George was no laggard lover; within the hour he rang the familiar bell. Then the nervous restlessness which had taken possession of Gladys seemed to be quietened down, and she stood quite still on the hearth-rug, and her face was calm, but deadly pale.

'Shall we go before George comes up?' asked Mrs. Fordyce, involuntarily rising; but Gladys made answer, with a shade of imperious command,—

'No, I wish you to remain. Mina can go, if she likes.'

Mina had not the opportunity. A quick, eager footstep came hurrying up-stairs, and the door was thrown open with a careless hand.

'You here, Gladys?' he exclaimed, with all the eagerness and delight he might have been expected to display, but next moment the light died out of his face, and he knew that the bolt had fallen. Even those who blamed him most must have commiserated the man upon whom fell that lightning glance of unutterable loathing and contempt.

'I have sent for you to come here, because it was here I saw you first,' she said, and her voice rang out clear and sweet as a bell. 'You know why I have sent for you?—to give you back these things, the sign of a bond which ought never to have been between us. How dared you—how dared you offer them to me, after your monstrous cruelty to that poor girl from whose death-bed I have just come?'

She threw the rings down upon the table; they rolled to the floor, sparkling as if in mockery as they went, but none offered to touch them.

Mina opened the door hurriedly, and left the room. Mrs. Fordyce turned away also, and a sob broke from her lips.

Gladys stood quite erect, the linen at her stately throat not whiter than her face, her clear eyes, brilliant with indignation, fixed mercilessly on her lover's changing face. He was, indeed, a creature to be pitied even more than despised.

'Gladys, for God's sake, don't be too hasty! Give me opportunity for explanation. I admit that I did wrong, but there are extenuating circumstances. Let me explain, I entreat you, before you thus blight my life, and your own.'

'What explanation is there to give? If it is true that you ruined that poor girl,—and do you think that a lie can be uttered on a death-bed,—what more is there to say? Gather up these baubles, and take them away.'

Her bearing was that of a queen. Well might he shrink under that matchless scorn, yet never had she appeared more beautiful, more desirable in his eyes. He made one more attempt.

'Take time, Gladys. I deny nothing; I only ask to be allowed to show you, at least, that I am a repentant man, and that I will atone for all the past by a lifetime of devotion.'

'To whom?'

'To you. I have been a wild, foolish, sinful fellow, if you like, but never wholly bad,' he said eagerly. 'And, Gladys, think of the fearful scandal this will be. We dare not break off the marriage, when it is so near.'

'I dare; I dare anything, George Fordyce. And I pray God to forgive you the awful wrong you did to that poor girl, and the insult you were base enough to offer me in asking me to be your wife—an insult, I fear, I can never forgive.'

'Aunt Isabel, will you not help me?' said he then, turning desperately to his aunt. 'Tell Gladys what you know to be true, that there are hundreds of men in this and other cities who have married girls as pure and good as Gladys, and whose life before marriage would not bear investigation, yet they make the best of husbands. Tell her that she is making a mountain out of little, and that it will be madness to break off the marriage at this late date.'

Mrs. Fordyce slowly turned towards them. The tears were streaming down her face, but she only sadly shook her head.

'I cannot, George. Gladys is right. You had better go.'

Then George Fordyce, with a malignant scowl on his face, put his heel on the bauble which had cost him a hundred guineas, crushed it into powder, and flung himself out of the room. Then Gladys, with a low, faint, shuddering cry, threw herself upon the couch, and gave way to the floodtide of her grief and humiliation and angry pain.

Mrs. Fordyce wisely allowed it to have full vent, but at last she seated herself by the couch, and laid her hand on the girl's flushed and heated head.

'Now, my dear, be calm. It is all over. You will be better soon, my poor, dear, darling child.'

Gladys sat up, and her wet eyes met those of her kind friend, who had allowed her upright and womanly heart to take the right, if the unworldly side.

