And to her amazement, before she could draw in the pony, he had jumped out of the cart.
"There's Mr. Helbeck!" he said to her with a crimson face. "I'm off. Good-bye!"
He shook her hand hastily, turned his back, and strode away.
She looked towards the gate in some bewilderment, and saw that Helbeck was holding it open for her. Beside him stood a tall priest--not Father Bowles. It was evident that both of them had seen her parting from her cousin.
Well, what then? What was there in that, or in Mr. Helbeck's ceremonious greeting, to make her cheeks hot all in a moment? She could have beaten herself for a silly lack of self-possession. Still more could she have beaten Hubert for his clownish and hurried departure. What was he afraid of? Did he think that she would have shown the smallest shame of her peasant relations?
"Is that Mrs. Fountain's stepdaughter?" said Helbeck's companion, as Laura and her cart disappeared round a corner of the winding road on which the two men were walking.
"You may very possibly have known her father?" He named the Cambridge college of which Stephen Fountain had been a Fellow.
The Jesuit, who was a convert, and had been a distinguished Cambridge man, considered for a moment.
"Oh! yes--I remember the man! A strange being, who was only heard of, if I recollect right, in times of war. If there was any dispute going--especially on a religious point--Stephen Fountain would rush into it with broad-sheets. Oh, yes, I remember him perfectly--a great untidy, fair-haired, truculent fellow, to whom anybody that took any thought for his soul was either fool or knave. How much of him does the daughter inherit?"
Helbeck returned the other's smile. "A large slice, I think. She comes here in the curious position of having never lived in a Christian household before, and she seems already to have great difficulty in putting up with us."
Father Leadham laughed, then looked reflective.
"How often have I known that the best of all possible beginnings! Is she attached to her stepmother?"
"Yes. But Mrs. Fountain has no influence over her."
"It is a striking colouring--that white skin and reddish hair. And it is a face of some power, too."
"Power?" Helbeck demurred. "I think she is clever," he said dryly. "And, of course, coming from a university town, she has heard of things that other girls know nothing of. But she has had no training, moral or intellectual."