The Guinea Stamp Part 56

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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d he is not as other men are, what spark of divine compa.s.sion 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.'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XLV.

THE BOLT FALLS.

From that sad death-bed Gladys pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 Polloks.h.i.+elds, 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.

George was no laggard lover; within the hour he rang the familiar bell.