‘My dear,’ cried the little spinster, in sympathetic concern, ’don’t break your heart.  You have done a great deal—­far more, I assure you, than almost any one else would have done.  You cannot help the poor girl having chosen the way of transgressors.’

‘It is not Liz I am crying for at present, Miss Peck,’ said Gladys mournfully; ’it is for Walter.  It is a heartbreaking letter.  I cannot, dare not, comfort him.  I must take it to Christina to read.’

She picked it up, and ran to the stillroom, where the happy and placid Teen sat by the open window with some sewing in her hand, love making the needle fly in and out with a wondrous speed.  Her resentment against Liz for her ingratitude had taken the edge off her grief, and she was disposed to be as hard upon her as the rest of the world.

’Oh, Teen, I have had a letter from Walter.  I shall read it to you.  It is dreadful!’ Gladys cried; and, with trembling voice, she read the epistle to the little seamstress. ’Isn’t it dreadful?  Away to Dublin!  What will she do there?’

Teen laid down her sewing and looked at Gladys with the simplest wonder in her large eyes.  She could scarcely believe that a human being could be so entirely innocent and unsuspecting as Gladys Graham, for it was quite evident she did not really know what Walter meant by saying Liz was lost.

’He says her punishment will be greater than her sin, whatever he means.  Do you know what he means?’

‘Ay, fine,’ was Teen’s reply, and her mouth trembled.

‘Tell me, then.  I want to understand it,’ cried Gladys, with a touch of impatience.  ’There have been things kept from me; and if I had known everything I could have done more for her, and perhaps she would not have run away.’

’There was naething kept frae ye; if ye hadna been a perfect bairn in a’thing, ye wad hae seen through a’thing.  That was why a’ the folks—­yer grand freen’s, I mean—­were sae angry because ye had Liz here.  But I believed in her mysel’ up till she ran awa’.  Although a lassie’s led awa’ she’s no’ aye lost; but I doot, I doot—­an’ noo Liz is waur than we thocht.’

Gladys stood as if turned to stone.  Slowly a dim comprehension seemed to dawn upon her; and it is no exaggeration to say that it was a shock of agony.

’Do you mean to say that the poor girl is really bad, that she has deliberately chosen a wicked life?’ she asked in a still, strained voice.

Teen gravely nodded, and her lips trembled still more.

‘And what will be the end of it?  What will become of her, Teen?’

‘The streets; an’ she’ll dee in a cellar, or an hospital, maybe, if she’s fortunate enough to get into wan; an’ it’ll no’ be lang either,’ said Teen, in a quite matter-of-fact way, as if it were the merest commonplace detail.  ‘She has nae strength; wan winter will finish her.’