For the first time in his life he was driven to go over the events that had occurred since his marriage, and to ask himself how it had all come about that Sheila and he were not as they once had been. He recalled the early days of their friendship at Borva; the beautiful period of their courtship; the appearance of the young wife in London, and the close relegation of Sheila to the domestic affairs of the house, while he had chosen for himself other companions, other interests, other aims. There was no attempt at self-justification in those communings, but an effort, sincere enough in its way, to understand how all this had happened. He sat and dreamed there before the warmth of the fire, with the slow and monotonous ticking of the clock unconsciously acting on his brain. In time the silence, the warmth, the monotonous sound produced their natural effects, and he fell fast asleep.

He awoke with a start. The small silver-toned bell on the mantelpiece had struck the hour of twelve. He looked around, and knew that the evil had come upon him, for Sheila had not returned, and all his most dreadful fears of that evening were confirmed. Sheila had gone away and left him. Whither had she gone?

Now there was no more indecision in his actions. He got his hat, plunged into the cold night air, and, finding a hansom, bade the man drive as hard as he could go down to Sloane street. There was a light in Ingram's windows, which were on the ground floor: he tapped with his stick on one of the panes—an old signal that had been in constant use when he and Ingram were close companions and friends. Ingram came to the door and opened it: the light of a lamp glared in on his face. "Hillo, Lavender!" he said in a tone of surprise.

The other could not speak, but he went into the house, and Ingram, shutting the door and following him, found that the man's face was deadly pale.

"Sheila—" he said, and stopped.

"Well, what about her?" said Ingram, keeping quite calm, but with wild fancies about some terrible accident almost stopping the pulsation of his heart.

"Sheila has gone away."

Ingram did not seem to understand.

"Sheila has gone away, Ingram," said Lavender in an excited way. "You don't know anything about it? You don't know where she has gone? What am I to do, Ingram? how am I to find her? Good God! don't you understand what I tell you? And now it is past midnight, and my poor girl may be wandering about the streets!"

He was walking up and down the room, paying almost no attention, in his excitement, to the small, sallow-faced man who stood quite quiet, a trifle afraid, perhaps, but with his heart full of a blaze of anger.

"She has gone away from your house?" he said slowly. "What made her do that?"

"I did," said Lavender in a hurried way. "I have acted like a brute to her—that is true enough. You needn't say anything to me, Ingram: I feel myself far more guilty than anything you could say. You may heap reproaches on me afterward, but tell me. Ingram, what am I to do? You know what a proud spirit she has: who can tell what she might do? She wouldn't go home—she would be too proud: she may have gone and drowned herself."

"If you don't control yourself and tell me what has happened, how am I to help you?" said Ingram stiffly, and yet disposed somehow—perhaps for the sake of Sheila, perhaps because he saw that the young man's self-embarrassment and distress were genuine enough—not to be too rough with him.

"Well, you know, Mairi—" said Lavender, still walking up and down the room in an excited way. "Sheila had got the girl up here without telling me, some friends of mine were coming home to luncheon, we had some disagreement about Mairi being present, and then Sheila said something about not remaining in the house if Mairi did not: something of that sort. I don't know what it was, but I know it was all my fault, and if she has been driven from the house, I did it: that is true enough. And where do you think she has gone, Ingram? If I could only see her for three minutes I would explain everything: I would tell her how sorry I am for everything that has happened, and she would see, when she went back, how everything would be right again. I had no idea she would go away. It was mere peevishness that made me object to Mairi meeting those people; and I had no idea that Sheila would take it so much to heart. Now tell me what you think should be done, Ingram. All I want is to see her just for three minutes to tell her it was all a mistake, and that she will never have to fear anything like that again."

Ingram heard him out, and said with some precision, "Do you mean to say that you fancy all this trouble is to be got over that way? Do you know so little of Sheila, after the time you have been married to her, as to imagine that she has taken this step out of some momentary caprice, and that a few words of apology and promise will cause her to rescind it? You must be crazed, Lavender, or else you are actually as ignorant of the nature of that girl as you were up in the Highlands."

The young man seemed to calm down his excitement and impatience, but it was because of a new fear that had struck him, and that was visible in his face. "Do you think she will never come back, Ingram?" he said, looking aghast.

"I don't know: she may not. At all events, you may be quite sure that, once having resolved to leave your house, she is not to be pacified and cajoled by a few phrases and a promise of repentance on your part. That is quite sure. And what is quite as sure is this, that if you knew just now where she was, the most foolish thing you could do would be to go and see her."

