'It's a shame,' she said,—'a horrid shame, that we should never hae kent there was a place like this ootside o' Glesca. Wha is't made for?—the rich, I suppose, as the best things are.'

'Oh no,' said Teen quite gently. 'There are plenty puir folk in the country, an' bad folk tae. Mrs. Galbraith says there's as muckle drink drucken in Poosie Nancie's on Seterday nicht as in Johnnie Shields' in the Wynd, but some way it seems different. Look, see, thonder's the big gate o' Bourhill. Eh, I wonder if Miss Gladys is hame?'

'I say, Teen, ye are very fond o' her, surely?' said Liz curiously. 'Since when? Ye didna like her sae weel that nicht I left ye to tak' her hame frae the Ariel.'

'No, but I didna ken her then. Yes, I'm fond o' her, an' there's naething I wadna dae for her. I wad let her walk abune me if it wad dae her ony guid,' said the little seamstress, her plain face glorified once more by the great love which had grown up within her till it had become the passion of her life.

'Ye needna fash; that's the way I've heard lassies speak aboot men, an' ye get a' yer thanks in ae day,' said Liz bitterly. 'The best thing onybody can dae in this world is to look efter number one. It's the only thing worth livin' for. I wish I had never been born, an' I hope I'll no' live lang, that's mair.'

'Oh, Liz, wheesht!'

'What for should I wheesht? It's no' the first time I've been doon at the Broomielaw takin' a look roon for a likely place to jump in quietly frae. That'll be my end, Teen Ba'four, as sure as I'm here the day; then they'll hae a paragraph in the News, an' bury me in the Puirhoose grave. It's a lively prospect.'

Teen said nothing, only made a vow within herself that she would do what she could to avert from the girl she loved such a melancholy fate.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

IN VAIN.

Miss Caroline Peck had received that very morning a letter from Mrs. Fordyce of Bellairs Crescent—a letter which had put her all in a flutter. It was a letter of warning, counsel, and reproof concerning Miss Peck's duty towards her young charge, and laying a strong injunction upon her to be exceedingly judicious in her treatment of the eccentric guests whom Gladys had again invited to Bourhill. It was not a wise epistle at all, though Mrs. Fordyce had regarded it with complacency as a triumph of diplomatic letter-writing. Instead of stating plainly the whole facts, and pointing out how desirable it was that Gladys should not be thrown too much into the company of the girls from the East End, it threw out certain dark hints, which only mystified and distressed poor little Miss Peck, and made her anticipate with apprehension the arrival of the pair. It was a letter which, moreover, could not possibly do the smallest good, seeing Miss Peck, was not only far too fond of her young charge to cross her in the slightest whim, but that she secretly approved of everything she did. Of Mrs. Fordyce, Miss Peck, was mortally afraid and that very kind-hearted person would have been amazed had she known how the little spinster, metaphorically speaking, shrank into herself in her presence. The solemn warning she had received did not, however, prevent her giving the two girls a warm welcome when they presented themselves at the house that afternoon.

'Miss Graham has not come home, Christina,' she said fussily, as she shook hands with them both, 'but I feel sure she will be here to-night. Meantime I must do what I can to make you comfortable. Come with me to your old room, Christina, and you shall have tea directly.'

Though she had directed all her remarks to Teen, she did not fail at the same time to make the keenest scrutiny of her companion, whose appearance filled the little spinster with wonder. She was certainly a very handsome girl, and there was nothing forward or offensive in her manner—nay, rather, she seemed to feel somewhat shy, and kept herself in the background as much as possible. Acting slightly on Mrs. Fordyce's advice, Miss Peck gave the girls their tea, with its delightful adjuncts of new-laid eggs and spring chicken, in her own sitting-room, and she quite prided herself on her strength of mind as she decided to advise Gladys to give them their meals by themselves, except on a rare occasion, when she might wish to give them a treat. After tea, during which Miss Peck and the little seamstress sustained the conversation entirely between them, Liz apparently being too shy or too reticent to utter a word, the two girls went out for a walk. In their absence, to the great delight of Miss Peck, Gladys arrived home in a dogcart, hired from the Mauchline Hotel.

'You have something to tell me, haven't you?' cried Gladys eagerly, as she kissed her old friend. 'The girls have arrived, I am sure. And what do you think of poor Lizzie? Is she not all I told you?'

'She is certainly a fine-looking girl, but she has said so little that I don't know anything else about her.'

'But you have been very kind to them, I hope? I want you to be specially kind to Lizzie. I am afraid she has had a very hard time of it lately, and she is not strong.'

'My dear,'—Miss Peck laid her little hand, covered with its old-fashioned rings, on the arm of her young charge, and her kind face was full of anxiety,—'tell me why she has had a hard time. I hope she is a good girl, Gladys? You have the kindest heart, my darling, but you must look after your own interests. I hope she has given you quite a satisfactory account of herself?'

'Dear Miss Peck,' said Gladys, with a light laugh, 'she has not given me any account of herself at all, nor have I asked it. But, tell me, do you think she looks like a wicked girl?'

'Well, no, not exactly; but I—I—have had a letter from Mrs. Fordyce this morning,' said the little spinster, with the most unsophisticated candour, 'and really, from it one might think your new protegee quite an objectionable person.'

Gladys looked distinctly annoyed. She had a very sweet disposition, but was a trifle touchy regarding her own independence. Sundry rather sharp passages which had occurred between Mrs. Fordyce and herself on this very subject made her now readier to resent this new interference.

'I really wish Mrs. Fordyce would mind her own business,' she said, and that was such a very harsh sentence to fall from the lips of Gladys that Miss Peck looked rather startled. 'She has really no right to be writing letters to you dictating what I shall do in my own house. Do you belong to me, or to her, I wonder?'

The momentary resentment died away as she asked this question with the old whimsical smile.

'I think she means it for your good, dear,' said the little spinster meekly, 'and I think in some particulars she is right. I never dictate to you, and for that very reason you will listen to what I am going to say. I think you should not make too much of these girls when they are here. Be kind to them, of course, and give them every comfort, but let them eat alone and be companions to each other. I am sure, dear, that would make them much happier, and be better for us all.'

'Do you think so?' Gladys asked, with all the docility of a child. 'Very well, dear Guardy, I will do as you think. But where are they now? I must bid them welcome.'

'They have gone for a walk to the birch wood. And how have you been since you went up to town? Have you been very gay, and seen a great deal of a certain gentleman?'

'No, I saw him once only, and we did not agree,' replied Gladys calmly. 'Do you know, dear Miss Peck, I think it was the greatest mistake for us to get engaged? I don't know in the least what made me do it, and I wish I hadn't.'

Miss Peck stood aghast, but presently smiled in a relieved manner.

'Oh, nonsense, my love—only a lover's tiff. When it blows over, you will be happier than ever.'

'I don't like tiffs,' Gladys answered, as she ran up-stairs to take off her wraps.

The lover's tiff seemed to be rather a serious affair, for a week passed away and no letter came from George; nor did Gladys write any. She felt secretly wounded over it, and though she often recalled that hour spent in the library at Bellairs Crescent, she could not remember anything which seemed to justify such a complete estrangement. Never since she came to Bourhill had so long a time elapsed without communicating with one or other of the Fordyce family, but as the days went by and they made no sign, the girl's pride rose, and she told herself that if they pleased to take offence because she reserved to herself the right to ask whom she willed to her own house, they should receive no advances from her. But she was secretly unhappy. Her nature craved sunshine and peace, and the conduct of her lover she could not possibly understand. In all her imaginings how far was she always from the truth! She did not dream that he believed his death-knell had been rung, and that he attributed her silence to her righteous and inexorable indignation over the story she had heard from the lips of Liz Hepburn. He never for one moment doubted that she had told, and between conscience and disappointed love he had a very lively week of it. All this time none could have been more discreet and reticent than the girl who was the cause of all this heart-burning. Her behaviour was exemplary. She was docile, courteous, gentle in demeanour and speech, grateful for everything, but enthusiastic over nothing, differing in this respect from Teen, who appeared to walk on air, and carried her exaltation of spirit in her look and tone. But Liz was dull and silent, content to walk and drive, and breathe that heavenly air which ought to have been the very elixir of life to her, but otherwise appearing lifeless and uninterested. Gladys was very kind and even tender with her, but just a little disappointed. She watched her keenly, not knowing that all the while Liz was in turn watching her, and at last she breathed a hint of her disappointment into the ear of the little seamstress.

'Do you think Lizzie is enjoying Bourhill, Teen? She looks so spiritless; but perhaps it is her health, though I think her looking a little better than when she came.'

'It's no' her body, it's her mind,' said Teen slowly. 'She has something on her mind.'

'Has she never said anything yet to you about where she was, or what she was doing, all the time she was lost?' asked Gladys anxiously.

'Naething,' answered Teen, with a melancholy shake of her head. 'But I think it's on that she's thinkin', an' whiles I dinna like her look.'

'I'm going to speak to her myself about it, Teen. Perhaps it is something it would do her good to tell. Like you, I am often struck by her look, it is so dreadfully sad. Yes, I shall speak to her.'

The little seamstress looked hesitatingly at the bright, radiant face of Gladys, and it was upon her lips to say it might be better to let the matter rest. But, with her old philosophical reflections that anything she might say could not possibly avert the march of fate, she held her peace.

