long delay prevented his reaching the railway ter-
minus until noon of the following day, and there
he was again too late. But she had been here.
He traced her to that hotel whence we saw her set-
ting forth, and the portier had got a ticket for her
for London. He had talked with her for some
little time, and advised her, as she seemed so tired,
to remain there for the night. But she said she
must go home at once. She seemed to be passion-
ately desirous to go home, and had looked at him
suspiciously, as if fearing he might try to hold her
back. He had been called away, and on returning
had seen her disappearing over the bridge. He
had called to her, and then she ran as if afraid he
was pursuing her. But he had observed her after-
wards in the train.

So she was not without money, and she was on

197



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

her way home ! The reUef it brought him came
to the surface in great breaths, and at first every-
one of them was a prayer of thankfulness. Yet in
time they were triumphant breaths. Translated
into words, they said that he had got off cheaply
for the hundredth time. His little gods had saved
him again, as they had saved him in the arbour by
sending Grizel to him. He could do as he liked,
for they were always there to succour him ; they
would never desert him — never. In a moment of
fierce elation he raised his hat to them, then seemed
to see Grizel crying " I woke up," and in horror
of himself clapped it on again. It was but a mo-
mentary aberration, and is recorded only to show
that, however remorseful he felt afterwards, there
was life in our Tommy still.

The train by which he was to follow her did
not leave until evening, and through those long
hours he was picturing, with horrible vividness and
pain, the progress of Grizel up and down that ter-
rible pass. Often his shoulders shook in agony
over what he saw, and he shuddered to the teeth.
He would have walked round the world on his
knees to save her this long anguish I And then again
it was less something he saw than something he
was writing, and he altered it to make it more
dramatic. " I woke up." How awful that was I
but in this new scene she uttered no words. Lady
Pippinworth was in his arms when they heard a

198



THE LITTLE GODS DESERT HLM

little cry, so faint that a violin string makes as much
moan when it snaps. In a dread silence he lit a
match, and as it flared the figure of a girl was seen
upon the floor. She was dead; and even as he
knew that she was dead he recognized her.
" Grizel I " he cried. The other woman who had
lured him from his true love uttered a piercing
scream and ran towards the hotel. When she re-
turned with men and lanterns there was no one in
the arbour, but there were what had been a man
and a girl. They lay side by side. The startled
onlookers unbared their heads. A solemn voice
said, " In death not divided."

He was not the only occupant of the hotel read-
ing-room as he saw all this, and w^hen his head fell
forward and he groaned, the others looked up from
their papers. A lady asked if he was unwell.

" I have had a great shock," he replied in a daze,
pulling his hand across his forehead.

" Something you have seen in your paper '? "
inquired a clergyman who had been complaining
that there was no news.

" People I knew," said Tommy, not yet certain
which world he was in.

" Dead ? " the lady asked sympathetically.

" I knew them well," he said, and staggered into
the fresh air.

Poor dog of a Tommy ! He had been a total
abstainer from sentiment, as one may say, for sixty

199



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

hours, and this was his only glass. It was the
nobler Tommy, sternly facing facts, who by and
by stepped into the train. He even knew why he
was going to Thrums. He was going to say cer-
tain things to her; and he said them to himself
again and again in the train, and heard her answer.
The words might vary, but they were always to
the same effect.

" Grizel, I have come back I "

He saw himself say these words, as he opened
her door in Gavinia's little house. And when he
had said them he bowed his head.

At his sudden appearance she started up ; then
she stood pale and firm.

" Why have you come back '? "

"Not to ask your forgiveness," he replied
hoarsely; "not to attempt to excuse myself;
not with any hope that there remains one drop of
the love you once gave me so abundantly. I
want only, Grizel, to put my life into your hands.
I have made a sorry mess of it myself Will you
take charge of what may be left of it? You
always said you were ready to help me. I have
come back, Grizel, for your help. What you
were once willing to do for love, will you do for
pity now ? "

She turned away her head, and he went nearer
her. " There was always something of the mother
in your love, Grizel; but for that you would never

200




HE HEARD THEIR SEDUCTIVE VOICES

From a Drawing bs Tit>rn.ir.l Purtridge.



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

hours, and this was his only glass. It was the
nobler Tommy, sternly facing facts, who by and
by stepped into the train. He even knew why he
was going to Thrums. He was going to say cer-
tain thin:; '" her; and he said them to himself
again an. n the train, and heard her answer.

