"We are the children of the Church," he said gently. "And it is her tongue." She made no answer, and he talked of something else immediately. As they crossed the little footbridge he drew her attention to the deep pool on the further side, above which was built the wooden platform, where Laura had held her May tryst with Mason. "Did I ever tell you the story of my great-grandfather drowning in that pool?" "What, the drinking and gambling gentleman?" "Yes, poor wretch! He had half killed his wife, and ruined the property--so it was time. He was otter hunting--there is an otter hole still, half-way down that bank. Somehow or other he came to the top of the crag alone, probably not sober. The river was in flood; and his poor wife, sitting on one of those rock seats with her needlework and her books, heard the shouts of the huntsmen--helped to draw him out and to carry him home. Do you see that little beach?"--he pointed to a break in the rocky bank. "It was there--so tradition says--that he lay upon her knee, she wailing over him. And in three months she too was gone." Laura turned away. "I won't think of it," she said obstinately. "I will only think of her as she is in the picture." On the little platform she paused, with her hand on the railing, the dark water eddying below her, the crag above her. "I could--tell _you_ something about this place," she said slowly. "Do you want to hear?" She bent over the water. He stood beside her. The solitude of the spot, the deep shadow of the crag, gave love freedom. He drew her to him. "Dear!--confess!" She too whispered: "It was here--I saw Hubert Mason--that night." "Culprit! Repeat every word--and I will determine the penance." "As if there had not been already too much! Oh! what a lecture you read me--and you have never apologised yet! Begin--_begin_--at once!" He raised her hand and kissed it. "So? Now--courage!" And with some difficulty--half laughing--she described the scene with Hubert, her rush home, her meeting with old Scarsbrook. "I tell you," she insisted at the end, "there is good in that boy somewhere--there _is_!" Helbeck said nothing. "But you always saw the worst," she added, looking up. "I am afraid I only saw what there was," he said dryly. "Dear, it gets cold, and that white frock is very thin."