhaustion became painfully apparent, and he hung over her, torn between anxiety, remorse, and the pulsations of a frantic joy, hardly to be concealed, even by him. "Let me wake Augustina, and bring her down!" "No--wait a little. I have been in a quarry all night, you see! That isn't--resting!" "I tried to direct you--I managed to telegraph to the station-master; but it must have missed. I asked him to direct you to the inn." "Oh, the inn!" She shuddered suddenly. "No, I couldn't go to the inn." "Why--what frightened you?" He sat down by her, speaking very gently, as one does to a child. She was silent. His heart beat--his ear hungered for the next word. She lifted her tired lids. "My cousin was there--at the junction. I did not want him. I did not wish to be with him; he had no right whatever to follow me. So I sent him to the inn to ask--and I----" "You----?" "I hid myself in the quarry while he was gone. When he came back, he went on over the sands, calling for me--perhaps he thought I was lost in one of the bad places." She gave a little whimsical sigh, as though it pleased her to think of the lad's possible frights and wanderings. Helbeck bent towards her. "And so--to avoid him----?" She followed his eye like a child. "I had noticed a quarry beside the line. I climbed up there--under the engine-house--and sat there till it was light. You see"--her breath fluttered--"I couldn't--I couldn't be sure--he was sober. I dare say it was ridiculous--but I was so startled--and he had no business----" "He had given you no hint--that he wished to accompany you?" Something drove, persecuted the man to ask it in that hoarse, shaking tone.