The words might vary, but they were always to
the same eifect.

" Grizel, I have come back I "

He saw himself say these words. opened

her door in Gavinia's little house. And when he
had said them he bowed his head.

At his sudden appearance she started up ; then
she stood pale and firm.

" Why have you come back ? "

"Not to ask your forgiveness," he replied
hoarsely; "not to attempt to excuse myself;
not with any hope that there remains one drop of
the love you once gave me so abundant! v. I
want only, Grizel, to put my life into ids.

I have made a sorry mess of it W lii you

take charge of what may be ; i. <u it"? You
always said you were ready to help me. I have
come back, Grizel, for your help. What you
w^ere once willing to do for love, will you do for
pity now? "

She turned away her head, and he went nearer

her. e^gib^e 3Wl^ty(5a^ s^fJIfi^^^SMit^ M^^^^
in your lo\^fi-?i^eiss.kHi^1;(ir^ti^i^§ic^x^Amuld never

200



THE LITTLE GODS DESERT HIM

have borne with me so long. A mother, they say,
can never quite forget her boy — oh, Grizel is it
true *? I am the prodigal come back. Grizel, be-
loved, I have sinned and I am unworthy, but I am
still your boy, and I have come back. Am I to
be sent away ? "

At the word " beloved " her arms rocked impul-
sively. " You must not call me that," she said.

" Then I am to go," he answered with a shud-
der, " for I must always call you that ; whether I
am with you or away, you shall always be beloved
to me."

" You don't love me I " she cried. " Oh, do
you love me at last ! " And at that he fell upon his
knees.

" Grizel, my love, my love I "

" But you don't want to be married," she said.

"Beloved, I have come back to ask you on my
knees to be my wife."

" That woman "

" She was a married woman, Grizel."

" Oh, oh, oh ! "

" And now you know the worst of me. It is
the whole truth at last. I don't know why you
took that terrible journey, dear Grizel, but I do
know that you were sent there to save me. Oh,
my love, you have done so much, will you do no
more ^ "

And so on, till there came a time when his head
201



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

was on her lap and her hand caressing it, and she
was whispering to her boy to look up and see her
crooked smile again.

He passed on to the wedding. All the time be-
tween seemed to be spent in his fond entreaties to
hasten the longed-for day. How radiant she looked
in her bridal gown I " Oh, beautiful one, are you
really mine ? Oh, world, pause for a moment and
look at the woman who has given herself to me ! "

" My wife — this is my wife I " They were in
London now; he was showing her to London.
How he swaggered ! There was a perpetual apol-
ogy on her face ; it begged people to excuse him
for looking so proudly at her. It was a crooked
apology, and he hurried her into dark places and
kissed it.

Do you see that Tommy was doing all this for
Grizel and pretending to her that it was for him-
self? He was passionately desirous of making
amends, and he was to do it in the most generous
way. Perhaps he believed when he seemed to
enter her room saying, " Grizel, I have come back,"
that she loved him still ; perhaps he knew that he
did not love in the way he said ; perhaps he saw a
remorseful man making splendid atonement : but
never should she know these things ; tenderly as
he had begun he would go on to the end. Here
at last is a Tommy worth looking at, and he looked.

Yet as he drew near Thrums, after almost ex-

202



THE LITTLE GODS DESERT HIM

actly two days of continuous travel, many a shiver
went down his back, for he could not be sure that
he should find Grizel here; he sometimes seemed to
see her lying ill at some wayside station in Switzer-
land, in France ; everything that could have hap-
pened to her he conceived, and he moved restlessly
in the carriage. His mouth went dry.

" Has she come back *? "

The train had stopped for the taking of tickets,
and his tremulous question checked the joy of
Corp at sight of him.

" She 's back," Corp answered in an excited
whisper ; and oh, the relief to Tommy I "She came
back by the afternoon train; but I had scarce a
word wi' her, she was so awid to be hame. ' I am
going home,' she cried, and hurried away up the
brae. Ay, and there 's one queer thing."

" What ? "

" Her luggage wasna in the van."

Tommy could smile at that. "But what sent her,"
he asked eagerly, "on that journey ^ "

Corp told him the little he knew. " But nobody
kens except me and Gavinia," he said. " We pre-
tend she gaed to London to see her father. We
said he had wrote to her, wanting her to go to him.
Gavinia said it would never do to let folk ken she
had gaen to see you, and even Elspeth doesna
ken."