'Just think how merciful it was of God to let me know in time. In a few weeks I should have been his wife, and then it would have been terrible.'

'It would,' said Mrs. Fordyce, with a sigh; 'but you would just have had to bury it, and live on, as many other women have to do, with such skeletons in the cupboard.'

'I don't suppose I should have died, but I should have lived the rest of my life apart from him. Is it true what he says, that so many are bad? I cannot believe it.'

'Nor do I. There are some, I know, who have had an unworthy past, but you must remember that all women do not look at moral questions from your exalted standpoint. There are even girls, like Julia, for instance, who admire men who are a little fast.'

'How dreadful! That must lower the morality of men. It shall never be said of me. If I cannot marry a man who entertains a high and reverent ideal of manhood and womanhood, I shall die as I am.'

'He will be difficult to find, my dear,' said Mrs. Fordyce sadly. 'This is a melancholy end to all our high hopes and ambitions. It will be a frightful blow to them at Pollokshields.'

'I am not sorry for them. They will think only of what the world will say, and will never give poor Lizzie one kindly thought. If it is a blow, they deserve it; I am not sorry for them at all.'

'And you are not in the least disconcerted at the nine days' wonder the breaking of your engagement will make?'

'Not in the least. What is it, after all? The buzzing of a few idle flies. I have no room for anything in my heart but a vast pity for the poor dead girl who was more sinned against than sinning, and a profound thankfulness to God for His unspeakable mercy to me.'

She spoke the truth; and in her own home that night, upon her knees, she poured forth her heart in fervent prayer, and mingling with her many strange feelings was a strange and unutterable sense of relief, because she was once more free.



CHAPTER XLVI.

THE WORLD WELL LOST.

Gladys returned to her own home that night, and when she again left it it was in altered and happy circumstances. Those who loved her so dearly watched over her the next days with a tender and solicitous concern, but they did not see much, in her outward demeanour at least, to give them cause for alarm. She was certainly graver, preoccupied, and rather sad; but, again, her natural gaiety would over-flow more spontaneously than it had done for long, thus showing that pride and womanly feeling had been wounded; the heart was perfectly whole.

She lived out of doors during the splendid September weather, taking an abounding interest in all the harvest-work, finding comfort and healing in simple things and homely pleasures, and feeling that never while she lived did she wish to set foot in Glasgow again. There was only one tie to bind her to it—one spot beneath its heavy sky dear to her; how much and how often her thoughts were concentrated upon that lowly place none knew save herself.

Since that melancholy morning in the ward of the Royal Infirmary she had not heard of or seen Walter, but she knew in her inmost heart that she should see him, and waited for it with a strange restfulness of heart, therefore it was no surprise to her when he came one sunny evening up the avenue to the house. She saw him coming, and ran out to meet him—something in the old childish fashion—with a look of eager welcome on her face. His dark face flushed at her coming, and he gave his head a swift turn away, and swallowed something in his throat. When they met he was grave, courteous, but a trifle distant; she was quick to note the change.

'I knew you would come to see me again, Walter,' she said, as they shook hands with the undemonstrative cordiality of tried friends. 'I am very glad to see you.'

'Are you? Yet it was a toss-up with me whether I should come or not,' he said, looking at the graceful figure, and noticing with some wonder that she was all in black, relieved only by the silver belt confining her silk blouse at the waist; 'but I thought I had better come and say good-bye.'

'Good-bye! Are you going away, then, somewhere?' she asked in a quiet, still voice, which betrayed nothing.

'Yes; I have taken my passage to Australia for the fourteenth of October, sailing from London. I leave on Monday, however, for I have some things to see to in London.'

'On Monday? And does your mother accompany you?'

'No; she is too old for such an undertaking. I have arranged for her to board with a family in the country. She has been there some weeks now, ever since I sold off, and likes it very much. It is better for me to go alone.'

