'If you still wish it; only there is poor Walter. It will be so dreadful for me to leave him quite alone.'

Mrs. Fordyce could not restrain a smile. The child-heart still dwelt in Gladys, though she was almost a woman grown.

'Ah, my dear, you know nothing of the world. It is like reading a fairy story to look at you and hear you speak. I hope--I hope the world will not spoil you.'

'Why should it spoil me? I can never know it except from you,' she said simply.

Mrs. Fordyce looked round the large, dimly-lighted place with eyes in which a wonder of pity lay.

'My child, is it possible that you have lived here almost two years, as my husband tells me, with no companion but an old man and a working lad?'

'I have been quite happy,' Gladys replied, with a slight touch of dignity not lost upon the lawyer's wife.

'Perhaps because you knew nothing else. We will show you what life can hold for such as you,' she answered kindly; and there came a day when Gladys reminded her of these words in the bitterness of a wounded heart.

When her visitor left, Gladys ran up-stairs to Walter. They had so long depended on each other for solace and sympathy, that it seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to share this new experience with him.

'You heard the lady speaking, did you not, Walter?' she asked breathlessly. 'It was Mr. Fordyce's wife; she is so beautiful and so kind. Just think, she would have taken me away with her in her carriage.'

'And why didn't you go?' asked Walter in a dull, even voice, and without appearing in the least interested.

'Oh because I could not leave just now,' she said slowly, quite conscious of a change in his voice and look.

'But you will go, I suppose, after?'

'I suppose so. They seem to wish it very much.'

'And you want to go, of course. They are very grand West End swells. I know their house--a big mansion looking over the Kelvin,' he said, not bitterly, but in the same even, indifferent voice.

'I don't know anything about them. If that is true, it is still kinder of them to think of such a poor girl as I.'

To the astonishment of Gladys, Walter broke into a laugh, not a particularly pleasant one.

'Six months after this you'll maybe take a different view,' he said shortly.

'Why, Walter, what has come to you? You have so many moods now I never know quite how to talk to you.'

'That's true,' he answered brusquely. 'I'm a fool, and n.o.body knows it better than I.'

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XV.

HER INHERITANCE.

In the cheerful sunshine, the following afternoon, a small funeral party left the house in Colquhoun Street, and drove to the railway station. It consisted of Mr. Fordyce the lawyer, the minister of the parish, Walter Hepburn, and Gladys. It was her own desire that she should go, and they did not think it necessary to dissuade her. She was a sincere mourner for the old man, and he had not so many that they should seek to prevent that one true heart paying its last tribute to his memory. So for the first time for many years the burying-ground of the Bourhill Grahams was opened, somewhat to the astonishment of Mauchline folks. The name was almost forgotten in the place; only one or two of the older inhabitants remembered the widow and her two boys, and these found memory dim.

Nevertheless, a few gathered in the old churchyard, viewing with interest the short proceedings, and with very special interest the unusual spectacle of a young fair girl standing by the grave. They did not dream how soon her name was to become a household word, beloved from one end of Mauchline to the other.

The two elderly gentlemen were very kind and tender to her, and the clergyman regarded her with a curious interest, having had a brief outline of her story from Mr. Fordyce. But it was noticeable that she preferred Walter's company, that she spoke oftenest to him; and when the lawyer and the minister went into the inn to have some refreshment while waiting for the train, the two young people walked up the road to Mossgiel. Walter was very gloomy and downcast, and she, quick to notice it, asked the cause.

'You know it quite well,' he said abruptly. 'I suppose you are going away to these grand folks to-night, and there's an end of me.'

'An end of you, Walter! What do you mean?' she asked, with a puzzled air.

'Just what I say. When you turn your back on Colquhoun Street, it's bound to be for ever. You'll be West, I East. There's no comings and goings between the two.'

'I think you are very unkind to speak like that, and silly as well,' she said quickly.

'Maybe, but it's true all the same,' he answered, with a slight touch of bitterness.

'And you deserve to be punished for it,' she continued, with her quaint dignity; 'only I cannot quite make up my mind how to punish you, or, indeed, to do it at all to-day. Look, Walter,' she stopped him on the brow of the hill, with a light touch on his arm which thrilled him as it had never yet done, and sent the blood to his face.

'See, away over there, almost as far as you can see, on yon little hill where the trees are so green and lovely, is Bourhill, where the Grahams used to live. I told you how Uncle Abel said papa had such a desire to buy it. If I were a rich woman I think I should buy Bourhill.'

'So you will. I wish _I_ could give it to you,' cried Walter quickly.

'Do you? You are very good. You have always been so good and kind to me, Walter,' she said dreamily. 'Yes, that is Bourhill; and just think, you can see the sea from it--the real sea, which I have never seen in my life.'

'You'll get everything and see everything you want soon,' he said in a quiet, dull voice; 'and then you'll forget all that went before.'

'We shall see.'

She was hurt by the abrupt coldness of his manner, and, having her own pride of spirit, did not seek to hide it.

'See, that is Mossgiel there, and we have no time to go up. I think Mr.

Fordyce said we must turn here,' she said, changing the subject, woman-like, when it did not please her. 'But when it is summer you and I will come to Mauchline for a day together, and gather some daisies from the field where Burns wrote his poem to the daisy--that is,' she added, with a smile, 'if you are not disagreeable, which I must say, Walter, you are to-day--most disagreeable indeed.'

She turned and looked at him then for a moment with an earnest, somewhat critical look, and she saw a tall, slender youth, whose figure had not attained to its full breadth and stature, but whose face--grave, earnest, n.o.ble, even--spoke of the experience of life. These two years had done much for Walter Hepburn, and she became aware of it suddenly, and with secret amazement.

'Why do you look at me like that?' he asked almost angrily. 'Is there anything the matter with my clothes?'

'No, nothing, you cross boy. I was only thinking that you had grown to be a man without any warning, and I am not sure that I did not like you better as a boy.'

'That is more than likely,' he answered, not in the least gently; but Gladys only smiled. Her faith in him was so boundless and so perfect that she never misunderstood him. In her deep heart she guessed that the shadow of the coming parting lay heavy on his soul. It lay on hers likewise, but was brightened in some subtle fashion by a lovely hope which she did not understand nor seek to a.n.a.lyse, but which seemed to link the troubled past and the unknown future by a band of gold.

Wherever she might go, or whatever might become of her, she could never lose Walter out of her life. It was the love of the child merging into the mysterious hope of the woman, but she did not understand it yet. Had he known even in part how she felt, it had saved him many a bitter hour; but as yet that solace was denied him. That hot, rebellious young heart must needs go through the very furnace of pain to bring forth its fulness of sweetness and strength.

As the two came side by side up the middle of the village street, the lawyer and the minister stood upon the steps at the inn door.

'Is it a case of love's young dream?' asked the latter significantly.

Mr. Fordyce laughed as he shook his head.

'Scarcely. They've been companions--in misfortune, I had almost said--for a long time, and it is natural that they should feel kindly towards each other. Miss Bourhill Graham must needs aim a little higher.

I like the young fellow, however. There's an honesty of purpose and a fearless individuality about him which refreshes one. Odd, isn't it, to find two such gems in such a place?'