" Is Elspeth back ? "

203



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

" They came back yesterday."

Did David know the truth from Grizel ? was
what Tommy was asking himself now as he strode
up the brae. But again he was in luck, for when
he had explained away his abrupt return to Elspeth,
and been joyfully welcomed by her, she told him
that her husband had been in one of the glens all
day. " He does not know that Grizel has come
back," she said. " Oh," she exclaimed, " but you
don't even know that she has been away I Grizel
has been in London."

" Corp told me," said Tommy.

" And did he tell you why she had gone ? "

" Yes."

'' She came back an hour or two ago. Maggy
Ann saw her go past. Fancy her seeing her father
at last ! It must have been an ordeal for her. I
wonder what took place."

" I think I had better go and ask her," Tommy
said. He was mightily relieved for Grizel's sake.
No one need ever know now what had called her
away except Corp and Gavinia, and even they
thought she had merely been to London. How
well the little gods were managing the whole
affair! As he walked to Grizel's lodgings to say
what he had been saying in the train, the thought
came to him for a moment that as no one need
ever know where she had been there was less
reason why he should do this generous thing. But

204



THE LITTI^E GODS DESERT HIM

he put it from him with lofty disdain. Any effect
it had was to make him walk more firmly to his
sacrifice, as if to show all ignoble impulses that
they could find no home in that swxlhng breast.
He was pleased with himself, was Tommy.

"Grizel, I have come back." He said it to the
night, and bowed his head. He said it with head
accompaniment to Grizel's lighted window. He
said it to himself as he reached the door. He
never said it again.

For Gavinia's first words w^ere : " It's you, Mr.
Sandys I Wherever is she ? For mercy's sake,
dinna say you've come without her ! " And
when he blinked at this, she took him roughly by
the arm and cried, " Wherever's Grizel ? "

" She is here, Gavinia."

" She's no here."

" I saw her light."

" You saw my light."

"Gavinia, you are torturing me. She came
back to-day."

"What makes you say that? You're dream-
ing. She hasna come back."

" Corp saw her come in by the afternoon train.
He spoke to her."

Gavinia shook her head incredulously. " You're
just imagining that," she said.

" He told me. Gavinia, I must see for myself"
She stared after him as he went up the stairs.

205



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

" You are very cruel, Gavinia," he said, when he
came down. " Tell me where she is."

" May I be struck, Mr. Sandys, if I've seen or
heard o' her since she left this house eight days
syne." He knew she was speaking the truth. He
had to lean against the door for support. "It
canna be so bad as you think," she cried in pity.
"If you're sure Corp said he saw her, she maun
hae gone to the doctor's house."

"She is not there. But Elspeth knew she
had come back. Others have seen her besides
Corp. My God, Gavinia I what can have hap-
pened ? "

In little more than an hour he knew what had
happened. Many besides himself, David among
them towards the end, were engaged in the search.
And strange stories began to fly about like night-
birds; you will not search for a missing woman
without rousing them. Why had she gone off to
London without telling anyone '^ Had Corp con-
cocted that story about her father to blind them ?
Had she really been as far as London? Have you
seen Sandys? — he's back. It's said Corp tele-
graphed to him to Switzerland that she had dis-
appeared. It's weel kent Corp telegraphed.
Sandys came at once. He is in a terrible state.
Look how white he is aneath that lamp. What
garred them telegraph for him ? How is it he is
in sic a state ? Fond o' her, was he ? Yea, yea,

206



THE LITTLE GODS DESERT HLM

even after she gave him the go-by. Then it's a
weary Sabbath for him, if half they say be true.
What do they say^ They say she was queer
when she came back. Corp doesna say that.
Maybe no; but Francie Crabb does. He says he
met her on the station brae and spoke to her, and
she said never a word, but put up her hands hke
as if she feared he was to strike her. The Dundas
lassies saw her frae their window, and her hands
were at her ears as if she was trying to drown the
sound o' something. Do you mind o' her mother?
They say she was looking terrible like her mother.
It was only between the station and Gavinia's
house that she had been seen, but they searched
far afield. Tommy, accompanied by Corp, even
sought for her in the Den. Do you remember the
long, lonely path between two ragged little dykes
that led from the Den to the house of the Painted
Lady ? It v/as there that Grizel had lived with
her mamma. The two men went down that path,
which is oppressed with trees. Elsewhere the night
was not dark, but, as they had known so well when
they were boys, it is always dark after evenfall in
the Double Dykes. That is the legacy of the
Painted Lady. Presently they saw the house —
scarcely the house, but a lighted window. Tommy
remembered the night when as a boy, Elspeth
crouching beside him, he had peered in fearfully
at that corner window on Grizel and her mamma,

207



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

and the shuddersome things he had seen. He
shuddered at them again.

