307

XXXVIII. IN VAIN, 315

XXXIX. GONE, 323

XL. THE MATRONS ADVISE, 331

XLI. A GREAT RELIEF, 338

XLII. A DISCOVERY, 345

XLIII. A WOMAN'S HEART, 352

XLIV. THE MAGDALENE, 361

XLV. THE BOLT FALLS, 369

XLVI. THE WORLD WELL LOST, 377

[Illustration]

THE GUINEA STAMP

CHAPTER I.

FATHERLESS.

It was an artist's studio, a poor, shabby little place, with a latticed
window facing the north. There was nothing in the furnishing or
arrangement of the room to suggest successful work, or even artistic
taste. A few tarnished gold frames leaned against the gaudily-papered
wall, and the only picture stood on the dilapidated easel in the middle
of the floor, a small canvas of a woman's head, a gentle Madonna face,
with large supplicating eyes, and a sensitive, sad mouth, which seemed
to mourn over the desolation of the place. The palette and a few worn
brushes were scattered on the floor, where the artist had laid them down
for ever. There was one living creature in the room, a young girl, not
more than sixteen, sitting on a stool by the open window, looking out
listlessly on the stretch of dreary fenland, shrouded in the cold and
heavy mist. It was a day on which the scenery of the fen country looked
desolate, cheerless, and chill. These green meadows and flat stretches
have need of the sunshine to warm them always. Sitting there in the soft
grey light, Gladys Graham looked more of a woman than a child, though
her gown did not reach her ankles, and her hair hung in a thick golden
plait down her back. Her face was very careworn and very sad, her eyes
red and dim with long weeping. There was not on the face of the earth a
more desolate creature than the gentle, slender girl, the orphan of a
day. At an age when life should be a joyous and lovely thing to the
maiden child, Gladys Graham found herself face to face with its grimmest
reality, certain of only one thing, that somewhere and somehow she must
earn her bread. She was thinking of it at t