The Guinea Stamp Part 32

'Do you think so? I must try it, and you must help me, dear Miss Peck, for Mrs. Fordyce won't. She doesn't approve at all of my having invited Christina Balfour down here.'

'My dear, the world never does approve of anything done out of the conventional way,' said Miss Peck, with a quiet touch of bitterness. 'I think you have a very n.o.ble aim, and the heart of an angel; only there will be mountains of difficulty in the way.'

'We must overcome them,' answered Gladys quickly.

'And you will meet with much discouragement, and a great deal of ingrat.i.tude,' pursued the little spinster, hating herself for her discouraging words, but convinced that it was her duty to prepare her dear charge for the worst.

'Not more than I can bear,' Gladys answered. 'And I am quite sure that, with all these drawbacks, I shall also receive many bright, encouraging things to help me on.'

'Yes, my dear, you will. G.o.d will reward you in His own best way,' said Miss Peck, with tears in her eyes.

Gladys sat late by the fire that night, pondering her new scheme, and developing its details with great rapidity. She found the greatest comfort and pleasure in such planning; for, though she was the envied of many, there were times, though unconfessed, when she was weighed down by her own loneliness, when a sense of desolation, as keen as any she had ever experienced in Colquhoun Street, made all the lovelier things of life seem of no account.

Next morning Gladys drove her guest into Troon, and at sight of the great sea, its breast troubled with wintry storms, tossing and rolling in wildest unrest, Teen appeared for the first time really moved.

'It's fearsome,' she said in an awe-stricken whisper,--'fearsome!

Michty me, look at the waves! It's fearsome to look at.'

'How odd that it should strike you so!' exclaimed Gladys. 'It always rests and soothes me; the wilder it is, the deeper the quiet it infuses into my soul. See the tall shadow yonder through the mists, the mountains of Arran; and that is Ayr, across Prestwick Bay; and these rocks jutting out into the sea, the Heads of Ayr. Do you see that house with the flagstaff, at the top of the Links? It is Mr. Fordyce's house, The Anchorage, where I lived all summer. It is splendid here to-day.

Stand still, Firefly, you impatient animal; we are not ready to go yet.'

'I wad be feared to live in that hoose,' said Teen. 'The waves micht come up in the nicht an' wash it away. Jist look at that yin the noo.'

A great green wave, with its angry crest of foam, came rolling in with apparently resistless force, and spent itself on the pebbly sh.o.r.e with a sullen roar.

'"Thus far shalt thou come, and no farther,"' said Gladys, with a faint smile, and a momentary uplifting of her eyes to the grey wintry sky.

'"He holdeth the sea in the hollow of His hand."'

'Some day, when it is very fine, I shall take you to Ayr,' said Gladys, as she turned the pony's head. 'I have often thought how I should like to bring Liz here. I cannot tell you how I feel about her; I think about her almost continually.'

'So dae I, though I think, mind, she's been very shabby to me; but she was my chum,' said Teen, with an unusually soft look on her face. 'She didna care a b.u.t.ton what she said to a body, but at the same she wad dae onything for ye.'

'And you still think she is in London?'

'Yes,' answered Teen, without a moment's hesitation 'Learnin' to be an actress, as sure as I sit here.'

'Somehow I don't think it. I have an odd feeling at times about her, as if she were not so far away from us as we imagine.'

'She's no' in Glesca, onyway. She couldna be in Glesca withoot me kennin',' replied Teen confidently. 'There's some that think she gaed aff wi' a beau, but they never said it twice to me. I kent Liz better than that. She could watch hersel'.'

'Did you know him, the man you call her beau?' inquired Gladys, with a slight blush.

'Ay, I kent him,' said Teen, looking away over the landscape as if she suddenly found it of new and absorbing interest.

'And have you seen him since?'

'Ay.'

'Did you speak to him, or ask him if he knew anything about her?'

'No' me; it's nane o' my business to meddle; but maybe I wad ask him if I had a chance,' said Teen, with a peculiar pressure of the lips.