Just after lunch that afternoon, as Gladys was writing some letters in her favourite window, she saw Liz sitting by herself in the drowsy sunshine on the lawn, and her face wore such a dejected, melancholy look that it was evident some hidden sorrow was eating into her heart. Closing her desk, Gladys ran down-stairs, caught up a garden hat from the hall, and crossed the green lawn to Liz.

'Dear me, how doleful you look!' she cried gaily. 'How can you look so dreadfully doleful on such a bright day? Now tell me every simple, solitary thing you are thinking.'

A swift, rather startled glance crossed Liz's face, and she gave rather a forced laugh.

'That wadna be easy. I don't think I was thinking onything, except a meenit syne, when I lookit up an' wished I was that laverock in the lift.'

'But why? It is much nicer to be a girl, I think. Tell me, Lizzie, don't you feel stronger since you came here? I think you look it.'

'I'm weel enough,' responded Liz dully; 'an' it's a lovely place—a lovely place. I'll never forget it, never as long as I live.'

It was the first note of enthusiasm Gladys had heard regarding Bourhill, and it pleased her well.

'I hope you won't, and that you'll come often to see it.'

'I dinna think I'll ever come again; it's no' likely. Hoo lang are we to bide?'

'As long as you like,' answered Gladys frankly,—'till you are quite strong, anyhow. Teen is in no hurry to go back to Glasgow; are you?'

'Sometimes it's very quiet,' said Liz candidly.

'But what are you going to do when you return?'

Liz shook her head, but her lips gave forth no answer.

'I hope you will go to your brother, as he wished,' said Gladys, and she could not for the life of her help a curious restraint creeping into her voice. 'It would be so very nice for him to have you; it is dreadful for him to live quite alone, as he does. Why won't you go?'

'He kens what way,' replied Liz quietly.

Gladys was perplexed. There was nothing particularly encouraging in the girl's look or manner, but she thought the time had come to put the question which had so often trembled on her lips. It was a proof of Gladys Graham's fine and delicate nature that she had not ere this sought to probe into Liz Hepburn's secret, if she had one.

'Lizzie,' she said gently, 'I hope you won't be angry at what I say; but often, looking at you, I see that you are unhappy. I have never sought to pry into your concerns, but perhaps, if you were to tell me something about yourself, you would feel more at rest.'

'D'ye think sae?' she asked, with a faint, ironical smile, which Gladys did not like. 'If it eased me, it micht keep you frae sleepin'. I'm very much obleeged to you for no' haein' pestered me wi' questions. I dinna ken anither in the world but Teen that wad hae treated me as you have. But my life's my ain, an' if I suffer, I'm no' askin' pity. I can bear the brunt o' what I've brocht on mysel.'

It was a flat repulse, but it was gently spoken, and did not vex the sensitive soul of Gladys.

'Very well, Liz,' she said kindly, 'I'll never ask any more; but remember that if I can help you at any time, I am ready, always ready, for your sake and for Walter's.'

'He worships the very ground you walk on,' said Liz calmly. 'I wonder what way him an' me was born? Is't true ye are gaun to be married to Fordyce o' Gorbals Mill?' As she asked this direct question, she flashed her brilliant eyes full on the girl's sweet face.

'I suppose I am, sometime,' Gladys answered rather confusedly. 'At least, I have promised.'

'Ay,' said Liz, 'but there's mony a slip atween the cup an' the lip; and in time, they say, a'body gets their deserts, even here.'

With this enigmatical speech Liz got up and crossed the lawn, with averted face, Gladys looking after her with a puzzled wonder in her eyes, thinking she was certainly a very strange girl, and that it was hopeless to try to make anything out of her.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

GONE.

Towards the end of the second week Liz began to exhibit certain signs of restlessness, which ought to have warned those concerned in her welfare that the quiet and seclusion of Bourhill were beginning to pall upon her. As she improved in her bodily health her mind became more active, and she began to pine for something more exciting than country walks and drives. They were not altogether unobservant of the growing change in her, of course, but attributed it to a returning and healthful interest in the simpler pleasures of life. All this time George Fordyce had not come to Bourhill, nor had any letters passed between him and his promised wife. It would be too much to say that Gladys was quite indifferent to this; if her feelings were not very deeply involved, her pride was touched, and the first advances were not at all likely to emanate from her. Liz had lived in secret dread, mingled with a kind of happy anticipation, of meeting George Fordyce at Bourhill, and as the days went by, and there was no sign or talk of his coming, she began to wonder very much what it all meant. She was a remarkably shrewd person, and it did occur to her to connect her visit and the absence of Miss Graham's lover. One day, however, she put a question to Teen as they sauntered through the spring woods on the hill behind the house.

'I say, is't true that she is gaun to mairry Fordyce, Teen? It's no' like it. What way does he never look near?'

Teen looked keenly into her companion's face, to which that fortnight of complete rest and generous living had restored the bloom of health. Without planning very much, or artfully seeking to mislead the little seamstress, Liz had thrown her entirely off the scent. Such careless mention of her old lover's name, and her apparent indifference as to whether they should or should not meet at Bourhill, had entirely convinced Teen that he had no share in that part of Liz's life which she had elected to keep a sealed book.

'It's quite true that they are engaged,' she replied tranquilly; 'but maybe he's awa' frae hame. But nane o' them hae been here for a long time.'

'She disna seem to be much in earnest,' put in Liz flatly. 'I dinna believe mysel' that she cares a button for ony o' the lot; do you?'

'I dinna ken,' answered Teen truthfully. 'It disna maitter to us, onyway.'

'Maybe no'. Let's sit doon here a meenit, Teen; the sun's fine an' warm,' said Liz, and plumped down among the bracken, while Teen stood still under the jagged branches of an old fir tree, and looked 'her fill,' as she expressed it, of the lovely world at her feet. It was still a spring world, clothed in a most delicate and exquisite garb of green, waiting only for the touch of later summer to give it a deeper hue. There were many touches of white and pink bloom, showing in exquisite contrast where the hawthorn and the gean were in flower. Nor was the ground left with its more sombre hues unrelieved; the blue hyacinth, the delicate anemone, the cowslip, and the primrose grew thickly on every bare hillside and in all the little valleys, making the air heavy with their rich perfume.

And all the fields now made glad the hearts of those who had in faith dropped their seed into the brown soil, and the whole earth, down to the sun-kissed edge of the sea, rejoiced with a great joy. Nor was the sea less lovely, with the silvery sheen of early summertide on its placid bosom, and the white wings of many boats glistening in the sun.

'It's jist like heaven, Liz,' said the little seamstress, to whom these things were a great wonder, revealing to her a depth and a meaning in life of which she had not before dreamed. But to these hidden lovelinesses of Nature the eyes of Liz were closed; her vision being too much turned in upon herself, was dimmed to much that would have made her a happier and a better girl.

'It's bonnie enough, but oh, it gets stale, Teen, efter a wee. If I were as rich as her I wadna bide here—no' if they paid me to bide!'

'What for no'?'

'Oh, it's that flat. Naething ever happens. Gie me the toon, I say; there's some life there, onyway.'

'I wadna care if I never saw the toon again,' said Teen gravely, for her friend's words troubled her.

'Hoo lang d'ye mean to bide here, Teen?' queried Liz presently. 'It'll be a fortnicht the morn since we cam'.'

Teen did not at once reply. She had not dared to count the days, grudging their sweet passing, and it jarred upon her to hear Liz state the exact period, as if it had appeared to her very long.

'This is the nineteenth; it was the twenty-third, wasn't it, that Mrs. Gordon said she was leavin' Glesca?'

'I've forgotten. Yes, I believe it was the twenty-third,' answered Teen listlessly, not being interested in the time.

'My, she'll see a lot, gaun to Ireland wi' a regiment. It's a lively life. I wish I was her.'

Teen turned sharply round, and looked with reproachful eyes into her companion's face.

'I thocht ye was gled to get away from her, Liz? I dinna ken what ye mean.'

'Oh, I was doon in the mooth, because I wasna weel,' said Liz lightly. 'Seriously, though, hoo lang are ye gaun to bide doon here, Teen?'

'I wad bide aye if I had the chance, but I suppose we canna bide very much langer. Maybe we'd better see what Miss Gladys says.'

'Ay, I suppose sae,' said Liz a trifle dryly. 'Whatever you may think, I dinna think it's fair that she should hae sae much an' you an' me sae little. We're livin' on her charity, Teen.'

'Yes, but she disna mak' ye feel it,' retorted Teen quickly. 'An' she disna think it charity, either. She says aye the money's no' hers, she has jist gotten a len' o't to gie to ither folk.'

'Wad she gie me a thoosand, d'ye think, if I were to speir?' asked Liz; and Teen looked vexed at these idle words. She did not like the sarcastic, flippant mood, and she regarded Liz with strong disapproval and vague uneasiness in her glance.

'I dinna like the way ye speak, Liz,' she said quietly. 'But, I say, if ye were in Glesca the noo, what wad ye dae?'

'Dae? It's what wad I no' dae,' cried Liz. 'I'm no' the kind to sterve.'

'Ye wasna very weel aff when we got ye,' Teen could not refrain from saying.

'Oh, ye needna cast up what ye did. I never asked you, onyway. Ye ken you and Wat hauled me awa' wi' you against my wull,' said Liz rather angrily, being in a mood to cavil at trifles. 'I kent hoo it wad be, but I'll tak' jolly guid care ye dinna get anither chance o' castin' up onything o' the sort to me.'

