Mother Gilchrist burst into a cackling laugh.
"There's more ways, my lammie, o' makin' money by hair than by shearin' it off like a sheep's fleece," she said meaningly.
But the meaning did not come home to Marmie until one of the rather bedraggled girls in cheap finery let her into the secret of the house. They paid Mother Gilchrist a certain sum for board and lodging, and on the whole she was kind to them. Anyhow, they had to lump it, as most of them were in debt to her. However, there was always the chance of a stroke of luck, especially when one was new to the business and had such hair as Marrion had.
That same afternoon Marrion managed to creep round to the coach office. She intended to get her box and pawn some of her things--even the little brilliant brooch of her father's--so as to keep her in decent lodgings till she could find employment in some dressmaking concern. She would not go back to her old employers, for her address there was known and she wanted to lose herself; for a while at any rate.
But Fate was against her. Failing a claimant the box had been sent back whence it came, as the only address to be found on it was Drummuir Castle, Drum. Nor was her call at her old landlady's more successful. The flat was still locked up; so she came back utterly wearied and disheartened, to be met by a demand for more money from Mother Gilchrist, who looked at her as one looks at a rat caught in a trap. She had miscalculated with Marrion, however; and in an instant the latter made up her mind. She must get out of the present quagmire without delay. Yet she did not wish to make herself known to the friends she had in Edinburgh, because during the past fortnight her desire to lose herself--to get away once and for all from Drummuir and all that Drummuir entailed--aye, even Duke---had been strengthening. But she could sell her hair. Mother Gilchrist, arguing from other girls, was calculating she would not; but she would find she was mistaken. She might think it safe enough to let a girl without a penny in her pocket go out alone, but she would find herself wrong.
That night Marrion slept the sleep of the just, and it was one o'clock--for the gun had just fired from the castle--next day when, with a curiously light heart, she walked out of the most fashionable hairdresser's shop in Prince's Street. She had eschewed her old admirer's for obvious reasons, but she had found no difficulty in her bargain; and if her heart was light, her purse was heavy. She was free, at any rate, of Mother Gilchrist and her kind; she was free also of any necessity for recalling the past. She would make her own future in life.
As she passed through the shop heavily veiled, for she would run no risk of recognition, a group of fashionably dressed young men were daffing over pommade hongroise with an attractive young person behind the counter, but they took no notice of the somewhat shabbily dressed figure which passed out and went westward. With money in her pocket Marrion's plans began to formulate rapidly. She would not stop in Edinburgh; she would go to some place where the fear of recognition would not constantly be with her. So she would go--whither?
She pondered the question idly, heedless of Fate behind her in the shape of one of those fashionably dressed young men, who, two minutes after Marrion had passed through the shop, had burst out after her, leaving his companions still looking with admiration at a great pile of red-brown hair which the proprietor of the shop, hugely delighted with his bargain, had brought in for these privileged customers to see.
So she had not long for freedom. Ere she had reached Frederick Street a detaining hand was on her arm and a joyous voice in her ears--
"Marmie! I knew it must be you! I have been looking for you everywhere."