"But I must go and see her—I must find her out, Ingram," he said passionately. "I don't care what becomes of me. If she won't go back home, so much the worse for me; but I must find her out, and know that she is safe. Think of it, Ingram! Perhaps she is walking about the streets somewhere at this moment; and you know her proud spirit. If she were to go near the river—"

"She won't go near the river," said Ingram quietly, "and she won't be walking about the streets. She is either in the Scotch mail-train, going up to Glasgow, or else she has got some lodgings somewhere, along with Mairi. Has she any money?"

"No," said Lavender. And then he thought for a minute. "There was some money her father gave her in case she might want it at a pinch: she may have that—I hope she has that. I was to have given her money to-morrow morning. But hadn't I better go to the police-stations, and see, just by way of precaution, that she has not been heard of? I may as well do that as nothing. I could not go home to that empty house—I could not sleep."

"Sheila is a sensible girl: she is safe enough," said Ingram. "And if you don't care about going home, you may as well remain here. I can give you a room up stairs when you want it. In the mean time, if you will pull a chair to the table and calm yourself, and take it for granted that you will soon be assured of Sheila's safety, I will tell you what I think you should do. Here is a cigar to keep you occupied: there are whisky and cold water back there if you like. You will do no good by punishing yourself in small matters, for your trouble is likely to be serious enough, I can tell you, before you get Sheila back, if ever you get her back. Take the chair with the cushion."

It was so like the old days when these two used to be companions! Many and many a time had the younger man come down to these lodgings, with all his troubles and wild impulses and pangs of contrition ready to be revealed; and then Ingram, concealing the liking he had for the lad's generous waywardness, his brilliant and facile cleverness and his dashes of honest self-depreciation, would gravely lecture him and put him right and send him off comforted. Frank Lavender had changed much since then. The handsome boy had grown into a man of the world; there was less self-revelation in his manner, and he was less sensitive to the opinions and criticisms of his old friend; but Ingram, who was not prone to idealism of any sort, had never ceased to believe that this change was but superficial, and that, in different circumstances and with different aims, Lavender might still fulfill the best promise of his youth.

"You have been a good friend to me, Ingram," he said with a hot blush, "and I have treated you as badly as I have treated—By Jove! what a chance I had at one time!"

He was looking back on all the fair pictures his imagination had drawn while yet Sheila and he were wandering about that island in the northern seas.

"You had," said Ingram decisively. "At one time I thought you the most fortunate man in the world. There was nothing left for you to desire, so far as I could see. You were young and strong, with plenty of good spirits and sufficient ability to earn yourself an honorable living, and you had won the love of the most beautiful and best-hearted woman I have known. You never seemed to me to know what that meant. Men marry women—there is no difficulty about that—and you can generally get an amiable sort of person to become your wife and have a sort of affection for you, and so on. But how many have bestowed on them the pure and exalted passion of a young and innocent girl, who is ready to worship with all the fervor of a warmly imaginative and emotional nature the man she has chosen to love? And suppose he is young too, and capable of understanding all the tender sentiments of a high-spirited, sensitive and loyal woman, and suppose that he fancies himself as much in love with her as she with him? These conditions are not often fulfilled, I can tell you. It is a happy fluke when they are. Many a day ago I told you that you should consider yourself more fortunate than if you had been made an emperor; and indeed it seemed to me that you had everything in the shape of worldly happiness easily within your reach. How you came to kick away the ball from your feet—Well, God only knows. The thing is inconceivable to me. You are sitting here as you used to sit two or three years ago, and in the interval you have had every chance in life; and now if you are not the most wretched man in London, you ought at least to be the most ashamed and repentant."

Lavender's head was buried in his hands: he did not speak.

"And it is not only your own happiness you have destroyed. When you saw that girl first she was as lighthearted and contented with her lot as any human being could be. From one week's end to the other not the slightest care disturbed her mind. And then, when she entrusted her whole life to you—when she staked her faith in human nature on you, and gave you all the treasures of hope and reverence and love that lay in her pure and innocent soul—my God! what have you done with these? It is not that you have shamed and insulted her as a wife, and driven her out of her home—there are other homes than yours where she would be welcome a thousand times over—but you have destroyed her belief in everything she had taught herself to trust, you have outraged the tenderest sentiments of her heart, you have killed her faith as well as ruined her life. I talk plainly: I cannot do otherwise. If I help you now, don't imagine I condone what you have done: I would cut my right hand off first. For Sheila's sake I will try to help you."

