Polly declared that she wasn't just certain. "A set o' slanderin backbitin tabbies as soom o' them Catholics is!" But she believed they said that Mr. Helbeck had asked Miss Fountain to marry him out of kindness, to shut people's mouths, and keep it from his sister——
"Keep what?" said Laura. Her eyes shone in her quivering proud face.
"Why, I suppose—at you'd been carryin on wi Hubert, and walkin aboot wi him aw neet," said Polly reluctantly.
And she again insisted how much wiser it would have been if Laura had just gone quietly over the sands to Marsland. There, no doubt, she might have got a car straight away, and there might have been no talk whatever.
"Mightn't there?" said Laura. Her little chin was propped in her hand. Her gaze swept the distant water of the estuary mouth, as it lay alternately dark and shining under the storm lights of the clouds.
"An I'll juist warn yo o' yan thing, Laura," said Polly, with fresh energy. "There's soom one at Bannisdale itsel, as spreads aw maks o' tales. There's a body theer, as is noa friend o' yours."
"Oh! Mrs. Denton," said Laura languidly. "Of course."
Then she fell silent. Not a word passed the small tightened lips. The eyes were fixed on distance or vacancy.
Polly began to be frightened. She had not meant any real harm, though perhaps there had been just a touch of malice in her revelations. Laura was going to marry a Papist; that was bad. But also she was going to marry into a sphere far out of the Masons' ken; and she had made it very plain that Hubert and the likes of Hubert were not good enough for her. Polly was scandalised on religion's account; but also a little jealous and sore, in a natural feminine way, on her own; the more so as Mr. Seaton had long since ceased to pay Sunday visits to the farm, and Polly had a sharp suspicion as to the when and why of that gentleman's disillusionment. There had been a certain temptation to let the future mistress of Bannisdale know that the neighbourhood was not all whispering humbleness towards her.
But at bottom Polly was honest and kind. So when she saw Laura sit so palely still, she repented her. She implored that Laura would not "worrit" herself about such fooleries. And then she added: