Teen was prevented answering for a moment by a fit of coughing—­a dry, hacking cough, which racked her weary frame, and brought a dark, slow colour into her cadaverous cheek.

‘Well, I think she’s in London,’ she replied at length.  ’But it’s only a guess.  She’ll turn up some day, nae doot; we maun jist wait till she does.’

’I am very sorry for you.  Will you let me help you?  I am living in my own home now in Ayrshire.  It is lovely there just now—­almost as mild as summer.  Won’t you come down and pay me a little visit?  It would do you a great deal of good.’

Teen laid down her heavy seam and stared at Gladys in genuine amazement, then gave a short, strange laugh.

‘Ye’re takin’ a len’ o’ me, surely,’ she said.  ’What wad ye dae if I took ye at yer word?’

’I mean what I say.  I want to speak to you, anyhow, about a great many things.  How soon could you come?  Have you any more work than this to do?’

‘No; I tak’ this hame the nicht,’ replied Teen.  ’I can come when I like.’

‘If I stay in town all night, would you go down with me to-morrow?’

‘Maybe; but, I say, what do ye mean?’

She leaned her elbows on her knees, and, with her thin face between her hands, peered scrutinisingly into her visitor’s face.  There was a great contrast between them, the rich girl and the poor, each the representative of a class so widely separated that the gulf seems well-nigh impassable.

’I don’t mean anything, except that I want to help working girls.  I so wished for Liz, she was so clever and shrewd; she could have told me just what to do.  You can help me if you like; you must take her place.  And at Bourhill you will have a rest—­nothing to do but eat and sleep, and walk in the country.  You will lose that dreadful paleness, which has always haunted me whenever I thought of you.’

A curious tremor was visible on the face of the little seamstress, a movement of every muscle, and her nerveless fingers could not grasp the needle.

‘A’ richt,’ she replied rather huskily.  ‘I’ll come.  What time the morn?’

’What time can you be ready?  It is quite the same to me when I go.  I have nothing to do.’

’Well, I can be ready ony time efter twelve; but, I say, what if, when I come back, they’ve gi’en my wark to somebody else?  That’s certain; ye should see the crood waitin’ for it—­fechtin’ for it almost like wild cats.’

Gladys shivered, and heavy tears gathered in her eyes as she rose from her chair.

’Never mind that.  It will be my concern—­that is, if you are willing to trust me?’

Teen rose also, and for a moment their eyes met in a steady look.  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I trust ye, though I dinna, for the life o’ me, ken what ye mean.’

There was no demonstration of gratitude on the part of the little seamstress; Gladys even felt a trifle chilled and disheartened thinking of her after she had left the house.  But the gratitude was there.  That still, cold, self-constrained heart, being awakened to life, never slept again.  Both lived to bless that bleak November day when the first compact had been made between them.