“Who bides his time—he tastes the sweet

Of honey in the saltest tear;

And though he fares with slowest feet,

Joy runs to meet him, drawing near;

The birds are heralds of his cause,

And like a never-ending rhyme

The roadsides bloom in his applause,

Who bides his time.”

J. W. Riley.

Have you had bad news from home?” asked Ralph, taking the letter which Ivy held towards him.

“Yes,” she said, in a broken voice. “They have had to move my grandfather to the hospital.”

It was but too clear, as Ralph at once perceived from the letter, that the old Professor was never likely to recover, and that Ivy’s home had ceased to exist. The landlady wrote to demand rent, and since it was impossible to pay this, there would doubtless be a sale of the Professor’s few belongings.

And here was this pretty girl of sixteen, stranded, without a penny in her possession, in a remote Scotch town, where it was impossible to meet with an engagement.

“What am I to do?” she said, lifting her piteous eyes to his with an appeal that moved him more than he quite liked. He wished that he had not guessed her secret on the previous day, and that he could treat her once more in the matter-of-fact-elder-brotherly fashion which he had once adopted. But this was no longer possible; nay, he felt an almost irresistible longing to say to her: “I will take care of you. We will set the world at defiance, and bear our troubles together.”

Fortunately he thought of Evereld, and instantly tried to picture her in the same plight. How would he have felt towards a man who had taken advantage of her poverty and helplessness to place her in a position which must, more or less, have compromised her?

He folded the letter and gave it back.

“Don’t worry yourself more than you can help,” he said, kindly. “I will talk things over with the others, and we will manage somehow to get you back to London.”

But discussion threw very little light on the main difficulty of how to raise the necessary money. Every member of the company was desperately poor, and although Myra Kay offered to take charge of Ivy as far as London, she had only just enough money to pay for her own railway ticket. Some intended to go back to Inverness, others were setting out for Edinburgh or Glasgow, and all were grumbling loudly, and anathematising the Skoots who could scarcely have chosen a more inconvenient place than Forres for their flight.

He had counted a good deal on Dudley’s good nature; but the comedian proved the most unsatisfactory adviser of all.

“Oh don’t worry your head about Ivy Grant,” he said. “Depend upon it such a pretty girl will win her way somehow or other. It’s much more to the point what you and I are to do.”

Ralph did not stay to argue the question. Myra Kay was to leave by the next train for the south, and he was determined that somehow or other Ivy must go with her. He went up to his room, threw most of his possessions into a portmanteau, and went to try his fortune at the pawnbrokers. It was broad daylight, but he had long ago ceased to feel any shame at being reduced to such straits. He went to-day, however, with a heavy heart; for he was only too well aware that he could not hope to raise much money on the few shabby clothes, and the wigs, shoes, and such like, which had supplemented the theatrical costumes provided by Skoot. Many weeks before, his father’s watch and chain had been parted with, so that he had nothing of much value, and his spirits sank lower and lower as the pawnbroker checked off the garments one by one at terribly small prices.

In the very atmosphere of the shop there seemed something depressing; tales of sordid misery seemed woven in with the shabby rugs and carpets, the stacks of heterogeneous clothing; and tragedies seemed bound up with the workmen’s tools, the musical instruments, the relics of household furniture.

“Twenty-five shillin’s and saxpence,” said the master of the shop, “Will I be makin’ oot the teeckets?”

“What’s the price of a third single to London?” asked Ralph. “I must raise enough for that.”

“Ye canna do it, sir, not with these, it’s juist beyon’ ony man’s contrivin’. Why I’m thinkin’ the teecket to London will be a matter of twa punds.”

He appealed to his assistant.

“It’s preceesely forty-two shillin’ and saxpence,” said the young man, regarding the actor with some interest.

“There’s still the portmanteau,” said Ralph.

It was an old one of the rector’s, solid and good of its kind.

“I’ll gie ye a couple o’ shillin’s for it,” said the pawnbroker. “But ye’ll no be gettin’ to London, sir, upon twenty-seven and saxpence.”

“It must be done,” said Ralph, with a determined look which took the Scotchman’s fancy. “Make out those tickets, and I’ll be with you again in five minutes.”

“The laddie’s weel-bred,” said the old man to himself. “He’ll win his way depend on it, there’s grit in him. Yon’s none of your false French polishin’; it’s sound, good breedin’ and grit.”

Ralph, true to his word, appeared again in a few minutes carrying a Gladstone bag, an overcoat, and a mackintosh. The bag with the change of linen in it which he had hoped to keep, went for a little more than he had expected, and with the overcoat brought in enough money for the journey, and ninepence to spare. He decided not to part with the mackintosh, and gathering up his sheaf of tickets, bade the old Scotsman good-day, and went at once to the manager’s deserted rooms.

Ivy had grown tired of talking to the landlady, and being in spite of her troubles exceedingly hungry, had taken her place at the forlorn breakfast table, and was trying to find comfort in a cup of cold coffee.

“Come, that’s a good idea,” said Ralph, cheerfully. “And now I think of it, I, too, am hungry. Why should we not eat? After Mrs. Skoot’s pressing invitation it’s a clear duty!”

Ivy smiled, and began to fill his cup for him.

“What do the rest of the company think I had better do?” she asked, anxiously.

“They all agree that you had better go back to London with Miss Kay. She will not be able to take you home with her, but I’ve been thinking it over, and I’m sure your best way will be to go to my old landlady Mrs. Dan Doolan. She is the soul of good-nature and as long as they have a crust in the house they will share it with you.”

“But I don’t know them, and I can’t go and beg,” said Ivy, with an air of distaste.