He stopped just then, however, and checked the indignation that had got the better of his ordinarily restrained manner and curt speech. The man before him was crying bitterly, his face hidden in his hands.

"Look here, Lavender," he said presently: "I don't want to be hard on you. I tell you plainly what I think of your conduct, so that no delusions may exist between us. And I will say this for you, that the only excuse you have—"

"There is no excuse," said the other, sadly enough. "I have no excuse, and I know it."

"The only thing, then, you can say in mitigation of what you have done is that you never seem to have understood the girl whom you married. You started with giving her a fancy character when first you went to the Lewis, and once you had got the bit in your teeth there was no stopping you. If you seek now to get Sheila back to you, the best thing you can do, I presume, would be to try to see her as she is, to win her regard that way, to abandon that operatic business, and learn to know her as a thoroughly good woman, who has her own ways and notions about things, and who has a very definite character underlying that extreme gentleness which she fancies to be one of her duties. The child did her dead best to accommodate herself to your idea of her, and failed. When she would rather have been living a brisk and active life in the country or by the seaside, running wild about a hillside, or reading strange stories in the evening, or nursing some fisherman's child that had got ill, you had her dragged into a sort of society with which she had no sympathy whatever. And the odd thing to me is that you yourself seemed to be making an effort that way. You did not always devote yourself to fashionable life. Where are all the old ambitions you used to talk about in the very chair you are now sitting in?"

"Is there any hope of my getting Sheila back?" he said, looking up at last. There was a vague and bewildered look in his eyes. He seemed incapable of thinking of anything but that.

"I don't know," said Ingram. "But one thing is certain: you will never get her back to repeat the experiment that has just ended in this desperate way."

"I should not ask that," he said hurriedly—"I should not ask that at all. If I could but see her for a moment, I would ask her to tell me everything she wanted, everything she demanded as conditions, and I would obey her. I will promise to do everything that she wishes."

"If you saw her you could give her nothing but promises," said Ingram. "Now, what if you were to try to do what you know she wishes, and then go to her?"

"You mean—" said Lavender, glancing up with another startled look on his face. "You don't mean that I am to remain away from her a long time—go into banishment as it were—and then some day come back to Sheila and beg her to forget all that happened long before?"

"I mean something very like that," said Ingram with composure. "I don't know that it would be successful. I have no means of ascertaining what Sheila would think of such a project—whether she would think that she could ever live with you again."

Lavender seemed fairly stunned by the possibility of Sheila's resolving never to see him again; and began to recall what Ingram had many a time said about the strength of purpose she could show when occasion needed.

"If her faith in you is wholly destroyed, your case is hopeless. A woman may cling to her belief in a man through good report and evil report, but if she once loses it she never recovers it. But there is this hope for you: I know very well that Sheila had a much more accurate notion of you than ever you had of her; and I happen to know, also, that at the very time when you were most deeply distressing her here in London she held the firm conviction that your conduct toward her—your habits, your very self—would alter if you could only be persuaded to get out of the life you have been leading. That was true, at least, up to the time of your leaving Brighton. She believed in you then. She believed that if you were to cut society altogether, and go and live a useful and hardworking life somewhere, you would soon become once more the man she fell in love with up in Lewis. Perhaps she was mistaken: I don't say anything about it myself."

The terribly cool way in which Ingram talked—separating, defining, exhibiting, so that he and his companion should get as near as possible to what he believed to be the truth of the situation—was oddly in contrast with the blind and passionate yearning of the other for some glimpse of hope. His whole nature seemed to go out in a cry to Sheila that she would come back and give him a chance of atoning for the past. At length he rose. He looked strangely haggard, and his eyes scarcely seemed to see the things around him. "I must go home," he said.

Ingram saw that he merely wanted to get outside and walk about in order to find some relief from this anxiety and unrest, and said, "You ought, I think, to stop here and go to bed. But if you would rather go home, I will walk up with you if you like."