'I suppose so. Are you tired with your walk, Walter, or can you go on a little farther? It is a shame that you have never seen anything of Bourhill. Surely you will at least sleep here to-night? or must you run away again by the nine-fifteen?'

'I can stay, since you are good enough to wish it,' he said a trifle formally; 'and you know I shall be only too happy to walk anywhere you like with you.'

'How accommodating!' said Gladys, with a faint touch of ironical humour. 'Well, let us go up to the birch wood. We shall see the moon rising shortly, if you care about anything so commonplace as the rising of a moon. To Australia? And when will you come back, Walter?'

'I can't say—perhaps never.'

'And will it cost you no pang to turn your back on the land of brown heath and shaggy wood, which her children are supposed to adore?' she asked, still in her old bantering mood.

'She has not done much for me; I leave few but painful memories behind,' he answered, with a touch of kindness in his voice. 'But I will not say I go without a pang.'

They remained silent as Gladys led the way through the shrubbery walk, and up the steep and somewhat rugged way to the birch wood crowning the little hill which sheltered Bourhill from the northern blast. It was a still and beautiful evening, with a lovely softness in the air, suggestive of a universal resting after the stress of the harvest. From the summit of the little hill they looked across many a fair breadth of goodly land, where the reapers had been so busy that scarce one field of growing corn was to be seen. All the woods were growing mellow, and the fulness and plenty of the autumn were abroad in the land.

'It's dowie at the hint o' hairst, at the wa' gaun o' the swallow,' quoted Walter in a low voice, and his eye grew moist as it ranged across the beautiful landscape with something of that unutterable and painful longing with which, the exile takes his farewell of the land he loves.

'Walter,' said Gladys quite softly, as she leaned against the straight white trunk of a rowan tree, on which the berries hung rich and red, 'I have often thought of you since that sad day. Often I wished to write, but I knew that you would come when you felt like it. Did you understand?'

'I heard that your marriage was broken off, and I thanked God for that,' Walter answered; and Gladys heard the tremor in his voice, and saw his firm, hue mouth take a long, stern curve.

'It did not surprise you?' she asked in the same soft, far-off voice, which betrayed nothing but the gentlest sisterly confidence and regard.

'No, but I suffered agony enough till I heard it. When, one lives through such dark days as these were, Gladys, faith in humankind becomes very difficult. I feared lest your scruples might be overcome.'

'I am sorry you had such a fear for me, Walter, even for a moment, but perhaps it was natural. And when will you come back from this dreadful Australia, did you say?'

'Perhaps never.'

He did not allow himself to look at her face, because he did not dare; but he saw her pick the berries from a red bunch she had pulled, and drop them one by one to the ground. Never had he loved her as he did then in the anguish of farewell, and he called himself a fool for not having gone, as prudence prompted, leaving only a written message behind.

'And is that all you have to say to me, Walter, that you are going to Australia—on the fourteenth, is it?—and that you will never come back?'

'It is all I dare to say,' he answered, nor did he look at her yet, though there was a whimsical, tender little smile on the lovely mouth which might have won his gaze.

'And you are quite determined to go alone?'

'Well, you see,' he began, glad of anything to get on commonplace ground, 'I might get plenty of fellows, but it's an awful bore, unless they happen just to be the right sort.'

'Yes, that is quite true, there are so few nice fellows,' said Gladys innocently. 'Don't you think you might get a nice girl to go with you, if you asked her properly?'

Then Walter flashed a sad, proud look at her—a look which Gladys fearlessly met, and thought at that very moment that she had never seen him look so well, so handsome, so worthy of regard. Sorrow had wrought her perfect work in him, and he had emerged from the shadow of blighted hope and frustrated ambition a gentler, humbler, ay, and a holier man than he had yet been. Suddenly that look of sad, quiet wonder, which had a touch of reproach in it, quite broke Gladys down, and she made no effort to stem the tears which might make him sad or glad, she did not care.

