"I have been reading a French story this morning," she said quickly. "There is a character in it—a priest. The author says of him that he had 'une imagination faussée et troublée.'" She paused, then added with great vivacity—"I thought it applied to someone else—don't you?"
The fold in Helbeck's forehead deepened a little.
"Have you judged him already? I don't know—I can't take Williams, you see, quite as you take him. To me he is still the strange gifted boy I taught to draw—whom I had to protect from his brutal father. He has chosen the higher life, and will soon be a priest. He is therefore my superior. But at the same time I think I understand him and his character. I understand the kind of impulse—the impetuosity—that made him do and say what he did last night."
"It was our engagement, of course, that he meant—by your fall—the black cloud that covered you?"
The impetuous directness was all Laura; so was the sensitive change in eye and lip. But Helbeck neither wavered, nor caressed her. He had a better instinct. He looked at her with a penetrating glance.
"I don't think he quite knew what he meant. And you? Now I will carry the war into the enemy's country! Were you quite kind—quite right in doing what you did last night? Foolish or no, he was speaking in a very intimate way—of things that he felt deeply. It must have given him great pain to be overheard."
Her breath fluttered.
"It was quite an accident that I was there. But how could I help listening? I must know—I ought to know—what your Catholic friends think—what they say of me to you!"
She was conscious of a childish petulance. But it was as though she could not help herself.
"I wish you had not listened," he said, with gentle steadiness. "Won't you trust those things to me?"