When the two men went out the night-air smelt sweet and moist, for rain had fallen, and the city trees were still dripping with the wet and rustling in the wind. The weather had changed suddenly, and now, in the deep blue overhead, they knew the clouds were passing swiftly by. Was it the coming light of the morning that seemed to give depth and richness to that dark-blue vault, while the pavements of the streets and the houses grew vaguely distinct and gray? Suddenly, in turning the corner into Piccadilly, they saw the moon appear in a rift of those passing clouds, but it was not the moonlight that shed this pale and wan grayness down the lonely streets. It is just at this moment, when the dawn of the new day begins to tell, that a great city seems at its deadest; and in the profound silence and amid the strange transformations of the cold and growing light a man is thrown in upon himself, and holds communion with himself, as though he and his own thoughts were all that was left in the world. Not a word passed between the two men, and Lavender, keenly sensitive to all such impressions, and now and again shivering slightly, either from cold or nervous excitement, walked blindly along the deserted streets, seeing far other things than the tall houses and the drooping trees and the growing light of the sky.

It seemed to him at this moment that he was looking at Sheila's funeral. There was a great stillness in that small house at Borvabost. There was a boat—Sheila's own boat—down at the shore there, and there were two or three figures in black in it. The day was gray and rainy; the sea washed along the melancholy shores; the far hills were hidden in mist. And now he saw some people come out of the house into the rain, and the bronzed and bearded men had oars with them, and on the crossed oars there was a coffin placed. They went down the hillside. They put the coffin in the stern of the boat, and in absolute silence, except for the wailing of the women, they pulled away down the dreary Loch Roag till they came to the island where the burial-ground is. They carried the coffin up to that small enclosure, with its rank grass growing green and the rain falling on the rude stones and memorials. How often had he leaned on that low stone wall, and read the strange inscriptions in various tongues over the graves of mariners from distant countries who had met with their death on this rocky coast! Had not Sheila herself pointed out to him, with a sad air, how many of these memorials bore the words "who was drowned;" and that, too, was the burden of the rudely-spelt legends beginning "Hier rutt in Gott," or "Her under hviler stovit," and sometimes ending with the pathetic "Wunderschen ist unsre Hoffnung." The fishermen brought the coffin to the newly-made grave, the women standing back a bit, old Scarlett MacDonald stroking Mairi's hair and bidding the girl control her frantic grief, though the old woman herself could hardly speak for her tears and her lamentations. He could read the words "Sheila Mackenzie" on the small silver plate: she had been taken away from all association with him and his name. And who was this old man with the white hair and the white beard, whose hands were tightly clenched, and his lips firm, and a look as of death in the sunken and wild eyes? Mackenzie was gray a year before—

"Ingram," he said suddenly, and his voice startled his companion, "do you think it is possible to make Sheila happy again?"

"How can I tell?" said Ingram.

"You used to know everything she could wish—everything she was thinking about. If you find her out now, will you get to know? Will you see what I can do—not by asking her to come back, not by trying to get back my own happiness, but anything, it does not matter what it is, I can do for her? If she would rather not see me again, I will stay away. Will you ask her, Ingram?"

"We have got to find her first," said his companion.

"A young girl like that," said Lavender, taking no heed of the objection, "surely she cannot always be unhappy. She is so young and beautiful, and takes so much interest in many things: surely she may have a happy life."

"She might have had."

"I don't mean with me," said Lavender, with his haggard face looking still more haggard in the increasing light. "I mean anything that can be done—any way of life that will make her comfortable and contented again—anything that I can do for that. Will you try to find it out, Ingram?"

"Oh yes, I will," said the other, who had been thinking with much foreboding of all these possibilities ever since they left Sloane street, his only gleam of hope being a consciousness that this time at least there could be no doubt of Frank Lavender's absolute sincerity, of his remorse, and his almost morbid craving to make reparation if that were still possible.

They reached the house at last. There was a dim orange-colored light shining in the passage. Lavender went on and threw open the door of the small room which Sheila had adorned, asking Ingram to follow him. How wild and strange this chamber looked, with the wan glare of the dawn shining in on its barbaric decorations from the sea-coast—on the shells and skins and feathers that Sheila had placed around! That white light of the morning was now shining everywhere into the silent and desolate house. Lavender found Ingram a bedroom, and then he turned away, not knowing what to do. He looked into Sheila's room: there were dresses, bits of finery and what not that he knew so well, but there was no light breathing audible in the silent and empty chamber. He shut the door as reverently as though he were shutting it on the dead, and went down stairs and threw himself almost fainting with despair and fatigue on a sofa, while the world outside awoke to a new day with all its countless and joyous activities and duties.

