turned and walked away to the window. It
seemed that things were taking a strange turn.
But no perplexity of mind could make the mother
unjust, even for an hour.

She drew a long anxious sigh, and put her
arm round the girl’s trembling figure.

“Put on your pretty hat, my child,” she said.
“Your charming dress becomes you very well.”
Perhaps she reflected that if the pearl had already
been discovered, it did not make much matter
about the setting. But none the less was she
uneasy in her mind. Sir Archie was not a man
who took much notice of strange women. If
his peculiar interest in Hester should continue,
what was this that she, the Mother Augustine,
had done?

But, let the mischief be what it might, it was
accomplished. Hester?s trunks were in the convent
hall, side by side with the small luggage of
a lay sister who was to travel with her to Ireland.
Lady Helen, among her mountains, was waiting
impatiently to be attired like one of the dolls
upon her dressing-table. Hester must go, come
what might.

A strong foreshadowing of some part of the
strange things which were to happen was on the
Mother Augustine’s mind when she gave her
parting instructions to Hester.

One of these injunctions came right pleasantly
to the girl’s ear, though she did not know at the
time how much it comprehended. It was this:

“If ever you are in a difficulty, remember
that you can find a friend in Mrs. Hazeldean.”

But another was more startling, and not so
easy to obey.

“Unless absolutely questioned on the subject,
you are not to speak of your connexion with
Lady Humphrey. You are not even to mention
her name.”

Now how could this injunction be obeyed?
Hester remembered Lady Humphrey?s last instructions,
which were yet ringing in her ears.
She remembered Pierce Humphrey’s petition,
and her promise made to him. She wore his
ring on a ribbon, for safety, round her neck.
She blushed up to her hair at this new command.

“It will be difficult—” began Hester.

“You need not find it difficult,” said the
mother. “You may speak of her to Mrs.
Hazeldean, but not at the Castle. It will make
mischief if you are foolish enough to forget
this.”

So Hester reluctantly gave her word. What
then? Was she to post her letters secretly to
Lady Humphrey? It must be so; for she
could not forget her promise which had been
made to that lady, nor misuse her opportunity
of doing a service to Sir Archie. She kept
thinking how much would the mother alter her
way of thinking did she know Lady Humphrey’s
anxiety about her brother. But here also she
was bound to silence. And she departed on
her journey considering deeply in her mind how
best she should be able to obey both these
friends.

The lay sister who travelled with Hester was
bound for the little convent at Glenluce. Sir
Archie acted as escort on the journey, and the
three arrived in the shades of an autumn evening
at Glenluce Castle gate.

There was company at the castle; a few
visitors from Dublin. Lights were glinting
from the small windows of the long low grey
wall of the oldest wing, but the ivy-covered
turrets still kept some hue of their rich green
in the outer air. A faint glow from the vanished
sun still hung about the castellated summits of
the walls, while the damp purple air of the
heavy twilight had darkened the more distant
walls and chimneys, and grouped them along
with the trees in an indistinguishable mass.
That odour which tells of the neighbourhood of
heathery mountains was in the air, mingled
with the perfumes from well-stocked gardens
somewhere near. There was a murmur of
waters all around, for the falls had already
begun their music; and when the wind took a
fit of wrestling among the trees, pale streaks of
moving mist became visible between the shadows,
like long spectres descending out of the clouds,
and crawling with straggling limbs along the
hills to the lower earth.

The entrance to the castle was new when
compared with the little old gate, studded with
big black nails, which now frowned in disgrace
at the back of the building. Yet even this
door, which was called new, looked old-fashioned
enough, with its oddly shaped steps and its
curious bronze urns. If Lady Helen Munro
had not been busy in her dressing-room she
might have come to this open door to welcome
her son upon the threshold, such good old
customs having it all their own way at Glenluce.
It was lucky, perhaps, that there was a
delay in the fixing of an ear-ring, or the pinning
of a ringlet, or this lady of a noble house might
have fainted on a mat to see the order of his
arrival, and his conduct on the occasion. Yet
the simple lay sister, who remained sitting
quietly in the coach, waiting to be moved on,
saw nothing but what was fitting in Sir Archie’s
care of Hester.

But the lay sister departed, and went dreaming
through the dusk, down the glen, about her
people who had been buried in the little graveyard
by the sea, whose peaceful graves she
should visit on the morrow. And, forgetting
fever, and cholera, bad wounds, and broken
limbs, she strewed her prayers on the night air
as she went, all in thanksgiving that she had
seen her native glens once again.

In the mean time Hester was in the castle
hall on the stairs, in an upper corridor, where
she was detained a few moments standing waiting,
the servant who was attending her having
been called away by accident. There was
everywhere a dim religious light, and an air of
ancient repose about the grandeur of the place.
As if in its nobility there was no disdain. As
if the same time that had rubbed the edges of
its carvings, rounded the little corners, and
softened most sharp-set outlines, had stolen
the fire of barbaric pride from the oak heart of