Gladys entered the kitchen rather hesitatingly,—­the young woman with the sullen grey face disconcerted her—­but when she looked at Liz she smiled quite brightly, and came forward with a quick, ready step.

’How are you?  I am so sorry you are ill.  Walter thought I might come to see you.  I hope you will soon be better.’

Liz allowed her hand to be shaken, and fixed her very bright blue eyes keenly on the girl’s sweet face.  Gladys felt that she was being scrutinised, that the measure of her sincerity was gauged by that look, but she did not evade it.  With Liz, Gladys was much surprised.  She was so different from the picture she had drawn, so different from Walter; there was not the shadow of a resemblance between them.  Many would have called Liz Hepburn beautiful.  She was certainly handsome after her kind, having straight, clear-cut features, a well-formed if rather coarse mouth, brilliant blue eyes, and a mass of reddish-brown hair, which set off the extreme fairness of her skin.  Gladys felt fascinated as she looked, though she felt also that there was something fierce, and even wild, in the depths of these eyes.  Evidently they found satisfaction in their survey of the stranger’s face, for she laid down the paper, and gave her head a series of little nods.

‘Gie her a chair, Teen, and shove the teapat on to the hob,’ she said, offering to her guest such hospitality as was in her power.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI.

PICTURES OF LIFE.

Gladys sat down, and suddenly became conscious of what she was carrying, a little flower-pot, in which bloomed a handful of Roman hyacinths, their delicate and lovely blossoms nestling among the tender green of their own leaves, and a bit of hardy fern.  It was her only treasure, which she had bought for a few pence in the market one morning, and she had nothing else to bring to Liz.

’Will you take this?  Is it not very pretty?  I love it so much, but I have brought it for you.  My father liked a flower when he was ill.’

Liz gave another enigmatical nod, and a faint, slow, melancholy smile gathered about the lips of Teen as she sat down to her work again, after having stirred the fire and pushed the dirty brown teapot on to the coals.  In this teapot a black decoction brewed all day, and was partaken of at intervals by the two; sometimes they ate a morsel of bread to it, but other sustenance they had none.  Little wonder the face of Teen was as cadaverous as the grave.

Then followed an awkward silence, during which Liz played with the frayed edge of the blanket, and Teen stitched away for dear life at a coarse garment, which appeared to be a canvas jacket.  A whole pile of the same lay on the unoccupied bed, and Gladys vaguely wondered whether the same fingers must reduce the number, but she did not presume to ask.  She did not feel drawn to the melancholy seamstress, whose thin lips had a hard, cold curve.