It was a great shock to Tommy.  He had not forgotten his vows to change his nature, and had she been sympathetic now he would have confessed to her the real reason of his silence.  He wanted boyishly to tell her, though of course without mention of the glove; but her words hardened him.

“Grizel!” he cried reproachfully, and then in a husky voice:  “Can you really think so badly of me as that?”

“I don’t know what to think,” she answered, pressing her hands together, “I know you are very clever.”

He bowed slightly.

“Did you?” she asked again.  She was no longer chiding herself for being over-careful; she must know the truth.

He was silent for a moment.  Then, “Grizel,” he said, “I am about to pain you very much, but you give me no option.  I did do it precisely as you have heard.  And may God forgive you for doubting me,” he added with a quiver, “as freely as I do.”

You will scarcely believe this, but a few minutes afterwards, Grizel having been the first to leave, he saw her from the garden going, not home, but in the direction of Corp’s house, obviously to ask him whether Tommy had done it.  Tommy guessed her intention at once, and he laughed a bitter ho-ho-ha, and wiped her from his memory.

“Farewell, woman; I am done with you,” are the terrible words you may conceive Tommy saying.  Next moment, however, he was hurriedly bidding his hostess good-night, could not even wait for Elspeth, clapped his hat on his head, and was off after Grizel.  It had suddenly struck him that, now the rest of the story was out, Corp might tell her about the glove.  Suppose Gavinia showed it to her!

Sometimes he had kissed that glove passionately, sometimes pressed his lips upon it with the long tenderness that is less intoxicating but makes you a better man; but now, for the first time, he asked himself bluntly why he had done those things, with the result that he was striding to Corp’s house.  It was not only for his own sake that he hurried; let us do him that justice.  It was chiefly to save Grizel the pain of thinking that he whom she had been flouting loved her, as she must think if she heard the story of the glove.  That it could be nothing but pain to her he was boyishly certain, for assuredly this scornful girl wanted none of his love.  And though she was scornful, she was still the dear companion of his boyhood.  Tommy was honestly anxious to save Grizel the pain of thinking that she had flouted a man who loved her.

He took a different road from hers, but, to his annoyance, they met at Couthie’s corner.  He would have passed her with a distant bow, but she would have none of that.  “You have followed me,” said Grizel, with the hateful directness that was no part of Tommy’s character.

“Grizel!”

“You followed me to see whether I was going to question Corp.  You were afraid he would tell me what really happened.  You wanted to see him first to tell him what to say.”