*' Who lives there now ? " he asked.

" Nobody. It's toom."

" There is a Hght."

"Some going-about body. They often tak'
bilbie in toom houses, and that door is without a
lock ; it's keepit close wi' slipping a stick aneath
it. Do you mind how feared we used to be at
that house ? "

" She was never afraid of it."

" It was her hame."

He meant no more than he said, but suddenly
they both stopped dead.

" It's no possible," Corp said, as if in answer to
a question. " It's no possible," he repeated be-
seechingly.

" Wait for me here, Corp."

" I would rather come wi' you."

" Wait here I " Tommy said almost fiercely, and
he went on alone to that little window. It had
needed an effort to make him look in when he
was here before, and it needed a bigger effort now.
But he looked.

What light there was came from the fire, and
whether she had gathered the logs or found them
in the room no one ever knew. A vagrant stated
afterwards that he had been in the house some
days before and left his match-box in it.

208



THE LITTLE GODS DESERT HIM

By this fire Grizel was crouching. She was
comparatively tidy and neat again; the dust was
gone from her boots, even. How she had managed
to do it no one knows, but you remember how she
loved to be neat. Her hands were extended to
the blaze, and she was busy talking to herself.

His hand struck the window heavily, and she
looked up and saw him. She nodded, and put her
finger to her lips as a sign that he must be cau-
tious. She had often, in the long ago, seen her
mother signing thus to an imaginary face at the
window — the face of the man who never came.

Tommy went into the house, and she was so
pleased to see him that she quite simpered. He
put his arms round her, and she lay there with a
little giggle of contentment. She was in a plot
of heat.

" Grizel ! Oh, my God I " he said, " why do you
look at me in that way'? "

She passed her hand across her eyes, like one
trying to think.

" I woke up," she said at last. Corp appeared
at the window now, and she pointed to him in
terror. Thus had she seen her m.other point, in
the long ago, at faces that came there to frighten
hen

" Grizel," Tommy entreated her, " you know
who I am, don't you "? "

She said his name at once, but her eyes were on
209



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

the window. " They want to take me away," she
whispered.

" But you must come away, Grizel. You must
come home."

" This is home," she said. " It is sweet."
After much coaxing, he prevailed upon her to
leave. With his arm round her, and a terrible
woe on his face, he took her to the doctor's house.
She had her hands over her ears all the way. She
thought the white river and the mountains and the
villages and the crack of whips were marching with
her still.



210



CHAPTER XXXI

" THE MAN WITH THE GREETIN' EYES "

For many days she lay in a fever at the doctor's
house, seeming sometimes to know where she was,
but more often not, and night after night a man with
a drawn face sat watching her. They entreated, they
forced him to let them take his place ; but from his
room he heard her moan or speak, or he thought
he heard her, or he heard a terrible stillness, and he
stole back to listen; they miight send him away,
but when they opened the door he was there, with
his drawn face. And often they were glad to see
him, for there were times when he alone could
interpret her wild demands and soothe those staring
eyes.

Once a scream startled the house. Someone had
struck a match in the darkened chamber, and she
thought she was in an arbour in St. Gian. They
had to hold her in her bed by force at times ; she
had such a long way to walk before night, she
said.

She would struggle into a sitting posture and
put her hands over her ears.

21 1



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

Her great desire was not to sleep. " I should
wake up," she explained fearfully.

She took a dislike to Elspeth, and called her
" Alice."