CHAPTER XX.

A SURPRISE.

There was no letter from Sheila in the morning; and Lavender, so soon as the post had come and gone, went up to Ingram's room and woke him. "I am sorry to disturb you, Ingram," he said, "but I am going to Lewis. I shall catch the train to Glasgow at ten."

"And what do you want to get to Lewis for?" said Ingram, starting up. "Do you think Sheila would go straight back to her own people with all this humiliation upon her? And supposing she is not there, how do you propose to meet old Mackenzie?"

"I am not afraid of meeting any man," said Lavender: "I want to know where Sheila is. And if I see Mackenzie, I can only tell him frankly everything that has happened. He is not likely to say anything of me half as bad as what I think of myself."

"Now listen," said Ingram, sitting up in bed, with his brown beard and grayish hair in a considerably disheveled condition: "Sheila may have gone home, but it isn't likely. If she has not, your taking the story up there and spreading it abroad would prepare a great deal of pain for her when she might go back at some future time. But suppose you want to make sure that she has not gone to her father's house. She could not have got down to Glasgow sooner than this morning by last night's train, you know. It is to-morrow morning, not this morning, that the Stornoway steamer starts; and she would be certain to go direct to it at the Glasgow Broomielaw, and go round the Mull of Cantyre, instead of catching it up at Oban, because she knows the people in the boat, and she and Mairi would be among friends. If you really want to know whether she has gone north, perhaps you could do no better than run down to Glasgow to-day, and have a look at the boat that starts to-morrow morning. I would go with you myself, but I can't escape the office to-day."

Lavender agreed to do this, and was about to go. But before he bade his friend good-bye he lingered for a second or two in a hesitating way, and then he said, "Ingram, you were speaking the other night of your going up to Borva. If you should go—"

"Of course I sha'n't go," said the other promptly. "How could I face Mackenzie when he began to ask me about Sheila? No, I cannot go to Borva while this affair remains in its present condition; and, indeed, Lavender, I mean to stop in London till I see you out of your trouble somehow."

"You are heaping coals of fire on my head."

"Oh, don't look at it that way. If I can be of any help to you, I shall expect, this time, to have a return for it."

"What do you mean?"

"I will tell you when we get to know something of Sheila's intentions."

And so Frank Lavender found himself once more, as in the old times, in the Euston Station, with the Scotch mail ready to start, and all manner of folks bustling about with that unnecessary activity which betokens the excitement of a holiday. What a strange holiday was his! He got into a smoking-carriage in order to be alone, and he looked out on the people who were bidding their friends good-bye. Some of them were not very pretty, many of them were ordinary, insignificant, commonplace-looking folks, but it was clear that they had those about them who loved them and thought much of them. There was one man whom, in other circumstances, Lavender would have dismissed with contempt as an excellent specimen of the unmitigated cad. He wore a white waistcoat, purple gloves and a green sailor's knot with a diamond in it, and there was a cheery, vacuous, smiling expression on his round face as he industriously smoked a cheroot and made small jokes to the friends who had come to see him off. One of them was a young woman, not very good looking perhaps, who did not join in the general hilarity; and it occurred to Lavender that the jovial man with the cheroot was perhaps cracking his little jokes to keep up her spirits. At all events, he called her "my good lass" from time to time, and patted her on the shoulder, and was very kind to her. And when the guard came up and bade everybody get in, the man kissed the girl and shook hands with her and bade her good-bye; and then she, moved by some sudden impulse, caught his face in both her hands and kissed him once on each cheek. It was a ridiculous scene. People who wear green ties with diamond pins care nothing for decorum. And yet Lavender, when he averted his eyes from this parting, could not help recalling what Ingram had been saying the night before, and wondered whether this outrageous person, with his abominable decorations and his genial grin, might not be more fortunate than many a great statesman or warrior or monarch.

He turned round to find the cad beside him; and presently the man, with an abounding good-nature, began to converse with him, and explained that it was 'igh 'oliday with him, for that he had got a pass to travel first-class as far as Carlisle. He hoped they would have a jolly time of it together. He explained the object of his journey in the frankest possible fashion, made a kindly little joke upon the hardship of parting with one's sweetheart, said that a faint heart never won fair lady, and that it was no good crying over spilt milk. She would be all right, and precious glad to see him when he came back in three weeks' time, and he meant to bring her a present that would be good for sore eyes.