Teen remained silent, not that she was particularly hurt by that special remark, but that she was saddened and perplexed by the whole situation. She had sustained another fearful disappointment, and she saw that Bourhill had utterly failed to work the charm on Liz which Teen herself experienced more and more every day. If she were not altogether blind to its loveliness, at least it did not touch any deeper feeling than mere eye pleasure; but more serious and disappointing still was the tone in which she spoke of Gladys. In her weak and weary state of health, she had at first appeared touched and grateful for the unceasing kindness and consideration heaped upon her, but that mood had passed apparently for ever, and now she appeared rather to chafe under obligations which Teen felt also, though in a different way, love having made them sweet. For the first time in her life she felt herself shrinking inwardly from the friend she had always loved since the days when they had played together, ragged, unkempt little girls, in the city streets. She looked at the brilliant beauty of her face. She saw it marred by a certain hardness of expression, a selfish, discontented look, which can rob the beauty from the loveliest face, and her heart sank within her, because she seemed dimly to foresee the end. The little seamstress did not know the meaning of a lost ideal, the probability is that she had never heard the word, but she felt all of a sudden, standing there in the May sunshine, that something had gone out of her life for ever. That very night she spoke to Gladys, seizing a favourable opportunity, when Liz had gone to enjoy a gossip with that garrulous person, Mrs. Macintyre, at the lodge.

'I say, Miss Gladys, hae ye noticed onything aboot Liz this day or twa?' she queried anxiously.

'Nothing,' replied Gladys blithely, 'except that she looks more and more like a new creature. Have you noticed anything?'

'Naething very particular; but I am feared that she's wearyin' here, an' that she wants to get away back to Glesca,' said Teen, with a slight hesitation, it must be told, since such an insinuation appeared to savour of the deepest ingratitude.

'Oh, do you think so? I thought she was quite happy. She certainly looks much brighter and better, and feels so, I hope.'

'Oh yes, she's better; that's the reason, I suppose. She was aye active an' energetic, Liz,' said Teen, feeling impelled to make some kind of excuse for her old chum. 'We've been here twa weeks; maybe it's time we left?'

'Oh, nonsense! What is two weeks? Suppose you stayed here all summer, what would it be? Nothing at all. But what do you think Lizzie has in her mind? Has she anything in view in Glasgow?'

'They'd be clever that fathomed her mind; it's as deep as the sea,' said Teen, with an involuntary touch of bitterness, for she could not help feeling that her faithful love and service had met with but a poor return.

'She can't think we will allow her to go back to Glasgow without knowing what she is going to do; we had too much anxiety on her account before,' said Gladys, with decision. 'There is no doubt her brother's house is the place for her. I must talk to her myself.'

'Dinna dae't the nicht, Miss Gladys, or she'll think I've been tellin' on her,' suggested the little seamstress. 'Liz is very touchy aboot a lot o' things.'

'Well, perhaps a better plan would be to write to Walter to come down and see her,' said Gladys thoughtfully. 'Yes, I shall just do that. How pleased he will be to see her looking so well! Perhaps he will be able to persuade her to go to housekeeping with him now, and in that case, Teen, you will stay on here. Miss Peck says she can't do without you anyhow, you are such an invaluable help with sewing and all sorts of things; perhaps we could make a permanent arrangement, at least which will last till I get my scheme for the Girls' Club all arranged. I must say it does not progress very fast,' she added, with a sigh. 'We always do so much less than we expect and intend, and will, I suppose, fall short to the very end. If you like to stay here, Teen, as sewing maid or anything else to Miss Peck, it will make me very happy.'

She regarded the little seamstress with a lovely kindness in her look, and what could poor Teen do, but burst into happy tears, having no words wherein to express a tithe of what she felt.

No further allusion was made that night to the question of the girls leaving, and all retired to rest as usual in the house of Bourhill. In the night, however, just when the faint streaks of the summer dawn were visible in the summer sky, Liz Hepburn rose very softly from the side of the sleeping Teen, and, gathering her things together in an untidy bundle, stole out of the room and down-stairs.

The Scotch terrier, asleep on his mat at the foot of the stair, only looked up sleepily and wagged his tail as she stepped over him and stole softly through the hall. The well-oiled bolts slipped back noiselessly, and she ran out down the steps, leaving the door wide to the wall.

And so they found it at six o'clock in the morning, just when Liz was stepping into the first train at a wayside station many miles from Bourhill.



CHAPTER XL.

THE MATRONS ADVISE.

'I think we had better go down and see what Gladys is about,' said Mrs. Fordyce at the breakfast-table. 'Could you go down with me this afternoon, Tom?'

'I daresay I could,' replied the lawyer. 'Surely we haven't heard anything about her for a long time?'

'I should just think we hadn't,' said Mina, with energy. 'Perhaps by this time she has gone off with somebody. We've shamefully neglected her.'

'George hasn't been down either, Julia told me yesterday,' said Mrs. Fordyce thoughtfully. 'There must have been a quarrel, girls. Did Gladys say anything more before she went away that day?'

'Nothing; but they are both so proud, neither will give in first. I certainly don't think, mother, that Gladys's feelings are very seriously involved. She takes the whole thing very calmly.'

'George should not be too high and mighty at this early stage, my dear,' said Mrs. Fordyce. 'He will find that Gladys has a mind of her own, and will not be dictated to. All the same,' she added, with a faint sigh, 'I admit that he was right to find fault with her having those girls at Bourhill. Tom dear, I really think it is your duty, as guardian, to interfere.'

'We can go down, anyhow, and see what she is about,' replied the lawyer; and that afternoon, accordingly, they went out to Mauchline.

Not being expected, they had to hire from the hotel, and arrived just as Gladys and Miss Peck were enjoying their afternoon tea. She was unfeignedly glad to see them, and showed it in the very heartiness of her welcome. It was somewhat of a relief to Mrs. Fordyce to find Gladys alone with Miss Peck. She had quite expected to meet the objectionable girls in the drawing-room, but there were no evidences of their presence in the house at all, nor did Gladys allude to them in any way.

She had a thousand and one questions to ask about them all, and appeared so affectionately interested in everything pertaining to the family, that Mr. Fordyce could not forbear casting a rather triumphant glance at his wife.

'As the mountain would not come to Mahomet, Mahomet has come to the mountain,' he said in his good-natured way. 'You should have heard the doleful conversation about you at breakfast this morning. Were your ears not ringing?'

'No, I had something more serious to take up my attention,' said Gladys a trifle soberly. 'I hope you have come to stay a few days—until to-morrow, at least?'

'Are all your other guests away?' inquired Mrs. Fordyce, with the faintest trace of hardness in her voice.

'Christina Balfour is here still. Her companion left this morning rather suddenly,' said Gladys, and it was evident that she felt rather distressed. 'In fact, she ran away from Bourhill.'

'Indeed!' exclaimed Mrs. Fordyce, in astonishment. 'Why should she have run away? It would have been quite sufficient, surely, for her to have said she wished to return to Glasgow. You were not keeping her here against her will, I presume?'

'No,' replied Gladys a trifle unsteadily. 'I cannot say she has treated us well. It was a very silly as well as a wrong proceeding to get up in the middle of the night and leave the door wide open, as she did. She has disappointed me very much.'

Mrs. Fordyce looked at Gladys in a kind of wonder. Her candour and her justness were as conspicuous as her decision of character. It evidently cost her pride no effort to admit that she had made a mistake, though the admission was proof of the correct prophecy made by Mrs. Fordyce when the hot words had passed between them concerning Liz at Bellairs Crescent. Mrs. Fordyce, however, was generous enough to abstain from undue triumph.

'Well, well, my dear, we all make mistakes, though we don't all admit so readily as you have done that they are mistakes,' she said good-humouredly. 'I suppose the girl felt the restraint of this quiet life too much. What was her occupation before she came down? I don't know that I heard anything about her.'

'She was once a mill girl with Mr. Fordyce,' answered Gladys. 'She is the girl who disappeared, don't you remember?—Walter Hepburn's sister.'

'Oh!'

The lawyer drew a long breath.

'Perhaps it is just as well she has disappeared again. I did not know that was the girl all the talk was about. Well, are you not tired of this quiet life yet?'

'Oh no; I like it very much. But when will you allow the girls to come down, Mrs. Fordyce? I think it is too bad that they have never yet paid me a proper visit at Bourhill.'

'They are talking of London again—wheedling their poor dear papa, as they do every May. I think you must go with us again, my dear.'

'Yes, I should like that,' replied Gladys, with brightening face; and Mrs. Fordyce perceived that she had sustained a very severe disappointment, which had made her for the time being a trifle discontented with her own fair lot.

She took an early opportunity, when Gladys conducted her to the guest-chamber, to put another question to her.

'Gladys, how long is it since George was here?'

'I have never seen him since that night in your house, when he didn't come up to the drawing-room,' answered Gladys calmly.

'But he has written, I suppose?'

'No; nor have I.'

'My dear girl, this is very serious,' said Mrs. Fordyce gravely. 'What was the difference about? You will tell me, my dear? I have your best interests at heart, but I cannot help thinking it is rather soon to disagree.'

'I don't think we disagreed, only I said I should ask whom I like to Bourhill. Surely that was within my rights?' said Gladys proudly.

