"On the drawing-room chimney-piece."
"All right. I'll go for it. But I shall be disturbing Mr. Helbeck."
"Oh! no—it's much too late. Alan will have gone to his study."
Miss Fountain stood a moment outside her stepmother's door, consulting her watch.
For she was anxious to get her letter, and not at all anxious to fall in with Mr. Helbeck. At least, so she would have explained herself had anyone questioned her. In fact, her wishes and intentions were in tumultuous confusion. All the time that she was waiting on Augustina, her brain, her pulse was racing. In the added touch of stiffness which she had observed in Helbeck's manner, she easily divined the result of that conversation he had no doubt held with Augustina after dinner, while she was by the river. Did he think even worse of her than he had before? Well!—if he and Augustina could do without her, let them send her away—by all manner of means! She had her own friends, her own money, was in all respects her own mistress, and only asked to be allowed to lead her life as she pleased.
Nevertheless—as she crossed the darkness of the hall, with her candle in her hand—Laura Fountain was very near indeed to a fit of wild weeping. During the months following her father's death, these agonies of crying had come upon her night after night—unseen by any human being. She felt now the approach of an old enemy and struggled with it. "One mustn't have this excitement every night!" she said to herself, half mocking. "No nerves would stand it."
A light under the library door. Well and good. How—she wondered—did he occupy himself there, through so many solitary hours? Once or twice she had heard him come upstairs to bed, and never before one or two o'clock.
Suddenly she stood abashed. She had thrown open the drawing-room door, and the room lay before her, almost in darkness. One dim lamp still burned at the further end, and in the middle of the room stood Mr. Helbeck, arrested in his walk to and fro, and the picture of astonishment.
Laura drew back in real discomfiture. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr.
Helbeck! I had no notion that anyone was still here."
"Is there anything I can do for you?" he said advancing.