Helena back just yet. I shall run up next week
to see her, I think, Cynthia, if you will let me. I really will take
Arthur to Beechmark this week. Mrs. Mawson has arranged everything. His
rooms are all ready for him. Will you come and look at them to-morrow?"

Cynthia did not reply at once, and he watched her a little anxiously. He
was well aware what giving up the boy would mean to her. Her devotion had
been amazing. But the wrench must come some time.

"Yes, of course--you must take him," said Cynthia, at last. "If only--I
hadn't come to love him so!"

She didn't cry. She was perfectly self-possessed. But there was something
in her pensive, sorrowful look that affected Philip more than any
vehement emotion could have done. The thought of all her devotion--their
long friendship--her womanly ways--came upon him overwhelmingly.

But another thought checked it--Helena!--and his promise to her dead
mother. If he now made Cynthia the mistress of Beechmark, Helena would
never return to it. For they were incompatible. He saw it plainly. And to
Helena he was bound; while she needed the shelter of his roof.

So that the words that were actually on Philip's lips remained unspoken.
They walked back rather silently to the cottage.

At supper Cynthia told her sister that the boy, with Zelie and his
teacher, would soon trouble her no more. Georgina expressed an ungracious
satisfaction, adding abruptly--"You'll be able to see him there, Cynthy,
just as well as here."

Cynthia made no reply.

CHAPTER XVI

Mrs. Friend was sitting in the bow-window of the "Fisherman's Rest," a
small Welsh inn in the heart of Snowdonia. The window was open, and a
smell of damp earth and grass beat upon Lucy in gusts from outside,
carried by a rainy west wind. Beyond the road, a full stream, white and
foaming after rain, was dashing over a rocky bed towards some rapids
which closed the view. The stream was crossed by a little bridge, and
beyond it rose a hill covered with oak-wood. Above the oak-wood and along
the road to the right--mountain forms, deep blue and purple, were
emerging from the mists which had shrouded them all day. The sun
was breaking through. A fierce northwest wind which had been tearing the
young leaf of the oak-woods all day, and strewing it abroad, had just
died away. Peace was returning, and light. The figure of Helena had just
disappeared through the oak-wood; Lucy would follow her later.

Behind Mrs. Friend, th