'Oh yes, to a certain degree, but not when you harbour questionable characters—yes, I repeat it, questionable characters, such as the girl who ran off this morning I hope you counted your spoons to-day, Gladys?'

Gladys could have laughed, only she was too miserable.

'Oh, what absurd mistakes you make!' was all she said.

'Not so very absurd, I think. Well, as I said, I think George only showed that he had a proper regard for you and your peculiar position here. We know the world, my love; you do not. I think now, surely, you will allow us to be the judges of what is best for you?'

'I think he has behaved shamefully to me, not having come, or even written, for so long, and I don't think I can forgive him. Think, if he were to treat me so after I was his wife, how dreadful it would be. It would certainly break my heart.'

'My dear, the cases are not parallel. When you are his wife your interests will be identical, and there never will be any dispute.'

Gladys shook her head. She did not feel at all sure of any such thing.

'I cannot help thinking, my dear child, that the sooner you are married the better it will be for you. You are too much isolated here, and that Miss Peck, good little woman though she is, is only an old sheep. I must for ever regret the circumstances which prevented Madame Bonnemain coming to Bourhill.'

Mrs. Fordyce felt the above conversation to be so unsatisfactory that she occupied herself before dinner in writing a letter to her nephew, in which she treated him to some very plain-speaking, and pointed out that unless he made haste to atone for past shortcomings, his chance of winning the heiress of Bourhill was not worth very much.

This letter reached the offender when he was seated at his father's breakfast-table with the other members of the family. He slipped it into his pocket, and his mother, keenly watching him, observed a curious look, half surprise, half relief, on his face. She was not therefore in the least surprised when he came to her immediately after breakfast for a moment's private conversation.

'I've had a letter from Aunt Isabel, written at Bourhill last night; you can read it if you like.'

She took it from him eagerly, and perused it with intense interest. Like her son, she had really abandoned hope, and had accepted the silence of Gladys as her lover's final dismissal.

'This is extraordinary, George,' she said excitedly. 'The girl has been, and gone, evidently, and never uttered a word. Can you believe it?'

'I must. Gladys would not be fretting, as Aunt Isabel says she is, if she knew all that. What shall I do?'

His mother thought a moment. She had been very unhappy during the last two weeks, daily dreading the revelation of the miserable story which would make her idolised boy the centre of an unpleasant scandal. Her relief was almost too great, and it was a few minutes before she could collect her thoughts and gather up the scattered threads of her former ambition.

'You may have a chance yet. It is a slender one; but still I advise you to make instant use of it. Go down and make it up with Gladys, at any cost. If she has heard nothing, and is at all pliable, press for an early marriage.'

She gave the advice in all good faith, and without a thought of the great moral wrong she was committing. The supreme selfishness of her motherly idolatry blinded her to the cruel injustice she was meting out to the innocent girl whose heritage she coveted for her son. Yet she counted herself a Christian woman, and would have had nothing but indignant scorn for the individual who might presume to question her right to such a title.

This is no solitary or exceptional case. Such things are done daily, and religion is made the cloak to cover a multitude of sins. Mrs. Fordyce had so long striven to serve both God and Mammon that she had lost the fine faculty which can discern the dividing line. In other words, her conscience was dead, and allowed her to give this deplorable advice without a dissenting word.

'It would be deuced awkward,' said the amiable George, 'if anything were to come out after.'

'After marriage, you mean? Oh, there would be a scene, a few hysterics perhaps, and there the matter would be at an end. A wife can't afford to be so punctilious as a maiden fancy free. She has herself too much to lose.'

George accepted the maternal advice, and went out to Mauchline after business hours that very day.



CHAPTER XLI.

A GREAT RELIEF.

Next afternoon Gladys herself drove the lawyer and his wife from Bourhill to the station.

'Now, my dear,' said Mrs. Fordyce, as they were about to part, 'I shall allow the girls to come down on Saturday, on condition that you return with them at the end of a week, prepared to accompany us to London.'

Gladys nodded, with a bright smile.

'Yes, I shall do everything you wish. I believe I am rather tired of having my own way, and I should not mind having a change, even from Bourhill.'

As they stood lingering a little over their good-byes, a train from Glasgow came puffing into the station, and, with a sudden gleam of expectation, Mrs. Fordyce glanced anxiously at the alighting passengers.

'My dear, why, there is George! actually George himself.'

Gladys cast a startled glance in the direction indicated and the colour mounted high to her brow, then faded quite, leaving her rather strikingly pale.

'Why does he come here?' she asked quickly, 'I have not asked him.'

'Unless you have broken off your engagement with him, Gladys, he has a right to come whether you ask him or not. Tom dear, here is our train now, and we must run over that bridge. We dare not miss it, I suppose?'

'I daren't, seeing I have to take the chair at a dinner in the Windsor Hotel to-night,' replied the lawyer; 'but if you like to remain a little longer, why not, Isabel?'

Mrs. Fordyce hesitated a moment. Her nephew was giving up his ticket to the collector at the little gate, and their train was impatiently snorting at the opposite platform.

'I had better go,' she decided quickly, as her husband began to run off. Turning to Gladys, she gave her a hasty kiss, and observed seriously,—

'Be kind to poor George, Gladys; he is very fond of you, and you can make anything of him you like. Write to me, like a dear, this evening, after he is away.'

She would have liked a word in her nephew's private ear also, but time forbade it. She waved her hand to him from the steps of the bridge, but he was so occupied looking at Gladys that he did not return her salutation.

Gladys stepped composedly into the phaeton, and, sitting up in rather a dignified way, accorded him a very calm, cool greeting. His demeanour was significant of a slight nervousness as he approached the carriage, not at all sure of his ground.

'I am in luck, Gladys,' he said, trying to speak with a natural gaiety. 'Have I your permission to take a seat beside you?'

'If you are going to Bourhill, of course you may,' she replied quite calmly; then, turning to the groom, she said, without any hesitation, 'You can walk home, William. Put my letters in at the post as you pass, and bring me five shillings' worth of stamps.'

The groom touched his hat, took the money and the letters, and walked off, indulging in a grin when his face was turned away from the occupants of the carriage.

'Shall I take the reins, Gladys?' inquired George, with a very bright look on his face. He perceived that, though there might be 'rows,' as he mentally expressed it, they would be of a mild nature, easily explained; the bolt had not fallen, if anything was to be gathered from her demeanour.

'No, thank you. I dislike sitting idle in a carriage. I always drive myself,' she said calmly, and, with a rather tighter hand than usual on the reins, she turned the ponies' heads, and even gave each a sharp flick with the whip, which sent them up the leafy road at a very smart pace.

'I have come to make my peace, Gladys, and it's awfully good of you to send the fellow away,' George began impressively. 'I'm in luck, I tell you. I pictured to myself a long dusty walk through the sunshine.'

'I sent him away because we had a long drive this morning, and I wanted Castor and Pollux to have an easier load to pull up the hill,' she replied. 'I suppose if I had allowed you to walk instead of William, it would have been rather rude.'

Her manner, though very calm and unruffled, was rather unpromising. George looked at her a trifle anxiously, as if hardly sure how to proceed.

'Are you awfully angry with me, Gladys? I always expected a letter from you. I thought you were so angry with me that I was afraid to write.'

'You were quite wrong, then. I was not angry at all. But why should I have written when you did not?'

This was rather unanswerable, and he hesitated a moment over his next words. He had to weigh them rather carefully for the ears of this singularly placid and self-possessed young lady, whose demeanour was so little index to her state of mind.

'Well, if I admit I was in the wrong all the time, though I really, upon my word, don't know very well what the row was about, will you forgive me?' he asked in his most irresistible manner, which was so far successful that the first approach to a smile he had seen since they met now appeared on her lips.

'You know very well what it was all about; you have not forgotten a word that passed, any more than I have,' she answered. 'But you ought to have written all the same. I am generous enough to admit, however, that you had more reason on your side than I was induced to admit that night. The experiment I tried has not been a success. Have you heard that Lizzie Hepburn has run away from us?'

He swallowed the choking sensation in his throat, and answered, with what indifference he could command,—

'Yes, I heard it.'

'And is that why you have come?' she asked, with a keen, curious glance at him,—'to crow over my downfall That is not generous in the least.'

'My darling, how can you think me capable of such meanness? Would it not be more charitable to think I came to condole and sympathise with you?'

'It would, of course,' she admitted, with a sigh; 'but I am rather suspicious of everybody. I am afraid I am not at all in a wholesome frame of mind.'

She looked so lovely as she uttered these words, her sweet face wearing a somewhat pensive, troubled look, that her lover felt that nothing would ever induce him to give her up. They had now left the town behind, and were on the brow of the hill where four roads meet. To the right stood the cosy homestead of Mossgiel, and to the left the whole expanse of lovely country, hill and field and wood, which had so often filled the soul of Burns with the lonely rapture of the poet's soul. Gladys never passed up that way without thinking of him, and it seemed to her sometimes that she shared with him that deep, yearning depression of soul which found a voice in the words—

'Man was made to mourn.'

The road was quite deserted. Its grassy slopes were white with the gowan, and in the low ragged hedges there were clumps of sweet-smelling hawthorn. All the fields were green and lovely with the promise which summer crowns and autumn reaps; and it was all so lovely a world that there seemed in it no room for care or sadness or any dismal thing. Being thus alone, with no witness to their happiness but the birds and the bees, the pair of lovers ought to have found it a golden hour; but something appeared still to stand between them, like a gaunt shadow keeping them apart.

