She neither spoke to nor looked at Walter, but passed 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 Pollokshields, 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.