'It is I--Gladys,' she said, trying to speak quite naturally, but conscious of a shrinking embarra.s.sment which made her cheeks nervously flush. 'The door was open, so I came right in. How are you, Walter?'

In his face shone something of the old bright friendliness, but as she looked at the shabby youth, with his unshaved face and threadbare clothes, her fastidious eye disapproved of him just as it had disapproved of him when they met, boy and girl, for the first time in the rooms below.

'I am quite well,' he answered in his quick, abrupt unsmiling manner.

'But why do you always come without any warning? If you let me know, I should be ready for you. I am always busy in the morning, and a fellow who has so much hard work to do can't always be in trim to receive ladies.'

It was rather an ungracious greeting, which Gladys was quick enough to resent. The gentle meekness of the girl had merged itself into the dignity of the woman, which insists upon due deference being paid.

'I am quite sorry if I intrude, Walter,' she said rather stiffly. 'I shall not keep you long. All the same, I am coming in to sit down for a little, as I have something very particular to speak to you about.'

'Come in. Of course you know I am glad to see you,' he said hurriedly; and Gladys could not help rather enjoying his evident confusion. If he felt nervous and awkward in her presence, it was no more than he deserved to feel, since _she_ was so entirely unchanged.

'I am glad you have the grace to be civil, at least,' she said, with a bewildering smile, which vanished, however, when she seated herself on the battered old office-stool; all her anxiety and troubled concern made her face grave to sadness as she put the question--

'Do you know that your sister is in Glasgow?'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A TROUBLED HEART.

Walter did not know. His expression of surprise, tinged with alarm and a touch of shame, answered her before he spoke.

'How do you know that?' he asked.

'I saw her last night in Berkeley Street, just outside the Crown Halls, where we were at a concert,' said Gladys. 'Is it possible you have never seen her?'

'No; and I don't believe it was her you saw. You must have made a mistake,' replied Walter quickly.

'It was no mistake, because she looked into our carriage, and I saw her quite plainly. Besides, do you think that any one who has seen Liz once would ever forget her face? I have never seen one like it.'

'I don't know anything about it, and I care less,' Walter said with unpromising hardness.

Gladys did not know that the simple announcement she had brought to him in all faith, believing even that he might be in a sense relieved and glad to hear it, tortured him to the very soul. He felt so bitter against Gladys at the moment that he could have ordered her away. Her dainty presence, her air of ladyhood, her beautiful ways, almost maddened him; but Gladys was quite unconscious of it.

'Have you not been at your father's house lately, then?' she asked. 'Of course she must be there. How glad they will be to have her safely at home again! Do you think she would be glad to see me if I went to-day?'

'No, she wouldn't, even if she were there, which I know is not the case.

I was there myself yesterday, and they had never heard anything about her. I wish to heaven you would leave us alone, and let us sink into the mire we are made for! We don't want such fine ladies as you coming patronising us, and trying to make pious examples of us. We are quite happy--oh, quite happy--as we are.'

He spoke with an awful bitterness, with a pa.s.sion which made him terrible to look upon, but Gladys only shrank a little, only a little, under this angry torrent. Her vision was clearer than a year ago. She read the old friend now with unerring skill, and looked at him steadily with gentle, sorrowful eyes.

'You are very angry, Walter, and you think it is with me, but I know better, and you cannot prevent me trying to find out what has become of poor Lizzie. I loved her, and love has certain rights, even you will admit that.'

Her gentle words relieved the tension of his pa.s.sion, and he became calmer in a moment.

'If it is true that she is in Glasgow, it is easy knowing what has become of her,' he said, with an ironical smile. 'Take my advice, and let her alone. She never was company for you, anyhow, and now less than ever. Let her alone.'

'Oh, I can't do that, Walter. You have no idea how much I have thought about her. It has often kept me from sleeping, I a.s.sure you. I have so many blessings, I wish to share them. To make others happy is all the use money is for.'

Walter was secretly touched, secretly yearning over her with a pa.s.sion of admiration--ay, and of sympathy, but his pa.s.sive face betrayed nothing. He listened as he might have listened to a customer's complaint, yet with even a slighter exhibition of interest. Strange that he should thus be goaded against his better impulses to show so harsh a front to the being he pa.s.sionately loved, unless it was part of the _role_ he had mapped out for himself.

'I heard that you had invited Teen Balfour to your estate; is she there yet?' he asked; and Gladys did not know whether he asked in scorn or in jest.

'Yes, she is at Bourhill still, and will remain for some time. Have you got anybody in Mrs. Macintyre's place? It was rather selfish of me, perhaps, to take her away without consulting you.'

