Yes. I thought you would have come to see me before this, Walter,' said
Gladys quietly.

'You need not have thought so. I said I wouldn't come, that nothing
would induce me to come,' he answered shortly.

'We are going away into Ayrshire, so I thought I must come to say
good-bye,' Gladys said then.

'To your estate?'

'No; to Troon, where the sea is.'

'Oh, and will you stay long?'

'Perhaps all the summer. How are you getting on here all alone, Walter?
You must tell me that.'

'Oh, well enough.'

'Does Mrs. Macintyre come to work for you?'

'Yes, morning and night she looks in. I'm going to make this thing pay.'

He looked as if he meant it. His square jaw was firmly set, his whole
look that of a man determined to succeed.

'I hope you will, Walter. I feel sure of it,' she said brightly.

'It'll be awful drudgery for a while,' he continued, almost in the
confidential tones of yore. 'To have so much money, your uncle had the
poorest way of doing business. He had the customers all under his thumb,
and made them fetch and carry what they wanted themselves; in that way
he saved a man's wages. I'm not giving anything on credit, and after
they've once freed themselves, and can pay cash for what they get,
they'll want it delivered to them, and quite right. Then I'll get a man
and a horse and cart, and when I once get that, the thing will grow like
a mushroom.'

'How clever you are to think of all that!' said Gladys admiringly. 'I am
quite sure you will succeed.'

'I mean to,' he said soberly, but with a quiet determination which
convinced Gladys how much in earnest he was.

'But don't let success make you hard, Walter,' she said gently.
'Remember how we used to plan what we should do for the poor if we were
rich.'

'Your opportunity is here, then,' he said sharply; 'mine is only to
come.'

The tone, more than the words, wounded her afresh. Oh, this was not the
Walter of old! She rose from the old box a trifle wearily, and looked
round her with slightly saddened air.

'Have you heard anything of your sister?' she asked him.

'No, nothing.'

'She has never written to any one?'

'No. I think she has gone to London to join a theatre. The girl who was
her chum thinks so too.'

'Are your father and mother well?'

'As well as they deserve to be. They wanted to come here and live. Had
they been decent and respectable, it wouldn't have been a bad
arrangement. As they are, I simply wouldn't have it; I'd