These ravings, they said to each other, must
have reference to what happened to her when she
was away, and as they thought he knew no more
of her wanderings than they, everyone marvelled
at the intuition with which he read her thoughts.
It was he who guessed that the striking of matches
somehow terrified her; he who discovered that it
was a horrid roaring river she thought she heard,
and he pretended he heard it too, and persuaded
her that if she lay very still it would run past.
Nothing she said or did puzzled him. He read
the raving of her mind, they declared admiringly,
as if he held the cipher to it

"And the cipher is his love," Mrs. McLean
said, with wet eyes. In the excitement of those
days Elspeth talked much to her of Tommy's love
for Grizel, and how she had refused him, and it
went round the town with embellishments. It
was generally believed now that she really had
gone to London to see her father, and that his
heartless behaviour had unhinged her mind.

By David's advice, Corp and Gavinia did not
contradict this story. It was as good as another, he
told them, and better than the truth.

But what was the truth ? they asked greedily.

212



"THE MAN WITH THE EYES"

" Oh, that he is a noble fellow," David replied
grimly.

They knew that, but

He would tell them no more, however, though
he knew all. Tommy had made full confession
to the doctor, even made himself out worse than
he was, as had to be his way when he was not
making himself out better.

" And I am wiUing to proclaim it all from the
market-place," he said hoarsely, "if that is your
wish."

" I daresay you w^ould almost enjoy doing that,"
said David, rather cruelly.

" I daresay I should," Tommy said, with a gulp,
and went back to Grizel's side. It was not, you
may be sure, to screen him that David kept the
secret; it w^as because he knew what many would
say of Grizel if the nature of her journey were
revealed. He dared not tell Elspeth, even; for
think of the woe to her if she learned that it was
her wonderful brother who had brought Grizel to
this pass ! The Elspeths of this world always have
some man to devote himself to them. If the
Tommies pass away, the Davids spring up. For
my own part, I think Elspeth would have found
some excuse for Tommy. He said so himself to
the doctor, for he wanted her to be told.

"Or you would find the excuse for her in time,"
David responded.

213



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

" Very likely," Tommy said. He was humble
enough now, you see. David could say one thing
only which would rouse him, namely, that Grizel
was not to die in this fever ; and for long it seemed
impossible to say that.

" Would you have her live if her mind remains
affected?" he asked; and Tommy said firmly,"Yes."

" You think, I suppose, that then you would
have less for which to blame yourself! "

" I suppose that is it. But don't waste time on
me, Gemmell, when you have her hfe to save, if
you can."

Well, her life was saved, and Tommy's nursing
had more to do with it than David's skill. David
admitted it ; the town talked of it. " I aye kent
he would find a wy," Corp said, though he had
been among the most anxious. He and Aaron
Latta were the first admitted to see her, when she
was able once more to sit in a chair. They had
been told to ask her no questions. She chatted
pleasantly to them, and they thought she was
quite her old self They wondered to see Tommy
still so sad-eyed. To Ailie she spoke freely of her
illness, though not of what had occasioned it, and
told her almost gleefully that David had promised
to let her sew a little next week. There was one
thing only that surprised Ailie. Grizel had said
that as soon as she was a little stronger she was
going home.

214



"THE MAN WITH THE EYES"

" Does she mean to her father's house *? " Ailie
asked.

This was what started the report that, touched
no doubt by her illness, Grizel's unknown father
had, after all, offered her a home. They discovered,
however, what Grizel meant by home when, one
afternoon, she escaped, unseen, from the doctor's
house, and was found again at Double Dykes,
very indignant because someone had stolen the
furniture.

She seemed to know all her old friends except
Elspeth, who was still Alice to her. Seldom now
did she put her hands over her ears, or see horrible
mountains marching with her. She no longer
remembered, save once or twice when she woke
up, that she had ever been out of Thrums. To
those who saw her casually she was Grizel — gone
thin and pale and weak intellectually, but still the
Grizel of old, except for the fixed idea that Double
Dykes was her home.

" You must not humour her in that delusion,"
David said sternly to Tommy; "when we cease
to fight it we have abandoned hope."

So the weapon he always had his hand on was
taken from Tommy, for he would not abandon
hope. He fought gallantly. It was always he
who brought her back from Double Dykes. She
would not leave it with any other person, but she
came away with him.

215



TOMMY AND GRIZEL

" It's because she's so fond o' him," Corp said.

But it was not. It was because she feared him,
as all knew who saw them together. They were
seen together a great deal when she was able to go
out. Driving seemed to bring back the mountains
to her eyes, so she walked, and it was always with
the help of Tommy's arm. " It's a most pitiful