ectability around him,
and, with head high in the air, thanks God he is not as other men are,
what spark of divine compassion or human feeling has he in his soul?

Yet what saith the Scriptures?--'He that is without sin among you, let
him first cast a stone at her.'

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XLV.

THE BOLT FALLS.

From that sad death-bed Gladys passed out into the open air alone.

'When you are ready, Teen,' she said, 'you can go home, and tell Miss
Peck I shall come to-day, sometime. I have something to do first.'

She neither spoke to nor looked at Walter, but passed out into the open
square before the Cathedral, and down the old High Street, with a
steady, purposeful step. The rain had ceased, but a heavy mist hung low
and drearily over the city, and the wind swept across the roofs with a
moaning cadence in its voice. The bitter coldness of the weather made no
difference to the streets. Those depraved and melancholy men and women,
the bold-looking girls and the wretched children, were constantly before
the vision of Gladys as she walked, but she saw them not. For once in
her life her unselfish heart was entirely concentrated upon its own
concerns, and she was in a fever of conflicting emotions--a fever so
high and so uncontrollable that she had to walk to keep it down. It was
close upon the hour of afternoon tea at Bellairs Crescent when Gladys
rang the bell.

'Is Mrs. Fordyce at home, Hardy?' she asked the servant; 'and is she
alone--no visitors, I mean?'

'Quite alone, with Miss Mina, in the drawing-room, Miss Graham,'
announced the maid, with a smile, but thinking at the same time that the
girl looked very white and tired. 'Miss Fordyce is spending the day at
Pollokshields, and will dine and sleep there, we expect.'

Gladys nodded, gave her cloak and umbrella into the maid's hand, and
went up-stairs, not with her usual springing step, but slowly, as if she
were very tired.

Hardy, who had a genuine affection for the young mistress of Bourhill,
looked after her with some concern on her honest face.

'She doesn't look a bit like a bride,' she said to herself. 'There's
something gone wrong.'

With a little exclamation of joyful surprise, Mina jumped up from her
stool before the fire.

'Oh, you delightful creature, to take pity on our loneliness on such a
day. Mother, do wake up; here is Gladys.'

'Oh, my dear, how are you?' said Mrs. Fordyce, waking up with a start.
'When did you come up? W