“I will write a letter to them which will explain everything,” said Ralph. “They are good, trustworthy people who will see that no harm happens to you; they will, I daresay, house you while you look for another engagement.”

“How am I to get the money for my ticket?”

“I will see to that for you.”

“But you have no money?”

“Are you so sure of that?” said Ralph, smiling as he rattled the coins in his pocket cheerfully.

The girl’s face brightened. “You have enough for both of us?”

“I am going to stay in Scotland. I shall keep enough to get along with, you needn’t be anxious.”

But this was quite too much for Ivy, she hid her face and burst into tears.

“I can’t go alone,” she sobbed. “I won’t take your money, and leave you behind in this horrid place. Oh, please, please let us stay together.”

For a minute he wavered—the sight of her tears was almost more than he could endure; the sunshine streaming in through the uncurtained window turned her brown hair to gold, and revealed in a way that half-dazzled him the wonderful grace of every line of her figure. With an effort, he turned away, and began doggedly to pace the room till he recovered himself, and, with that instinct for straightforward dealing which always characterised him, frankly answered her suggestion.

“That would never do: you will see if you think for a minute. You are no longer a child, and people would say horrible things about you.”

“But you always say we are not to trouble about slanders. You don’t like conventional people, and yet here you would have me made miserable, for fear unkind tongues should talk.”

“We can’t throw aside all conventions,” said Ralph; “many of them are good and useful in their way. Are you and I so superhuman that we can afford to do without all safeguards? I know you think me hard-hearted, but some day you’ll thank me for persuading you to go with Miss Kay.”

Ivy shook her head. “It’s because you don’t really like me; you mean to be kind, just kind and nothing more. I hate your kindness!”

All the grief and love and passion that was pent up in her heart seemed to break loose into this wild, little speech.

Ralph began to pace the room again, he understood her only too well, and he was sorely perplexed as to what he should do. At last he came to the somewhat original determination to treat her as he would have liked in her place to be treated. He sat down by her, and said quietly:

“We are all of us unhinged this morning, but I want you, Ivy, to try and see things as they really are. I’m going to tell you what not another soul in the world knows, for it will help you to see how we stand. I have a friend in England who is as yet only my friend, but I’m presumptuous enough to dream—to hope that some day she will be my wife.”

“Then very naturally you can’t care much what happens to other girls,” said Ivy, perversely.

“I care a hundred times more,” said Ralph. “It is just through her that I have learnt to reverence all women. Were she in your plight up here in Forres should I not think any man a brute who risked her good name, who didn’t do his utmost to shield her and help her unselfishly?”

Ivy did not reply; her wistful blue eyes were fixed on his now with the questioning look of a child who is trying to grasp some quite new idea. She had seen all through her precocious childhood and girlhood a great deal that called itself love, but was only selfishness and animal passion, and now through her sorrow and disappointment she was beginning faintly to perceive another kind of love altogether, a love that was divine and ennobling. It was just a far-away glimpse such as she had gained of the landscape one day, when, in spite of cloudy weather, they had climbed Moncrieffe Hill, and as the mist every now and then cleared off for a few minutes, they had seen the sun shining on lovely scenery far far in the distance. She had the same sense now that the glimpse of love she had gained was real and true, and that the mist was a mere passing discomfort.

“I am sorry I was angry,” she exclaimed. “I don’t mean what I said, then. I like you to be my friend and to help me—at least if it’s right for me to let you.”

“Of course it’s right,” said Ralph. “Didn’t your grandfather trust me to take you down to Scotland and place you with Mrs. Skoot? I owe it to him since she has deserted you, to see you safely back in London, and I will write a line at once to Mrs. Dan Doolan explaining things.”

“Thank you,” she said, in a sad, meek little voice. And as he began to write, her little, sensible, managing ways came back to her and she began to cut thick slices of bread and butter and wrap them up for the journey. She then consoled the landlady with her travelling trunk, packed her few possessions into the smallest compass possible, and by the time Myra Kay called for her, was waiting ready dressed, looking, indeed, very pale, but with an air of determination about her firm little mouth which Ralph could not help admiring.

There was a great bustle of departure, but when he had posted his letters and had taken Ivy’s ticket and stood alone outside the railway carriage with nothing more to do, a sense of loneliness began to steal over him. For the first time it occurred to any one to ask what plans he had made for himself.

“Where are you going, Mr. Denmead?” said Myra Kay.

“I’m going to take a walking tour,” said Ralph, lightly; “probably I shall work my way down to Glasgow, and try for an engagement there. By-the-bye, where is Macneillie’s Company now?”

“Just dispersed,” said Myra, cheerfully, as she reflected that her lover would be in London to meet her. “Macneillie generally winds up soon after Whitsuntide and starts again at the beginning of August. He has promised to take me on again then.”

“If he has an opening you might say a word for me,” said Ralph, “and Ivy, let me have a line to say how you get on. I shall have to call for letters at the Stirling post-office, for I hope to hear of an engagement by that time.”

Just at that moment he was hailed by a familiar voice from a smoking carriage, and looking round he saw Dudley leaning out of the window.

“So you are off to the south, too!” he said. “Lucky fellow, how did you manage it?”

The train had already begun to move, but the comedian with a beaming face still leant out of the window describing to the last moment the extraordinary run of luck he had had at billiards.

“Go and play the same game,” he counselled; “it’s the only way to raise the wind. Good-bye, my boy! Meet again in better times.”

He waved his hand cheerfully and was borne away, but the thing which lingered longest in Ralph’s sight was Ivy’s wistful, little face, as to the very last she gazed back at him.