'To Maryhill; I'm bidin' there the noo,' Liz answered defiantly, though she was inwardly trembling.
'Maryhill?' Walter repeated, and his eye, sharp with suspicion, dwelt searchingly on her face. 'What are you doing there?'
'That's my business,' she answered lightly. 'I needna ask for you; I see you are flourishin'. Hoo's the auld folk? I say, here's my car. Guid-nicht.'
She would have darted from him, but he gripped her by the arm.
'You won't go, Liz, till I know where and how you are living. I have the right to ask. Come home with me.'
Liz was surprised, arrested, and the car, with its noisy jingle, swept round the corner.
'Hame wi' you!' she repeated. 'Maybe, if ye kent, ye wadna ask me, wadna speak to me,' she said, with a melancholy bitterness, and then her cough, more hollow and more racking than of yore, prevented further speech.
Walter drew her hand within his arm, and she, feebly protesting, allowed him to lead her back the way she had come. And then, as they walked, a strange, constrained silence fell upon them, each finding it difficult, well-nigh impossible, to bridge the gulf of these sad months.
'Are you not going to tell me anything about yourself, Liz?' he asked at length, and the kindness of his tone, unexpected as it was, secretly amazed and touched her.
'Naething,' she answered, without a moment's hesitation. 'An' though I've come back to Glesca, I'm no' seeking onything frae ony o' ye; I can fend for mysel'.'