'I have been awfully miserable, Gladys. You see, I didn't know what to do; you are so different from any girl I have ever met. I never know exactly what will please you and what will aggravate you. Upon my word, you have no idea what an amount of power you have in those frail little hands.'

Gladys smiled and coloured a little. She was not quite insensible to flattery; she was young enough to feel that it was rather pleasant, on the whole, to have so much power over a big handsome fellow like George Fordyce.

'I wish you would not talk so much nonsense,' she said quickly; but her tone was more encouraging, and with a sudden inspiration George followed up his advantage. He put his arm round the slender waist, to the great amazement of Castor and Pollux, who, finding the firm hand relax on the reins, had no sort of hesitation about coming to an immediate stop.

'But, all the same, I'm going to keep hold of these little hands,' he said passionately, 'because they hold my happiness in their grasp, and I'm not going to allow them to torture me very much longer. How soon can you be ready to marry me, Gladys?'

'To marry you! Oh, not for ages. Let me go. Just look at the ponies! They are utterly scandalised,' she cried, her sweet face suffused with red. But he did not release her until he had stolen a kiss from her unwilling lips, a kiss which seemed to him to bridge entirely the slight estrangement which had been between them.

She sat very far away from him, and, gathering up the reins again, brought Castor and Pollux to their scattered senses; but her face was not quite so grim and unreadable as before. After all, it was something to be of so much importance to one man. The very idea of her power over him had something intoxicating in it, thus proving her to be a very woman.

'I am going to London very soon with your Aunt Isabel and the girls,' she said, trying to lead the conversation into more commonplace grooves.

'And couldn't you see about your trousseau when you are there? Isn't London the place to get such things?' he asked. But Gladys calmly ignored this speech.

'I have engaged Christina Balfour to remain at least all summer at Bourhill. She can be useful to Miss Peck in many ways, and she is devoted to the place. Poor Lizzie has fearfully disappointed me. What would you advise me to do about her?'

'Nothing. There is nothing you can possibly do now but leave her alone,' he answered at once. 'Do you think it is wise to keep the other one here?'

'Oh yes; why not? I am really going to perfect that scheme for the working girls soon. Meantime, I think I have got a little disheartened; I am afraid I am not very brave. I hoped that you would help me in that.'

She turned to him with a look which no man living could resist.

'My darling, I'll do anything you wish. I'm not half good enough for you,' he cried, uttering this solemn truth with all sincerity. 'Only give me the right to be interested in all that interests you, and you'll find you can make of me what you like.'

Gladys was silent a moment, on her face a strange look. She was thinking, not of the lover pleading so passionately at her side, but of one who, while loving her not less dearly, had sufficient manliness and strength of will to go his way alone—conquering, unassisted, difficulties which would appear unsurmountable to most men. George Fordyce, looking at her, wondered at the cloud upon her brow.

'Promise me, my darling, that you won't keep me waiting too long. Surely three months is long enough for the making of the best trousseau any woman can want? Won't you promise to come to me in autumn, and let us have a lovely holiday, coming back in winter to work together in real earnest?'

She turned her head to him slowly, and her eyes met his with a long, questioning, half-pathetic look.

'In autumn? That is very soon,' she said. 'But, well, perhaps I will think about it, only you must let me be till I have made up my mind. Why, here we are already at home.'



CHAPTER XLII.

A DISCOVERY.

It was some days before Gladys could summon courage to write to Walter about his sister. Had she known the consequences of that delay she would have been profoundly unhappy; it gave Liz the chance, which she took advantage of, to get clear away from the city.

Through these bright days of the early summer Walter kept plodding on at his business, but life had lost its charm. He was, indeed, utterly sick at heart; all incentive to push on seemed to be taken from him, and the daily round was gone through mechanically, simply because it waited his attention on every hand. As is often the case when success becomes no longer an object of concern, it became an assured matter. Everything he touched seemed to pay him, and he saw himself, while yet in his young manhood, rapidly becoming rich. But this did not make him happy—ah, how utterly inadequate is wealth to the making of happiness how many have bitterly proved!—on the contrary, it made him yet more restless, moody, and discontented. Looking ahead, he saw nothing bright—a long stretch of grey years, which held nothing beautiful or satisfying or worthy of attainment—a melancholy condition of mind, truly, for a young, prosperous, and healthy man. In the midst of this deep depression came the letter from Gladys conveying the news of Liz's sudden and strange flight from Bourhill. He smiled grimly when he read it, and, putting it in his pocket, returned to his work as if it concerned him not at all. Nevertheless, in the course of the afternoon, he left his place of business and took the car to Maryhill. Gladys had given him the address of Mrs. Gordon, with whom Liz had formerly lodged, and he felt himself impelled to make some listless inquiries there regarding her. The result was quite unsatisfactory. The landlady regarded him with considerable suspicion, and did not appear disposed to give him any information. But after repeated questioning, Walter elicited from her the fact that Mrs. Gordon had gone to Dublin with the Eighty-Fifth Regiment, and she believed Miss Hepburn was with her. Walter thanked the woman and went his way, scarcely affected one way or the other, at least to outward seeming. Liz was lost. Well, it fitted in with the rest of his dreary destiny; her ultimate fate, which could not be far off, weaved only some darker threads into the grey web of life.

Next morning Gladys received an answer to her letter, and it made her feel very strange when she read it. It ran thus:—

'COLQUHOUN STREET, Thursday Night.

'DEAR MISS GRAHAM,—I received your kind letter this morning, and I thank you for acquainting me with my sister's departure from Bourhill. The news did not surprise me at all. I was only astonished that she stayed so long. This afternoon I called at the address you gave me, and the landlady informed me that Mrs. Gordon has gone to Dublin with the Eighty-Fifth Regiment, taking my sister with her. After this there is nothing we can do. Poor Liz is lost, and we need not blame her too hardly. You reproved me once for calling myself the victim of circumstances, but I ask you to think of her as such with what kindness you can. Of one thing we may be sure, her punishment will far exceed her sin.—Thanking you for all your past kindness, and wishing you in the future every good thing, I am, yours sincerely, WALTER HEPBURN.'

It was a sad letter, conveying a great deal more than was actually expressed. Gladys threw it from her, and, laying her head on her hands, sobbed bitterly.

'My dear,' cried the little spinster, in sympathetic concern, 'don't break your heart. You have done a great deal—far more, I assure you, than almost any one else would have done. You cannot help the poor girl having chosen the way of transgressors.'

'It is not Liz I am crying for at present, Miss Peck,' said Gladys mournfully; 'it is for Walter. It is a heartbreaking letter. I cannot, dare not, comfort him. I must take it to Christina to read.'

She picked it up, and ran to the stillroom, where the happy and placid Teen sat by the open window with some sewing in her hand, love making the needle fly in and out with a wondrous speed. Her resentment against Liz for her ingratitude had taken the edge off her grief, and she was disposed to be as hard upon her as the rest of the world.

'Oh, Teen, I have had a letter from Walter. I shall read it to you. It is dreadful!' Gladys cried; and, with trembling voice, she read the epistle to the little seamstress. 'Isn't it dreadful? Away to Dublin! What will she do there?'

Teen laid down her sewing and looked at Gladys with the simplest wonder in her large eyes. She could scarcely believe that a human being could be so entirely innocent and unsuspecting as Gladys Graham, for it was quite evident she did not really know what Walter meant by saying Liz was lost.

'He says her punishment will be greater than her sin, whatever he means. Do you know what he means?'

'Ay, fine,' was Teen's reply, and her mouth trembled.

'Tell me, then. I want to understand it,' cried Gladys, with a touch of impatience. 'There have been things kept from me; and if I had known everything I could have done more for her, and perhaps she would not have run away.'

'There was naething kept frae ye; if ye hadna been a perfect bairn in a'thing, ye wad hae seen through a'thing. That was why a' the folks—yer grand freen's, I mean—were sae angry because ye had Liz here. But I believed in her mysel' up till she ran awa'. Although a lassie's led awa' she's no' aye lost; but I doot, I doot—an' noo Liz is waur than we thocht.'

Gladys stood as if turned to stone. Slowly a dim comprehension seemed to dawn upon her; and it is no exaggeration to say that it was a shock of agony.

'Do you mean to say that the poor girl is really bad, that she has deliberately chosen a wicked life?' she asked in a still, strained voice.

Teen gravely nodded, and her lips trembled still more.

'And what will be the end of it? What will become of her, Teen?'

'The streets; an' she'll dee in a cellar, or an hospital, maybe, if she's fortunate enough to get into wan; an' it'll no' be lang either,' said Teen, in a quite matter-of-fact way, as if it were the merest commonplace detail. 'She has nae strength; wan winter will finish her.'

Here the composure of the little seamstress gave way, and, dropping her heavy head on the sunny window-sill, she too wept passionately over the ruin of the girl she had loved. But Gladys wept no more. Standing there in the long yellow shaft cast by the sunshine, memory took her back to a never-to-be-forgotten night, when an old man and a maiden child had toiled through the streets of Glasgow after midnight, and how the throng of the streets had bewildered the wondering child, and had made her ask questions which never till this time had been satisfactorily answered.

'I begin to understand, Teen,' she said slowly, with a shiver, as if a cold wind had passed over her. 'Life is even sadder than I thought. I wonder how God can bear to have it so. I cannot bear it even in thought.'