"Perhaps you're a married man, sir, and got past all them games?" said the cad cheerily.

"Yes, I am married," said Lavender coldly.

"And you're going farther than Carlisle, you say, sir? I'll be sworn the good lady is up somewhere in that direction, and she won't be disappointed when she sees you—oh no! Scotch, sir?"

"I am not Scotch," said Lavender curtly.

"And she?"

Should he have to throw the man out of the window? "Yes."

"The Scotch are a strange race—very," said the genial person, producing a brandy flask. "They drink a trifle, don't they? and yet they keep their wits about them if you've dealings with them. A very strange race of people, in my opinion—very. Know the story of the master who fancied his man was drunk? 'Donald, you're trunk,' says he. 'It's a tam lee,' says Donald. 'Donald, ye ken ye're trunk,' says the master. 'Ah ken ah wish to Kott ah was!' says Donald. Good story, ain't it, sir?"

Lavender had heard the remarkable old joke a hundred times, but just at this moment there was something odd in this vulgar person suddenly imitating, and imitating very well, the Highland accent. Had he been away up in the North? or had he merely heard the story related by one who had been? Lavender dared not ask, however, for fear of prolonging a conversation in which he had no wish to join. Indeed, to get rid of the man, he shoved a whole bundle of the morning papers into his hands.

"What's your opinion of politics at present, sir?" observed his friend in an off-hand way.

"I haven't any," said Lavender, compelled to take back one of the newspapers and open it.

"I think, myself, they're in a bad state: that's my opinion. There ain't a man among 'em who knows how to keep down those people: that's my opinion, sir. What do you think?"

"Oh, I think so too," said Lavender. "You'll find a good article in that paper on University Tests."

The cheery person looked rather blank. "I would like to hear your opinion about 'em, sir," he said. "It ain't much good reading only one side of a question, but when you can talk about it and discuss it, now—"

"I am sorry I can't oblige you," said Lavender, goaded into making some desperate effort to release himself. "I am suffering from relaxed throat at present. My doctor has warned me against talking too much."

"I beg your pardon, sir. You don't seem very well: perhaps the throat comes with a little feverishness, you see—a cold, in fact. Now if I was you I'd try tannin lozenges for the throat. They're uncommon good for the throat; and a little quinine for the general system—that would put you as right as a fiver. I tried it myself when I was down in 'Ampshire last year. And you wouldn't find a drop of this brandy a bad thing, either, if you don't mind rowing in the same boat as myself."

Lavender declined the proffered flask and subsided behind a newspaper. His fellow-traveler lit another cheroot, took up Bradshaw and settled himself in a corner.

Had Sheila come up this very line some dozen hours before? Lavender asked himself as he looked out on the hills and valleys and woods of Buckinghamshire. Had the throbbing of the engine and the rattle of the wheels kept the piteous eyes awake all through the dark night, until the pale dawn showed the girl a wild vision of northern hills and moors, telling her she was getting near to her own country? Not thus had Sheila proposed to herself to return home on the first holiday-time that should occur to them both. He began to think of his present journey as it might have been in other circumstances. Would she have remembered any of those pretty villages which she saw one early morning long ago when they were bathed in sunshine and scarcely awake to the new day? Would she be impatient at the delays at the stations, and anxious to hurry on to Westmoreland and Dumfries, to Glasgow, and Oban, and Skye, and then from Stornoway across the island to the little inn at Garra-na-hina? Here, as he looked out of the window, the first indication of the wilder country became visible in the distant Berkshire hills. Close at hand the country lay green and bright under a brilliant sun, but over there in the east some heavy clouds darkened the landscape, and the far hills seemed to be placed amid a gloomy stretch of moorland. Would not Sheila have been thrilled by this glimpse of the coming North? She would have fancied that greater mountains lay far behind these rounded slopes hidden in mist. She would have imagined that no human habitations were near those rising plains of sombre hue, where the red-deer and the fox ought to dwell. And in her delight at getting away from the fancied brightness of the South, would she not have been exceptionally grateful and affectionate toward himself, and striven to please him with her tender ways?

It was not a cheerful journey, this lonely trip to the North. Lavender got to Glasgow that night, and next morning he went down, long before any passengers could have thought of arriving, to the Clansman. He did not go near the big steamer, for he was known to the captain and the steward, but he hung about the quays, watching each person who went on board. Sheila certainly was not among the passengers by the Clansman.