'Gladys,' he began hurriedly, 'it is more than man is fit to bear, to see these tears. If they mean nothing more than a natural regret at parting from one whom circumstances have strangely thrown in your way, perhaps too often, tell me so, and I shall thank you, even for that kindly regret; but if they mean that I may come back some day—worthier, perhaps, than I am to-day'—

'That day will never come,' broke in Gladys quietly. 'But if you will take me to Australia with you, Walter, I am ready to go this very day.'

His face grew dusky red, his eyes shone, he looked at her as if he sought to read her soul.

'Do you know what you are saying, Gladys? If you go, it can only be in one way—as my wife.'

'Well?'

She took a long breath, but was allowed to say no more until a long time after, when she raised her face from her lover's breast, and demanded that he should take her home.

'It is an awful thing we have done, Gladys,' he said, touching her dear head for the twentieth time, and looking down into her eyes, which were luminous with the light of love,—'an awful thing for me, at least. We shall have to flee the country, and they will say I have abducted the heiress of Bourhill.'

'Oh, do! Run off with me, as the Red Reiver and all these nice, interesting sort of people used to do long ago. Let us abscond, and not tell a single living soul, except the faithful Teen.'

But Walter shook his head.

'It is what I should like to do above everything, but I must resist the temptation. No, my darling; for your sake, everything must be most scrupulously conventional, if a little hurried. I shall pay your guardian a visit to-morrow morning, which will somewhat astonish him.'

Gladys looked at him with a sudden access of admiration. To hear him speak in that calm, masterful tone pleased her as nothing else could have done.

'But you won't let them frighten you, and abscond without me? That would be too mean,' she said saucily.

Walter made no verbal reply, and so, hand in hand, they turned to leave the moonlit woods, and there was a look on the face of Walter such as you see on the faces of reverent worshippers who have found rest and peace to their souls.

'Poor Liz!' he said under his breath, as he uplifted his eyes to the clear sky, as if seeking to penetrate its mystery, and find whither that wayward soul had fled.

Gladys laid her soft cheek against his arm, and silence fell upon them again. But the heart of each was full to the uttermost, and they asked no more.

It was, indeed, the world well lost for love.

* * * * *

On the morning of the ninth of October, this announcement appeared in the marriage list of the Glasgow Herald, and was read and discussed at many breakfast-tables:—

'At Bourhill, Ayrshire, on the 8th instant, Walter Hepburn to Gladys Graham.'

It may be added that it was a source of profound wonder to many, and of awful chagrin to a few. In the house of the Pollokshields' Fordyces the announcement was discreetly tabooed, though George must have felt it keenly, seeing Gladys had suffered so little over the unhappy termination of their engagement that she could substitute another bridegroom though retaining the same marriage-day.

On the fourteenth the young couple set sail for the land of the Southern Cross, and were absent exactly twelve months, the reason for their return being that they wished their first-born child to see the light first in Bourhill. And they never left it again; for Walter made use of the Colonial connection he had made to build up a new business in Glasgow, which has prospered far above his expectation. So fortune has blessed him in the end, and he can admit now that the bitterness of the old days was not without its purpose.

The faithful Teen, no longer melancholy, reigns in a snug house of her own, not a hundred miles from Mauchline, but retains her old adoration for Bourhill and its bonnie, sweet mistress.

There are occasional comings and goings between the Bellairs Crescent Fordyces and Bourhill, and the family are united in approving the marriage of Gladys now, though they had their fling at it with the rest of the folk when it was a nine days' wonder. But that is the way of the world mostly, to go with the crowd, which jumps on a man when he is down, and gives him a kindly pat or a cringing salute, as may seem most advisable, when he is up.

But the wise man takes no account of such, pursuing his own path with integrity and perseverance, cherishing the tried friends, and keeping warm and close in his heart, like a dove in its nest, the love which, through sunshine and storm, remains unchanged.



* * * * *

Transcriber's note: Printer's errors retained.

THE END