She went out into the sunny garden, and, casting herself on the soft green sward, wept her heart out over the new revelation which had come to her. Never had life seemed so bitter, so mysterious, so unjust. What matter that she was surrounded by all that was lovely and of good report, when outside, in the great dark world, such things could be? For the first time Gladys questioned the goodness of God. Looking up into the cloudless blue of the summer sky, she wondered that it could smile so benignly upon a world so cursed by sin. Little Miss Peck, growing anxious about her, at last came out, and bade her get up and attend to the concerns of the day waiting for her.

'You know, my dear, we can't stand still though another perverse soul has chosen the broad road,' she said, trying to speak with a great deal of worldly wisdom. 'I see it is very hard upon you, because you have never been brought into contact with such things, but as you grow older, and gain more experience, you will learn to regard them philosophically. It is the only way.'

'Philosophically?' repeated Gladys slowly. 'What does that mean, Miss Peck? If it means that we are to think lightly of them, then I pray I may be spared acquiring such philosophy. Is there nothing we can do for Lizzie even yet, Miss Peck?'

She broke off suddenly, with a pathetic wistfulness which brought the tears to the little spinster's eyes.

'Is there no way we can save her? Teen says she will die in a cellar or an hospital. Can you bear to think of it, and not try to do something?'

Miss Peck hesitated a moment. It was an extremely delicate subject, and she feared to touch upon it; but there was no evading the clear, straight, questioning gaze of Gladys.

'I fear it is quite useless, my dear. It is almost impossible to reform such girls. I had a cousin who was matron of a home for them in Lancashire, and she gave me often rather a discouraging account of the work among them. You see, when a woman once loses her character she has no chance, the whole world is against her, and everybody regards her with suspicion. Sometimes, my love, I have felt quite wicked thinking of the inequality of the punishment meted out to men and women in this world. Women are the burden-bearers and the scapegoats always.'

Gladys rose up, weary and perplexed, her face looking worn and grey in the brilliant sunshine.

Her heart re-echoed the words of the little spinster; for the moment the loveliness of the earth seemed a mockery and a shame.

'Why is it so?' was the only question she asked.

Miss Peck shook her head. That great question, which has perplexed so many millions of God's creatures, was beyond her power of solution. But from that day it was seldom out of the mind of Gladys, robbing all the sweetness and the interest from her life.



CHAPTER XLIII.

A WOMAN'S HEART.

The second summer of Gladys Graham's changed life was less happy than the first. Her young enthusiasm had received many chills, and somehow the wealth with which she had anticipated so large a blessing to herself and others, seemed a less desirable possession than when it first came into her hands. Doing good was not simply a question of will, but was often surrounded by so many difficulties that it could not be accomplished, at least after the manner she had planned. Her experience with Liz Hepburn had disheartened her inexpressibly, and for the time being she felt inclined to let her scheme for the welfare of the working girls fall into abeyance. In May she left Bourhill in possession of Miss Peck and the regretful Teen, and departed to London, apparently with relief, in company with the Fordyces. Her state of mind was entirely favourable to the furtherance of the Fordyce alliance, and when, early in June, George joined the party in London, she allowed him to take for granted that she would marry him in the autumn, and even permitted Mrs. Fordyce to make sundry purchases in view of that great event. All the time, however, she felt secretly uneasy and dissatisfied. She was by no means an easy person to manage, and tried her lover's patience to the utmost. Her sweetness of disposition seemed to have deserted her for the time being; she was irritable, unreasonable, exacting, as different from the sunny-hearted Gladys of old as could well be imagined. The only person who was at all shrewd enough to guess at the cause of this grave alteration was the discriminating Mina, who pondered the thing often in her mind, and wondered how it was likely to end. She did not believe that the marriage would ever come off, and her guessing at all sides of the question came nearer the truth than she herself believed. Gladys appeared in no hurry to return to Scotland; nay, after six weeks in London, she pleaded for a longer exile, and induced Mrs. Fordyce to extend their trip to Switzerland; and so the whole beautiful summer was loitered away in foreign lands, and it was the end of August before Gladys returned to Bourhill. During her long absence she had been a faithful correspondent, writing weekly letters to Miss Peck and Teen; but when she returned that August evening to her own, she was touched inexpressibly by the wistful looks with which these two, the most faithful friends she possessed, regarded her. They thought her changed. She was thinner and older looking; her grace and dignity not less marked, her beauty not impaired, only the brightness, the inexpressible air of vivacity and spontaneous gladness seemed to have disappeared. She smiled at their tearful greeting, a quick, fleeting, almost melancholy smile.

'Why do you look at me so strangely?' she asked, with the slightest touch of impatience. 'Do you see anything odd about me?'

'No, oh no, my child,' answered Miss Peck quickly. 'We are so thankful to have you home again; we thought the day would never come. Have we not counted the very hours this week, Christina?'

'Ay, we hae; but I dinna think she's fell gled to be hame hersel',' said Teen, and her dark eye was shadowed, for she felt that a subtle change had overcast the bright spirit of Gladys, and she did not know what it might portend.

'Oh, such nonsense you two talk,' cried Gladys lightly. 'Dear Miss Peck, just ask them to hurry up dinner. I am famishing to taste a real home dinner. Well, Teen, how have you been all this summer? I must say you look like a new creature. I believe you are quite beautiful, and we shall have somebody falling in love with you directly. I don't suppose you have heard or seen anything of poor Lizzie?'

'No, naething. Walter was here, Miss Gladys, last week, seeking ye.'

The colour rose in the face of Gladys, and she averted her head to hide her softened, luminous eyes from the gaze of Teen.

'And did you tell him I was coming home this week?'

'I didna. We only spoke aboot Liz, an' some aboot his ain affairs. Miss Peck saw him maist o' the time. He's gaun to sell his business, and gang awa' to America or Australia.'

'Oh!' exclaimed Gladys sharply. 'Why should he do any such thing, when he is getting on so well?'

'I am sure I dinna ken,' replied Teen quietly, though she knew—ay, as well as Gladys—what it all meant. 'His faither's deid; he de'ed efter a week's illness, jist at the Fair time, an' he's gaun to tak' his mither wi' him. She's bidin' at Colquhoun Street the noo.'

'A great deal seems to have happened since I went away,' said Gladys, with something of an effort. 'Is he going to do this soon?'

'Yes, I think immediately; at least, he cam' doon here to say guid-bye to you. But Miss Peck can tell ye mair nor me; she spoke a long time till him.'

A question was on the lips of Gladys, but she held it back, and again changed the theme.

'And what does he think about poor Lizzie? I suppose he has never gone to Dublin to seek for her?'

'No, I dinna think it.'

'It is all very sad. Don't you think life very sad, Teen?' asked Gladys, with a great wistfulness, which made the eyes of the little seamstress become suddenly dim.

'Ay, it is. Oh, Miss Gladys, excuse me for sayin't, but if ye had seen his face when I telt him ye were maybe to be mairried in September or October, ye wadna dae't.'

'Why not? That could not possibly make any difference to me, Christina,' replied Gladys quite coldly, though a slight tremor shook her. 'Well, I must go and change my gown. Bourhill is looking lovely to-day, I think. I have seen many beautiful places since I went away, but none so satisfying as this; you will be glad to hear I still think Bourhill the sweetest spot on earth.'

And, with a smile and a nod, she left the little seamstress to her work; but it lay unheeded on her lap, and her eyes were heavy with a grey mist which came up from her heart's bitterness. Yes, life did indeed appear sad and hard to Teen, and all things moving in an entirely contrary way.

Miss Peck came bustling into her darling's dressing-room very shortly, and began to fuss about her in her tender, nervous fashion, as if it were not possible for her to show her gladness at having her back. Gladys did not say very much for a little; but at last, when she was brushing at her soft shining hair, she turned round suddenly, and looked into the old lady's face with rather an odd look on her own.

'Now, sit down, Miss Peck, and tell me every single, solitary thing about Walter.'

The little lady gave a nervous start. She had just been wondering how to introduce this subject.

'Christina has told you that he has been here. My dear, I was very sorry for him. He is a splendid young fellow, and I wish'—

She paused there, nor did Gladys ask her to finish her sentence.

'Teen tells me he is giving up his business. Do you think that is a wise step, Miss Peck?' Gladys asked, with a fine indifference which rather surprised the old lady.

'It may be wise for him, my dear. He seems to feel he cannot remain any longer in this country.'

'Did he ask any questions about me?'

'Yes, Gladys, a few.'

'Well, I hope you did not give him any unnecessary information?' said Gladys rather sharply.

'My dear, I told him everything I could think of. I did not think you would wish anything kept back from your old friend. His interest is very genuine.'

'I suppose so,' said Gladys coolly, as she began to coil her long tresses round her shapely head; 'we must take it for granted, anyhow. And what did he give you in exchange for all your interesting information? Did he condescend to tell you anything about himself?'

Miss Peck was wounded by the tone; such bitter and sarcastic words she had never heard fall from those gentle lips before.

'We had a long talk, Gladys, and I imagined—perhaps it was only imagination—that it relieved and made him happier to talk to me. His father is dead, and he has taken his mother home to his own house, and she will go with him abroad.'

'Where to? Is it quite decided? or has he already gone away?'

'Not yet, I think.'

'Did he ask where I was?'

'Yes.'

'For a particular address?'

'No.'

