'No, I had something more serious to take up my attention,' said Gladys a trifle soberly. 'I hope you have come to stay a few days—until to-morrow, at least?'
'Are all your other guests away?' inquired Mrs. Fordyce, with the faintest trace of hardness in her voice.
'Christina Balfour is here still. Her companion left this morning rather suddenly,' said Gladys, and it was evident that she felt rather distressed. 'In fact, she ran away from Bourhill.'
'Indeed!' exclaimed Mrs. Fordyce, in astonishment. 'Why should she have run away? It would have been quite sufficient, surely, for her to have said she wished to return to Glasgow. You were not keeping her here against her will, I presume?'
'No,' replied Gladys a trifle unsteadily. 'I cannot say she has treated us well. It was a very silly as well as a wrong proceeding to get up in the middle of the night and leave the door wide open, as she did. She has disappointed me very much.'
Mrs. Fordyce looked at Gladys in a kind of wonder. Her candour and her justness were as conspicuous as her decision of character. It evidently cost her pride no effort to admit that she had made a mistake, though the admission was proof of the correct prophecy made by Mrs. Fordyce when the hot words had passed between them concerning Liz at Bellairs Crescent. Mrs. Fordyce, however, was generous enough to abstain from undue triumph.
'Well, well, my dear, we all make mistakes, though we don't all admit so readily as you have done that they are mistakes,' she said good-humouredly. 'I suppose the girl felt the restraint of this quiet life too much. What was her occupation before she came down? I don't know that I heard anything about her.'
'She was once a mill girl with Mr. Fordyce,' answered Gladys. 'She is the girl who disappeared, don't you remember?—Walter Hepburn's sister.'
'Oh!'
The lawyer drew a long breath.