But she might have gone to Greenock and waited for the steamer there. Accordingly, after the Clansman had started on her voyage, he went into a neighboring hotel and had some breakfast, after which he crossed the bridge to the station and took rail for Greenock, where he arrived some time before the Clansman made her appearance. He went down to the quay. It was yet early morning, and a cool fresh breeze was blowing in across the broad waters of the Frith, where the sunlight was shining on the white sails of the yachts and on the dipping and screaming sea gulls. Far away beyond the pale blue mountains opposite lay the wonderful network of sea-loch and island through which one had to pass to get to the distant Lewis. How gladly at this moment would he have stepped on board the steamer with Sheila, and put out on that gleaming plain of sea, knowing that by and by they would sail into Stornoway harbor and find the wagonette there! They would not hasten the voyage. She had never been round the Mull of Cantyre, and so he would sit by her side and show her the wild tides meeting there, and the long jets of white foam shooting up the great wall of rock. He would show her the pale coast of Ireland; and then they would see Islay, of which she had many a ballad and story. They would go through the narrow sound that is overlooked by the gloomy mountains of Jura. They would see the distant islands where the chief of Colonsay is still mourned for on the still evenings by the hapless mermaiden, who sings her wild song across the sea. They would keep wide of the dangerous currents of Corryvreckan, and by and by they would sail into the harbor of Oban, the beautiful sea-town where Sheila first got a notion of the greatness of the world lying outside of her native island.

What if she were to come down now from this busy little seaport, which lay under a pale blue smoke, and come out upon this pier to meet the free sunlight and the fresh sea-air blowing all about? Surely at a great distance he could recognize the proud, light step, and the proud, sad face. Would she speak to him, or go past him, with firm lips and piteous eyes, to wait for the great steamer that was now coming along out of the eastern mist? Lavender glanced vaguely around the quays and the thoroughfares leading to them, but there was no one like Sheila there. In the distance he could hear the throbbing of the Clansman's engines as the big steamer came on through the white plain. The sun was warmer now on the bright waters of the Frith, and the distant haze over the pale blue mountains beyond had grown more luminous. Small boats went by, and here and there a yachtsman, scarlet-capped and in white costume, was taking a leisurely breakfast on his deck. The sea-gulls circled about, or dipped down on the waters, or chased each other with screams and cries. Then the Clansman sailed into the quay, and there was a flinging of ropes and general hurry and bustle, while people came crowding round the gangways, calling out to each other in every variety of dialect and accent.

Sheila was not there. He lingered about, and patiently waited for the starting of the steamer, not knowing how long she ordinarily remained at Greenock. He was in no hurry, indeed, for after the vessel had gone he found himself with a whole day before him, and with no fixed notion as to how it could be passed.

In other circumstances he would have been in no difficulty as to the spending of a bright forenoon and afternoon by the side of the sea. Or he could have run through to Edinburgh and called on some artist-friends there. Or he could have crossed the Frith and had a day's ramble among the mountains. But now that he was satisfied that Sheila had not gone home all his fancies and hopes went back to London. She was in London. And while he was glad that she had not gone straight to her own people with a revelation of her wrongs, he scarcely dared speculate on what adventures and experiences might have befallen those two girls turned out into a great city of which they were about equally ignorant.

The day passed somehow, and at night he was on his way to London. Next morning he went down to Whitehall and saw Ingram.

"Sheila has not gone back to the Highlands, so far as I can make out," he said.

"So much the better," was the answer.

"What am I to do? She must be in London, and who knows what may befall her?"

"I cannot tell you what you should do. Of course you would like to know where she is; and I fancy she would have no objection herself to letting you know that she was all right, so long as she knew that you would not go near her. I don't think she has taken so decided a step merely for the purpose of being coaxed back again: that is not Sheila's way."

"I won't go near her," he said. "I only want to know that she is safe and well. I will do whatever she likes, but I must know where she is, and that she has come to no harm."

"Well," said Ingram slowly, "I was talking the matter over with Mrs. Lorraine last night—"

"Does she know?" said Lavender, wincing somewhat.

"Certainly," Ingram answered. "I did not tell her. I had promised to go up there about something quite different, when she immediately began to tell me the news. Of course it was impossible to conceal such a thing. Don't all the servants about know?"

"I don't care who knows," said Lavender moodily. "What does Mrs. Lorraine say about this affair?"