'Well, I think the least he might have done was to write and let me know all this.'

'My dear child, be reasonable,' said the little spinster, in gentle reproof. 'He came expecting to see you, and he left a kind message for you. I don't see that it would have done either you or him any good to write a letter; your ways must lie so far apart now. I told him we expected your marriage shortly.'

'I have never said it will take place,' said Gladys calmly. 'I wish people would leave me and my concerns alone.'

Miss Peck could see the girl's face in the long glass, the red spot burning on her cheeks, and the beautiful lips angrily quivering, and she became more and more perplexed. Of late Gladys had become a being difficult to understand.

'What is the use of talking in that manner, Gladys?' she said, with a faint show of sternness. 'I saw Mr. Fordyce in town the other day, and he told me it is quite likely the marriage will take place on the eighth of October. It is quite impossible that it could be definitely fixed without you.'

'I suppose so. And what did Walter say when you told him my marriage-day was fixed?' inquired Gladys, as she tied the ribbon on her hair.

'I shall not tell you what he said,' answered the little spinster, quite severely for her. 'You are in a mood which would make you laugh at an honest heart's suffering.'

'You think very highly of me, Guardy, I must say,' said Gladys a trifle unsteadily. 'But why do you speak of an honest man's suffering? Do you mean to say it made Walter suffer to hear I was going to be married?'

'My dear, he loves you as his own soul. I can never forget how he looked and spoke of you,' said the little spinster. 'He is a good and noble man, and God will bless him wherever he goes.'

There was a few minutes' silence, then Gladys walked over to the window, and drawing aside the lace hangings, allowed the red glory of the setting sun to flood the whole room. Standing there, with her white shapely arm against the delicate lace, she looked out in silence upon the lovely prospect which had so often filled her soul with delight. A shadow, dark as a storm-cloud, had fallen upon that sunny scene, and she saw no beauty in it.

'I have loved this place well, Guardy—loved and longed for it. It has been an idol to me, and my punishment is here. I wish I had never seen it. I wish I had never left the city, never been parted from the old friends. I am a miserable woman. I wish I had never been born.'

With a quick gesture she let the curtain drop, and throwing herself on the end of the couch, buried her face in the pillows.

Here again it was Miss Peck's privilege to administer some crumbs of comfort to the sad heart of the woman, even as she had once comforted the child. Stooping over her, she laid her hand tenderly on the bent golden head.

'My dear, it is not yet too late. If you do not love this man, it will be a great sin to marry him—a wrong done to yourself and to him. If there is a chord in your heart responsive to Walter's, don't stifle it. What is anything in this world in comparison with happiness and peace of mind?'

'Nothing, nothing,' Gladys answered, with mournful bitterness. 'But it is too late. It is Walter's fault, not mine; he left me in my desolation, when I needed him most. I did everything I could to show him that I could never forget him, and he repulsed me every time, until it was too late. If he is unhappy, it is no more than he deserves, and I am not going to be so dishonourable as to draw back now from my plighted word. George has always been kind to me, he has never hurt my feelings, and I will try and repay him by being to him a good and faithful wife.'

'A good and faithful wife!'

The little spinster repeated these words in a half-mournful whisper, as she walked slowly to and fro the room.

Ah, not thus was it meet for a heart like Gladys Graham's to anticipate the most momentous crisis of a woman's life. She felt powerless to help, but Heaven was still the Hearer and Answerer of prayer, and with Heaven Miss Peck left the case.

She prayed that her darling's way might be opened up, and that she might be saved from committing so great a wrong, which would bring upon her the curse of a loveless marriage.



CHAPTER XLIV.

THE MAGDALENE.

Summer seemed no longer to smile upon Bourhill. That sunny evening was the last for many days. A wild, chill, wintry blast ushered in September, if the Lammas spates had tarried, when they came they brought destruction in their train. All over the country the harvest was endangered, in low-lying places carried away, by the floods. Whole fields lay under water, and there were many anxious hearts among those who earned their bread by tillage of the soil. These dull days were in keeping with the mood prevailing at Bourhill. Never had the atmosphere of that happy house been so depressed and melancholy; its young mistress appeared to have lost her interest in life. Many anxious talks had the little spinster and the faithful Teen upon the theme so absorbingly interesting to both—unsatisfactory talks at best, since none can minister to a mind diseased. One day a letter came which changed the current of life at Bourhill. How often is such an unpretending missive, borne by the postman's careless hand, fraught with stupendous issues? It came in a plain, square envelope, bearing the Glasgow post-mark, and the words 'Royal Infirmary' on the flap. Gladys opened it, as she did most things now, with but a languid interest, which, however, immediately changed to the liveliest concern.

'Why, Miss Peck, it is a letter, see, about poor Lizzie Hepburn. I must go to her at once, I and Teen. Where is she? If we make haste, we shall catch the eleven-o'clock train.'

She handed Miss Peck the letter, and sprang up from a half-finished breakfast. The little spinster perused the brief communication with the deepest concern.

WARD XII., ROYAL INFIRMARY, GLASGOW, 'September 6, 188 .

'MADAM,—I write to you at the request of one of the patients under my care, a young woman called Lizzie Hepburn, who, I fear, is dying. She appears very anxious to see you, and asked me to write and ask you to come. I would suggest that, if at all possible, you should lose no time, as we fear she cannot last many days, perhaps not many hours.—Yours truly,

'CHARLOTTE RUTHERFURD.'

'This is from one of the nurses, I suppose,' said the little spinster pityingly. 'Poor girl, poor thing! the end has come only a little sooner than we anticipated.'

Gladys did not hear the last sentence. She was already in the hall giving her orders, and then off in search of Teen, whose duties were not very clearly defined, and who had no particular place of habitation in the house. It said a great deal for Teen's prudence and tact that her rather curious positions in the house—the trusted companion of the housekeeper and the friend of the young lady—had not brought her into bad odour with the servants. She was a favourite with them all, because she gave herself no airs, and was always ready to lend a hand to help at any time, disarming all jealousy by her unpretentious, willing, cheerful ways. Gladys found her in the drawing-room, dusting the treasures of the china cabinet.

'Oh, Teen, there is a letter about poor Lizzie at last!' she cried breathlessly. 'It is from the Infirmary; the nurse says she is very ill, perhaps dying, and she wishes to see me. You would like to go, I am sure, and if we make haste we can get the eleven train.'

Teen very nearly dropped the Sevres vase she held in her hand in her sheer surprise over this news.

'There is no time to talk. Make haste, if you wish to go; we must be off in fifteen minutes,' cried Gladys, and ran off to her own room to make ready for her journey, Miss Peck fussing about her as usual, anxious to see that she forgot nothing which could protect her from the storm. It was indeed a wild morning, a heavy rain scudding like drift before the biting wind, and the sky thickly overcast with ink-black clouds; but they drove off in a closed carriage, and took no hurt from the angry elements. They did not speak much during the journey. In addition to her natural excitement and concern for the poor lost girl, Gladys was also possessed by a strange prevision that that day was to be a turning-point in her history.

'Surely Walter will have seen his sister; he cannot have left Glasgow so soon,' she said, as they drove from St. Enoch's Station, by way of the old High Street, to the Infirmary. These streets, with their constant stream of life, were all familiar to the eyes of Gladys. Many an hour in the old days she had spent wandering their melancholy pavements, scanning with a boundless and yearning pity the faces of the outcast and the destitute, feeling no scorn of them or their surroundings, but only a divine compassion, which had betrayed itself in her sweet face and shining, earnest eyes, and had arrested many a rude stare, and awakened a vague wonder in many a hardened breast. She was not less compasionate now, only a degree more hopeless. Since she had been so far removed from the sins and sorrows, the degradations and grinding poverty of the great city, she had, while not thinking less seriously or sympathetically of it all, felt oppressed by the impotence of those standing on the outside to lift it up to any level of hope.

'The loud, stunning tide of human care and crime,' as Keble has it, beat more remorselessly and hopelessly on her ears as she looked up to the smoke-obscured sky that wet and dismal day. She felt as if heaven had never been so far away. Almost her faith had lost its hold. These sad thoughts, which gave a somewhat worn and wearied look to her face, were arrested by their arrival at the Infirmary gates. It was not the visiting hour, but a word of explanation to the porter secured them admittance, and they found their way to the portion of the old house where Lizzie Hepburn lay. The visiting surgeons and physicians had just left, so there were no impediments put in their way, and one of the housemaids speedily brought Nurse Rutherfurd to them. She was a pleasant-faced, brisk little body, whose very presence was suggestive of skill and patience and kindly thought for others.

'Oh yes, you are Miss Graham, and have come to see poor Lizzie,' she said. 'Will you just come in here a moment? Her brother is with her. I will tell her you have come.'

She took them into a little room outside the ward door, and lingered only a moment to give them some particulars.

'She has been here three weeks,' she explained; 'she was over in the surgical wards first, and then came to us; it was too late for us to do any good. The doctor said this morning that she will probably slip away to-day.'

The little seamstress turned away to the grey window and wept silently; Gladys remained composed, but very pale.

'And her brother is with her? Is this the first time?' she asked.

'Yes; it was only when we told her there was no hope that she mentioned the names of anybody belonging to her. She spoke of you yesterday, and asked only this morning that her brother might be sent for. Shall I tell her you have come?'

'If you please. Tell her her old chum is with me; she will quite understand,' said Gladys quietly, and the nurse withdrew. Not a word passed between her and Teen while they were alone.