'It didn't affect me in the least, I a.s.sure you. Mrs. Macintyre was not indispensable to my comfort. So you like being a fine rich lady? Don't you remember how I prophesied you would, and how indignant you were?

After all, there is a good deal of worldly wisdom in the slums.'

'You prophesied that I should in a week forget, or wish to forget, this place, and that has not come true, since I am here to-day,' she said, trying to smile, though her heart was sore. 'Won't you tell me now how you are getting on? Excuse me saying that I don't think you look very prosperous or very happy.'

'Nevertheless, the thing will pay; there isn't any doubt about the prosperity. As for the happiness,' he added, with a shrug of the shoulders, 'I don't think there is much real happiness in this world.'

'Oh yes, there is,' she cried eagerly, 'a great deal of it, if only one will take the trouble to look for it. It is in little things, Walter, that happiness is found, and you might be very happy indeed, if you would not delight in being so bitter and morose. It is so very bad for you. Some day, when you want to throw it off, you will not be able to do so, because it will have become a habit with you. I must tell you quite plainly what I think, because it makes me so unhappy to see you like this. You always remind me of Ishmael, whose hand was against every man.

What has changed you so terribly?'

'Circ.u.mstances. Yes, I am the victim of circ.u.mstances.'

'There is no such thing,' said Gladys calmly. 'That is a phrase with which people console themselves in misfortunes they often bring upon themselves. If you would only think of the absurdity of what you are saying. You have admitted your prosperity; and the other troubles, home troubles, which I know are very trying, need not overwhelm you. You are much less manly, Walter, now you are a man, than I expected you to be.

You have quite disappointed me, and without reason.'

He was surprised, and could not hide it. The gentle, simple, shrinking girl had changed into a self-reliant, keen-sighted woman, and from the serene height of her gracious womanhood calmly convicted him of his folly and his besetting weakness, and, manlike, his first impulse, thus convicted, was to resent her interference.

'Whatever I may do, it can't affect you now, you are so far removed from me,' he said, without looking at her; and Gladys, disappointed, and a little indignant, rose to go.

'Very well; good-bye. It is always the same kind of good-bye,' she said quietly. 'If ever, when you look back upon it, it should grieve you, remember it was always your doing, yours alone. But even yet, though you may not believe it, Walter, your old friend will remain quite unchanged.'

His face flushed, and he dashed his hand with a hasty gesture across his eyes.

'I am not changed,' he said huskily. 'You need not reproach me with that. You know nothing about the struggle it is for me here, nor what I have to fight against. It was you who taught me first to be discontented with my lot, to strive after something higher. I sometimes wish now that we had never met.'

'Whatever happens, Walter, I shall never wish that; and I hope one day you will be sorry for ever having said such a thing,' she said, with a proud ring in her clear, sweet voice. 'I hope--I hope one day everything will be made right; just now it all seems so very wrong and hard to bear.'

She left him hurriedly then, just as she had left him before, at the moment when he could have thrown himself at her feet, and revealed to her all the surging pa.s.sion of his soul.

Gladys felt so saddened and disheartened that she could not bear to return to Bellairs Crescent, to the inevitable questioning which she knew awaited her there. If the Fordyces were kind, they were also a trifle fussy, and sometimes nettled Gladys by their too obvious and exacting interest in her concerns. She ran up to the office in St.

Vincent Street, and told Mr. Fordyce she was going off to Mauchline by the one-o'clock train, and begged him to send a boy with an explanation to the Crescent. Mr. Fordyce was very good-natured, and not at all curious; it never occurred to him to try and dissuade her from such a hurried departure, or pester her with questions about it. He simply set her down to write her note at his own desk, then took her out to lunch, and finally put her in her train, all in his own easy, pleasant, fatherly way, and Gladys felt profoundly grateful to him.

Her arrival being unexpected, there was no one to meet her at Mauchline Station, but the two-and-a-half-mile walk did not in the least disconcert her. It seemed as if the clear, cool south wind--the wind the huntsman loves--blew all the city cobwebs from her brain, and again raised her somewhat jaded spirits. She could even think hopefully of Liz, and her mind was full of schemes for her redemption, when she espied, at a short distance from her own gates, the solitary figure of Teen, with her hand shading her eyes, looking anxiously down the road.

She had found life at Bourhill insufferably dull without its mistress.

'Have ye walkit a' that distance?' she cried breathlessly, having run all her might to meet her. 'Ye'll be deid tired. What way did ye no'

send word?'