'Who is he, Teen? Do you know his name?'

'Ay, fine that; but it wad dae nae guid to say,' replied Teen guardedly.

'I dinna think he had onything to dae wi' her gaun away, onyway.'

Gladys perceived that Teen was determined to be utterly loyal to her friend, and admired her for it.

That very afternoon, however, Teen saw occasion to change her mind on the subject. After lunch, while Gladys was busy with letter-writing, Teen went out to pay a visit to Mrs. Macintyre at the lodge. She was walking very leisurely down the avenue, admiring the brilliant glossy green of the laurels and hollies, when the tall figure of a man in a long ulster came swinging round the curve which hid the gates from view.

Teen gave a great start, and the dusky colour leaped in her face when she recognised him. His cheek flushed too with distinct annoyance, and surprise was also visible on his face.

'What are you doing here?' he asked, without the shadow of other greeting.

Teen looked up at him with a kind of quiet insolence in her heavy dark eyes.

'That's my business,' she said calmly, and picked to pieces the leaf she had in her hand.

'Are you staying here?' he asked then, with undisguised uneasiness, which secretly delighted Teen. If there was a human being she mortally disliked and distrusted, it was Mr. George Fordyce.

'Yes, I'm stayin' at the big hoose.'

'With Miss Graham?'

Teen nodded, and a faint, melancholy smile, half of scorn, half of amus.e.m.e.nt, touched her thin lips.

'How the deuce did you manage that?' he inquired angrily. 'I can't understand it.'

'Nor I; ye can ask her, if ye like,' responded Teen calmly; then quite suddenly she dropped her mask of indifference, and, laying her thin, worn fingers on his arm, lifted her penetrating eyes swiftly to his uneasy face. 'I say, where's Liz?'

'How should I know? How dare you question me?' he asked pa.s.sionately. 'I shall warn Miss Graham against you, that you are not a proper person to have in her house. You are not fit to breathe the same air with her.'

'Maybe no'; but as fit as you,' she answered scornfully. 'I see through it a'; but if ye have harmed Liz, my gentleman, ye'll no' get off wi'

it. Ye'll answer for it to me.'

Mrs. Fordyce had called her vulgar and commonplace; she did not look so now; pa.s.sion transformed her into a n.o.ble creature. The man of the world, accustomed to its homage and adulation, cowed before the little seamstress of the slums. While she walked away from him, as if scorning to bandy further words, he looked after her in consternation. She had not only surprised, she had made a coward of him for the moment. He seemed to see in the slight, insignificant form of the city girl the Nemesis who would sooner or later bring his evil deeds home, and thwart what was at the present moment the highest ambition of his life.

His step lagged as he continued his way towards the house, within whose walls dwelt the woman whom love and ambition prompted him to make his wife. It was not, however, the reluctance of a dishonoured soul to seek communion with one so absolutely pure, it was merely the hesitation of a prudence wholly selfish. He rapidly reviewed the situation, considered every possibility and every likely issue, and took his resolve. He could not afford to wait. If Gladys was ever to be his, she must be won at once. If she cared sufficiently for him to pledge herself to him, he believed that she would stand by him and take his word, whatever slander might a.s.sail his name. He had not antic.i.p.ated this crisis when, in a careless, idle mood, he had left the mill, and followed the impulse which sent him to Bourhill.

By the time he reached the steps before the door every trace of disturbance had vanished, and he was once more the urbane, handsome, debonair gentleman who played such havoc among women's hearts.

Miss Graham being at home, he was at once shown into the drawing-room, and left there while the maid took his name to her mistress. Meanwhile Teen, instead of going into the lodge, pa.s.sed through the gates, and walked away up the road. She was utterly alone, the only sign of life being a flock of sheep in the distance, trotting on sedately before a tall shepherd and a collie dog. Teen never saw them. She was fearfully excited, believing that she had at last discovered the clue to her missing friend.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XXV.