The nurse was not many moments absent, and the two followed her in to the long ward. It was a painful sight to Gladys, who had never before been within the walls of an hospital. Teen, however, looked about her with her usual calm self-possession, only her heart gave a great beat when the nurse stopped at a bed surrounded and shut off by draught-screens from sight of the other beds. She knew, though Gladys did not, why the screens had been placed there. The nurse drew one aside, and then slipped away. There was absolute silence there when these four met again. Walter, who had been sitting with his face buried in his hands, rose from the chair and offered it to Gladys, but he did not look at her, nor did any sort of greeting pass between them. Gladys mechanically sat down, then Walter walked away slowly out of the ward. With a low cry, Teen flung herself on her knees, laying her face on the white, wasted hand of Liz as it lay outside the coverlet. The figure in the bed, raised up in a half-sitting posture, had an unearthly beauty in the haggard face, a brilliance in the eye, which struck her chilly to the heart; it was like Liz, and yet strangely unlike. Gladys felt a strange thrill pass over her as she bent towards her, trying to smile, and to say a word of kindly greeting. It brought no answering smile to the dying girl's face, and the only sign of recognition she betrayed was to raise her feeble hand and touch the bowed head of the little seamstress with a tender touch, never bestowed in the days of health and strength.

'Weel,' she said, looking at Gladys, and speaking in the feeblest whisper, 'I'm gled ye've come. I couldna dee withoot seem' ye. Ye bear me nae grudge for takin' French leave? Ye can see I've suffered for it. I say, is't true that ye are to be mairried to George Fordyce? Tell me that plain. I must ken.'

These words were spoken with difficulty at intervals, and so feebly that Gladys had to bend forward to catch the sound. She felt that there was not only anxiety, but a certain solemnity in the question, and she did not evade it, even for a moment.

'They have fixed my marriage for the eighth of October,' she answered; and the manner of the reply struck even Liz, and her great hollow eyes dwelt yet more searchingly on the girl's sweet face.

'It'll no' be noo,' she said. 'I've lain here ever since the nurse telt me she heard it was to be, wonderin' whether I should tell. If ye hadna been what ye are I wad never hae telt; but, though I hae suffered, I wad spare you. It was him that brocht me to this.'

Gladys neither started nor trembled, but sat quite motionless, staring at the sad, beautiful face before her, as if not comprehending what was said to her.

'It was him that led me awa' first, an' when a lassie yince gets on that road, it's ill keepin' straicht. He said he wad mairry me, an' I believed it, as mony anither has afore me. Wheesht, Teen; dinna greet.'

The sobs of the little seamstress shook the narrow bed, and appeared to distress Liz inexpressibly. Presently she glanced again at the face of Gladys, and was struck by its altered look. It was no longer sympathetic nor sweet in its expression, but very pale and hard and set, as if the iron had entered into the soul within.

'Is this quite true?' she asked, and her very voice had a hard, cold ring.

'When ye're deein', ye dinna perjure yersel',' replied Liz, with a faint return of the old caustic speech. 'If ye dinna believe me, ask him. Is Wat away? Teen, ye micht gang an' bring him back.'

The little seamstress rose obediently, and when they were alone behind the screens, Liz lifted her feeble hand again and touched the arm of Gladys.

'Oh, dinna tak' him! He's a bad man—bad, selfish, cruel; dinna tak' him, or ye'll rue'd but yince. I dinna want to excuse mysel'. Maybe I wasna guid, but afore God I lo'ed him, an' I believed I wad be his wife. Eh, d'ye think that'll be onything against me in the ither world? Eh, wummin, I'm feared! If only I had anither chance!'

That pitiful speech, and the unspeakable pathos on the face of Liz, lifted Gladys above the supreme bitterness of that moment.

'Oh, do not be afraid,' she cried, folding her gentle hands, whose very touch seemed to carry hope and healing. 'Jesus is so very tender with us; He will never send the erring away. Let us ask Him to be with you now, to give you of His own comfort and strength and hope.'

She knelt down by the bed, unconscious of any listener save the dying girl, and there prayed the most earnest and heartfelt prayer which had ever passed her lips. While she was speaking, the other two had returned to the bed-side, and stood with bowed heads, listening with a deep and solemn awe to the words which seemed to bring heaven so very near to that little spot of earth. The dying girl's strength was evidently fast ebbing; the brilliance died out of her eyes, and the film of death took its place. She smiled faintly upon them all with a glance of sad recognition, but her last look, her last word, was for Gladys, and so she passed within the portals of the unseen without a struggle, nay, even with an expression of deep peace upon her worn face.

A wasted life? Yes; and a death which might have wrung tears of pity from a heart of stone.

But the Pharisee, who wraps the robe of his respectability around him, and, with head high in the air, thanks God he is not as other men are, what spark of divine compassion or human feeling has he in his soul?

Yet what saith the Scriptures?—'He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.'



CHAPTER XLV.

THE BOLT FALLS.

From that sad death-bed Gladys passed out into the open air alone.

'When you are ready, Teen,' she said, 'you can go home, and tell Miss Peck I shall come to-day, sometime. I have something to do first.'

She neither spoke to nor looked at Walter, but passed out into the open square before the Cathedral, and down the old High Street, with a steady, purposeful step. The rain had ceased, but a heavy mist hung low and drearily over the city, and the wind swept across the roofs with a moaning cadence in its voice. The bitter coldness of the weather made no difference to the streets. Those depraved and melancholy men and women, the bold-looking girls and the wretched children, were constantly before the vision of Gladys as she walked, but she saw them not. For once in her life her unselfish heart was entirely concentrated upon its own concerns, and she was in a fever of conflicting emotions—a fever so high and so uncontrollable that she had to walk to keep it down. It was close upon the hour of afternoon tea at Bellairs Crescent when Gladys rang the bell.

'Is Mrs. Fordyce at home, Hardy?' she asked the servant; 'and is she alone—no visitors, I mean?'

'Quite alone, with Miss Mina, in the drawing-room, Miss Graham,' announced the maid, with a smile, but thinking at the same time that the girl looked very white and tired. 'Miss Fordyce is spending the day at Pollokshields, and will dine and sleep there, we expect.'

Gladys nodded, gave her cloak and umbrella into the maid's hand, and went up-stairs, not with her usual springing step, but slowly, as if she were very tired.

Hardy, who had a genuine affection for the young mistress of Bourhill, looked after her with some concern on her honest face.

'She doesn't look a bit like a bride,' she said to herself. 'There's something gone wrong.'

With a little exclamation of joyful surprise, Mina jumped up from her stool before the fire.

'Oh, you delightful creature, to take pity on our loneliness on such a day. Mother, do wake up; here is Gladys.'

'Oh, my dear, how are you?' said Mrs. Fordyce, waking up with a start. 'When did you come up? Were you not afraid to venture on such a day?'

'I had to come,' Gladys made reply, and she kissed them both with a perfectly grave face. 'Will you do something for me, Mrs. Fordyce?'

'Why, certainly, my dear. But what is the matter with you? You look as melancholy as an owl.'

'Will you send a servant to Gorbals Mill, to ask your nephew to come here on his way home from business? I want to see him very particularly.'

It was a very natural and simple request, but somehow Mrs. Fordyce experienced a sense of uneasiness as she heard it.

'Why, certainly. But will a telegram not do as well? It will catch him more quickly. He is often away early just now; there is so much to see about at Dowanhill.'

At Dowanhill was situated the handsome town house George Fordyce had taken for his bride, but the allusion to it had no effect on Gladys except to make her give her lips a very peculiar compression.

'How stupid of me not to think of a telegram! Will you please send it out at once?'

'From myself?'

'Yes, please.'

She brought Mrs. Fordyce her writing materials, the telegram was written, and the maid who brought in the tea took it down-stairs.

'Gladys, you look frightfully out of sorts,' said Mina quickly. 'What have you been about? Have you been long in town?'

'Since twelve. I have come from the Infirmary just now, walking all the way.'

'Walking all the way!—but from the Western, of course?'

'No, from the Royal; it seemed quite short. Oh, that tea is delicious!'

She drank the contents of the cup at one feverish draught, and held it out for more. Both mother and daughter regarded her with increased anxiety in their looks.

'My dear, it is quite time you had some one to exercise a gentle authority over you. To walk from the Royal Infirmary here! It is past speaking of. Child, what do you mean? You will be ill on our hands next, and that will be a pretty to-do. Surely you came off in post-haste this morning without your rings?' she added, with a significant glance at the girl's white hand, from which she had removed the glove.

Gladys took no notice of the remark; but Mina, observant as usual, saw a look she had never before seen creep into the girl's eyes.

'But you have never told us yet what you were doing at the Infirmary?' she said suggestively; but Gladys preserved silence for a few minutes more.

'Please not to ask any questions,' she said rather hurriedly. 'You will know everything very soon, only let me be quiet now. I know you will, for you have always been good to me.'

A great dread instantly seized upon those who heard these words, and Mrs. Fordyce became nervous and apprehensive; but she was obliged to respect such a request, and they changed the subject, trying dismally to turn the talk into a commonplace groove. But it was a strain and an effort on all three, and at last Gladys rose and began to walk up and down the room, giving an occasional glance out of the window, as if impatient for her lover's coming, but it was an impatience which made Mrs. Fordyce's heart sink, and she feared the worst.