But by this time Helbeck was half through the contents of his next envelope. She heard an exclamation of disgust, and he threw down what he held with vehemence.
"One can trust n.o.body!" he said--"_n.o.body!_"
He began to pace the floor with angry energy, his hands thrust into his pockets. She--in astonishment--threw him questions which he hardly seemed to hear. Suddenly he paused.
"Dear Laura!--will you forgive me?--but after all I must sell that picture!"
"Why?"
"I hear to-day, for the first time, who is to be the real purchaser of that land, and why it is wanted. It is to be the site of a new Anglican church and vicarage. I have been tricked throughout--tricked--and deceived! But thank G.o.d it is not too late! The circ.u.mstances of this afternoon were providential. There is still time for me to write to Whinthorpe." He glanced at the clock. "And my lawyers may tear up the contract when they please!"
"And--that means--you will sell the Romney?" said Laura slowly.
"I must! Dear little one!"--he came to stoop over her--"I am most truly grieved. But I am bound to my orphans by all possible engagements--both of honour and conscience."
"Why is it so horrible that an Anglican church should be built on your land?" she said, slightly holding him away from her.
"Because I am responsible for the use of my land, as for any other talent. It shall not be used for the spread of heresy."
"Are there any Catholics near it?"
"Not that I know of. But it has been a fixed principle with me throughout my life"--he spoke with a firm and, as she thought, a haughty decision--"to give no help, direct or indirect, to a schismatical and rebellious church. I see now why there has been so much secrecy! My land is of vital importance to them. They apparently feel that the whole Anglican development of this new town may depend upon it. Let them feel it. They shall not have a foot--not an inch of what belongs to me!"
"Then they are to have no church," said Laura. She had grown quite pale.
"Not on my land," he said, with a violence that first amazed and then offended her. "Let them find sympathisers of their own. They have filched enough from us Catholics in the past."
And he resumed his rapid walk, his face darkened with an anger he vainly tried to curb. Never had she seen him so roused.
She too rose, trembling a little.
"But I love that picture!" she said. "I beg you not to sell it."
He stopped, in distress.
"Unfortunately, dear, I have promised the money. It must be found within six weeks--and I see no other way."
She thought that he spoke stiffly, and she resented the small effect of her appeal.
"And you won"t bend a single prejudice to--to save such a family possession--though I care for it so much?"
He came up to her with outstretched hands.
"I have been trying to save it all these weeks! Nothing but such a cause as this could have stood in the way. It is not a prejudice, darling--believe me!--it belongs, for me at any rate, to Catholic obligation."
She took no notice of the hands. With her own she clung to the table behind her.
"Why do you give so much to the Sisters? It is not right! They give a very bad education!"
He stared at her. How pale she had grown--and this half-stifled voice!----
"I think we must be the judges of that," he said, dropping his hands. "We teach what we hold most important."
"n.o.body like Sister Angela ought to teach!" she cried--"you give money to bring pupils to Sister Angela. And she is not well trained. I never heard anyone talk so ignorantly as she does to Augustina. And the children learn nothing, of course--everyone says so."
"And you are so eager to listen to them?" he said, with sparkling eyes.
Then he controlled himself.
"But that is not the point. I humbly admit our teaching is not nearly so good as it might be if we had larger funds to spend upon it. But the point is that I have promised the money, and that a number of arrangements--fresh teachers among them--are already dependent on it.
Dearest, won"t you recognise my difficulties, and--and help me through them?"
"You make them yourself," she said, drawing back. "There would be none if you did not--hate--your fellow-citizens."
"I hate no one--but I cannot aid and abet the English Church. That is impossible to me. Laura!" He observed her carefully. "I don"t understand.
Why do you say these things?--why does it hurt you so much?"
"Oh! let me go," she cried, flinging his hand away from her. "Let me go!"
And before he could stop her, she had fled to the door, and disappeared.
Helbeck and Augustina ate a lonely dinner.
"You must have taken Laura too far this afternoon, Alan," said Mrs.
Fountain fretfully. "She says she is too tired to come down again to-night--so very unlike her!"
"She did not complain--but it may have been a long round," said her companion.
After dinner, Helbeck took his pipe into the garden, and walked for long up and down the bowling-green, torn with solitary thought. He had put up his pipe, and was beginning drearily to feel the necessity of going back to his study, and applying himself--if he could force his will so far--to some official business that lay waiting for him there, when a light noise on the gravel caught his ear.
His heart leapt.
"Laura!"
She stopped--a white wraith in the light mist that filled the garden. He went up to her overwhelmed with the joy of her coming--accusing himself of a hundred faults.
She was too miserable to resist him. The storm of feeling through which she had pa.s.sed had exhausted her wholly; and the pining for his step and voice had become an anguish driving her to him.
"I told you to make me afraid!" she said mournfully, as she found herself once more upon his breast--"but you can"t! There is something in me that fears nothing--not even the breaking of both our hearts."
CHAPTER II