The hours spent with Mrs. Robinson, doing work she had looked forward to doing, seemed strangely dull compared with those briefer moments when Wantley strolled or sat by her side, looking down smiling into her eyes, asking whimsical questions concerning the Settlement, with a view--or so he said--of settling there himself, if Mr. Hammond and Mrs. Pomfret would accept him as a disciple! Twice in those ten days he had gone with her to early Mass at Beacon Abbas; and oh, how pleasant had been the walks along the cliff path, how soothing the half-hours spent in the beautiful chapel, with Wantley standing and kneeling by her side. But on the second occasion of their return from Beacon Abbas Penelope had greeted the two walkers, or rather had greeted Cecily, with a questioning piercing look. Was it one of dissatisfaction, of slight jealousy, or simply of surprise? That one glance--and Wantley was well aware that it was so--put an end to any further joint expeditions to the monastery chapel. During these same unquiet days, when Cecily's heart would beat without reason, when she seemed to be always waiting, she knew not for what, the girl became fond, in a shy, childish way, of Penelope's mother. Perhaps because she was utterly unlike any other woman Cecily Wake had ever seen, or even imagined, Lady Wantley exercised a curious fascination over her heart and mind. The tall, stately figure, wrapped in sweeping black and white garments, was seen but seldom in the sunshine, out of doors. Since her widowhood she had lived a life withdrawn from the world about her, and she had occupied what had been a sudden and unwelcome leisure by writing two mystical volumes, which had enjoyed great popularity among those ever ready to welcome a new interpretation of the more esoteric passages of the Scriptures. When staying at Monk's Eype, Lady Wantley would spend long hours of solitude in the Picture Room; and there Cecily would sometimes find her, absorbed in a strangely-worded French or English book of devotion, from which, looking up, she would make the girl read her short passages. At other moments Cecily would discover her engaged in writing long letters of spiritual advice to correspondents, almost always unknown to her, who had read her books, and who wished to consult her concerning their own spiritual difficulties and perplexities. When not thus employed Lady Wantley sat idle, her long, delicately-modelled hands clasped loosely together, enjoying, as she believed, actual communion with her own dead--with the fine, true-hearted father, whose earthly memory was so dear to her; with the beloved mother, to whom as she grew older she felt herself to be growing more alike and nearer; with the husband who, however stern and awe-inspiring to others, had ever been fond and tender to herself. The little group of strangely assorted souls seemed ever gathered about her, and in no distant, inaccessible heaven.