"Miss Fountain—may I ask you a kindness?"
What a tone of steel! Her shoulders straightened—her look met his in a common flash.
"Augustina is weak. Spare her discussion—the sort of discussion with which, no doubt, your Cambridge life makes you familiar. It can do nothing here, and "—he paused, only to resume unflinchingly—"the dying should not be disturbed."
Laura wavered in the dark passage like one mortally struck. His pose as the protector of his sister—the utter distance and alienation of his tone—unjust!—incredible!
"I discussed nothing," she said, breathing fast.
"You might be drawn to do so," he said coldly. "Your contempt for the practices that sustain and console Catholics is so strong that no one can mistake the difficulty you have in concealing it. But I would ask you to conceal it for her sake."
"I thank you," she said quietly, as she swept past him. "But you are mistaken."
She walked away from him and mounted the stairs without another word.
* * * * *
Laura sat crouched and rigid in her own room. How had it happened, this horrible thing?—this break-down of the last vestiges and relics of the old relation—this rushing in of a temper and a hostility that stunned her!