’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 button 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 amusement, touched her thin lips.

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