’Why, Walter, what has come to you?  You have so many moods now I never know quite how to talk to you.’

‘That’s true,’ he answered brusquely.  ’I’m a fool, and nobody knows it better than I.’

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XV.

HER INHERITANCE.

In the cheerful sunshine, the following afternoon, a small funeral party left the house in Colquhoun Street, and drove to the railway station.  It consisted of Mr. Fordyce the lawyer, the minister of the parish, Walter Hepburn, and Gladys.  It was her own desire that she should go, and they did not think it necessary to dissuade her.  She was a sincere mourner for the old man, and he had not so many that they should seek to prevent that one true heart paying its last tribute to his memory.  So for the first time for many years the burying-ground of the Bourhill Grahams was opened, somewhat to the astonishment of Mauchline folks.  The name was almost forgotten in the place; only one or two of the older inhabitants remembered the widow and her two boys, and these found memory dim.  Nevertheless, a few gathered in the old churchyard, viewing with interest the short proceedings, and with very special interest the unusual spectacle of a young fair girl standing by the grave.  They did not dream how soon her name was to become a household word, beloved from one end of Mauchline to the other.

The two elderly gentlemen were very kind and tender to her, and the clergyman regarded her with a curious interest, having had a brief outline of her story from Mr. Fordyce.  But it was noticeable that she preferred Walter’s company, that she spoke oftenest to him; and when the lawyer and the minister went into the inn to have some refreshment while waiting for the train, the two young people walked up the road to Mossgiel.  Walter was very gloomy and downcast, and she, quick to notice it, asked the cause.

‘You know it quite well,’ he said abruptly.  ’I suppose you are going away to these grand folks to-night, and there’s an end of me.’

‘An end of you, Walter!  What do you mean?’ she asked, with a puzzled air.

’Just what I say.  When you turn your back on Colquhoun Street, it’s bound to be for ever.  You’ll be West, I East.  There’s no comings and goings between the two.’

‘I think you are very unkind to speak like that, and silly as well,’ she said quickly.

‘Maybe, but it’s true all the same,’ he answered, with a slight touch of bitterness.

‘And you deserve to be punished for it,’ she continued, with her quaint dignity; ’only I cannot quite make up my mind how to punish you, or, indeed, to do it at all to-day.  Look, Walter,’ she stopped him on the brow of the hill, with a light touch on his arm which thrilled him as it had never yet done, and sent the blood to his face.

’See, away over there, almost as far as you can see, on yon little hill where the trees are so green and lovely, is Bourhill, where the Grahams used to live.  I told you how Uncle Abel said papa had such a desire to buy it.  If I were a rich woman I think I should buy Bourhill.’