The Guinea Stamp Part 53

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 pa.s.sionately 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, una.s.sisted, 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.'

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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 a.s.sured 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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 a.s.sure 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 ingrat.i.tude 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 la.s.sie'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 pa.s.sionately over the ruin of the girl she had loved. But Gladys wept no more. Standing there in the long yellow shaft cast by the suns.h.i.+ne, 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 s.h.i.+ver, as if a cold wind had pa.s.sed over her. 'Life is even sadder than I thought. I wonder how G.o.d 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 G.o.d. 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 Lancas.h.i.+re, 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 suns.h.i.+ne.

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 G.o.d'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.

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