* * * * * Augustina was not told till later in the day. When her brother, who was alone with her, had at last succeeded in making her understand that he proposed to make Laura Fountain his wife, the surprise and shock of the news was such that Mrs. Fountain was only saved from faintness by her very strongest smelling-salts. "Alan--my dear brother! Oh! Alan--you can't have thought it out. She's her father's child, Alan, all through. How can you be happy? Why, Alan, the things she says--poor Laura!" "She _has_ said them," he replied. "She can't help saying them--thinking them--it's in her. No one will ever change her. Oh! it's all so strange----" And Augustina began to cry, silently, piteously. Helbeck bent over her. "Augustina!" He spoke with emotion. "If she loved, wouldn't that change her? Don't all women live by their affections? I am not worth her loving--but----" His face shone, and spoke the rest for him. Augustina looked at him in bewilderment. Why, it was only yesterday that Laura disliked and despised him, and that Alan hardly ever spoke when her stepdaughter was there. It was utterly incomprehensible to her. Was it another punishment from Heaven for her own wilful and sacrilegious marriage? As she thought of the new conditions and relations that were coming upon them all--the disapproval of friends, the danger to her brother's Catholic life, the transformation of her own ties to Laura, her feeble soul lost itself in fear. Secretly, she said to herself, with the natural weariness of coming age: "Perhaps I shall die--before it happens." BOOK IV CHAPTER I Augustina was sitting in the garden with Father Bowles. Their chairs were placed under a tall Scotch fir, which spread its umbrella top between them and the sun. All around, the old garden was still full and flowery. For it was mid-September, and fine weather. Mrs. Fountain was lying on a sort of deck-chair, and had as usual a number of little invalid appliances about her. But in truth, as Father Bowles was just reflecting, she looked remarkably well. The influences of her native air seemed so far to have brought Dr. MacBride's warnings to naught. Or was it the stimulating effect of her brother's engagement? At any rate she talked more, and with more vigour; she was more liable to opinions of her own; and in these days there was that going on at Bannisdale which provoked opinion in great plenty. "Miss Fountain is not at home?" remarked the old priest. An afternoon gossip with Mrs. Fountain had become a very common feature of his recent life. "Laura has gone, I believe, to meet my brother at the lodge. He has been over to Braeside on business." "He is selling some land there?" "I hope so!" said Augustina, with fervour. "It is time indeed that our poor orphans were housed," said Father Bowles naïvely. "For the last three months some of our dear nuns have been sleeping in the passages." Augustina sighed.