As usual the right idea came to him at the right moment.  “If you just kent how I did it for your sake,” he said, with gentle dignity, “you wouldna blame me; you would think me noble.”

She would not help him with a question, and after waiting for it he proceeded.  “If you just kent wha she is!  And I thought she was dead!  What a start it gave me when I found out it was her!”

“Wha is she?” cried Elspeth, with a sudden shiver.

“I was trying to keep it frae you,” replied Tommy, sadly.

She seized his arm.  “Is it Reddy?” she gasped, for the story of Reddy had been a terror to her all her days.

“She doesna ken I was the laddie that diddled her in London,” he said, “and I promise you never to let on, Elspeth.  I—­I just went to the Den with her to say things that would put her off the scent.  If I hadna done that she might have found out and ta’en your place here and tried to pack you off to the Painted Lady’s.”

Elspeth stared at him, the other grief already forgotten, and he thought he was getting on excellently, when she cried with passion, “I don’t believe as it is Reddy!” and ran into the house.

“Dinna believe it, then!” disappointed Tommy shouted, and now he was in such a rage with himself that his heart hardened against her.  He sought the company of old Blinder.

Unfortunately Elspeth had believed it, and her woe was the more pitiful because she saw at once, what had never struck Tommy, that it would be wicked to keep Grizel out of her rights.  “I’ll no win to Heaven now,” she said, despairingly, to herself, for to offer to change places with Grizel was beyond her courage, and she tried some childish ways of getting round God, such as going on her knees and saying, “I’m so little, and I hinna no mother!” That was not a bad way.

Another way was to give Grizel everything she had, except Tommy.  She collected all her treasures, the bottle with the brass top that she had got from Shovel’s old girl, the “housewife” that was a present from Miss Ailie, the teetotum, the pretty buttons Tommy had won for her at the game of buttony, the witchy marble, the twopence she had already saved for the Muckley, these and some other precious trifles she made a little bundle of and set off for Double Dykes with them, intending to leave them at the door.  This was Elspeth, who in ordinary circumstances would not have ventured near that mysterious dwelling even in daylight and in Tommy’s company.  There was no room for vulgar fear in her bursting little heart to-night.

Tommy went home anon, meaning to be whatever kind of boy she seemed most in need of, but she was not in the house, she was not in the garden; he called her name, and it was only Birkie Fleemister, mimicking her, who answered, “Oh, Tommy, come to me!” But Birkie had news for him.

“Sure as death,” he said in some awe, “I saw Elspeth ganging yont the double dykes, and I cried to her that the Painted Lady would do her a mischief, but she just ran on.”