"Mrs. Lorraine says that it serves you right," said Ingram bluntly.

"Thank her very much! I like candor, especially in a fair-weather friend."

"Mrs. Lorraine is a better friend to you than you imagine," Ingram said, taking no notice of the sneer. "When she thought that your going to their house continually was annoying Sheila, she tried to put a stop to it for Sheila's sake. And now, at this very moment, she is doing her very best to find out where Sheila is; and if she succeeds she means to go and plead your cause with the girl."

"I will not have her do anything of the kind," said Lavender fiercely. "I will plead my own cause with Sheila. I will have forgiveness from Sheila herself alone—not brought to me by any intermeddling woman."

"You needn't call names," said Ingram coolly. "But I confess I think you are right; and I told Mrs. Lorraine that was what you would doubtless say. In any case, she can do no harm in trying to find out where Sheila is."

"And how does she propose to succeed? Pollaky, the 'Agony' column, placards, or a bellman? I tell you, Ingram, I won't have that woman meddle in my affairs—coming forward as a Sister of Mercy to heal the wounded, bestowing mock compassion, and laughing all the time."

"Lavender, you are beside yourself. That woman is one of the most good-natured, shrewd, clever and amiable women I have ever met. What has enraged you?"

"Bah! She has got hold of you too, has she? I tell you she is a rank impostor."

"An impostor!" said Ingram slowly. "I have heard a good many people called impostors. Did it ever occur to you that the blame of the imposture might possibly lie with the person imposed on? I have heard of people falling into the delusion that a certain modest and simple-minded man was a great politician or a great wit, although he had never claimed to be anything of the kind; and then, when they found out that in truth he was just what he had pretended to be, they called out against him as an impostor. I have heard, too, of young gentlemen accusing women of imposture whose only crime was that they did not possess qualities which they had never pretended to possess, but which the young gentlemen fancied they ought to possess. Mrs. Lorraine may be an impostor to you. I think she is a thoroughly good woman, and I know she is a very delightful companion. And if you want to know how she means to find Sheila out, I can tell you. She thinks that Sheila would probably go to a hotel, but that afterward she would try to find lodgings with some of the people whom she had got to know through her giving them assistance. Mrs. Lorraine would like to ask your servants about the women who used to come for this help. Then, she thinks, Sheila would probably get some one of these humble friends to call for her letters, for she would like to hear from her father, and she would not care to tell him that she had left your house. There is a great deal of supposition in all this, but Mrs. Lorraine is a shrewd woman, and I would trust her instinct in such matters a long way. She is quite sure that Sheila would be too proud to tell her father, and very much averse, also, to inflicting so severe a blow on him."

"But surely," Lavender said hastily, "if Sheila wishes to conceal this affair for a time, she must believe it to be only temporary? She cannot propose to make the separation final?"

"That I don't know anything about. I would advise you to go and see Mrs. Lorraine."

"I won't go and see Mrs. Lorraine."

"Now, this is unreasonable, Lavender. You begin to fancy that Sheila had some sort of dislike to Mrs. Lorraine, founded on ignorance, and straightway you think it is your duty to go and hate the woman. Whatever you may think of her, she is willing to do you a service."

"Will you go, Ingram, and take her to those servants?"

"Certainly I will, if you commission me to do so," said Ingram readily.

"I suppose they all know?"

"They do."

"And every one else?"

"I should think few of your friends would remain in ignorance of it."

"Ah, well," said Lavender, "if only I could get Sheila to overlook what is past, this once, I should not trouble my dear friends and acquaintances for their sympathy and condolence. By the time I saw them again I fancy they would have forgotten our names."

There was no doubt of the fact that the news of Sheila's flight from her husband's house had traveled very speedily round the circle of Lavender's friends, and doubtless in due time it reached the ears of his aunt. At all events, Mrs. Lavender sent a message to Ingram, asking him to come and see her. When he went he found the little, dry, hard-eyed woman in a terrible passion. She had forgotten all about Marcus Aurelius and the composure of a philosopher, and the effect of anger on the nervous system. She was bolstered up in bed, for she had had another bad fit, but she was brisk enough in her manner and fierce enough in her language.

"Mr. Ingram," she said the moment he had entered, "do you consider my nephew a beast?"

"I don't," he said.

"I do," she retorted.

"Then you are quite mistaken, Mrs. Lavender. Probably you have heard some exaggerated story of all this business. He has been very inconsiderate and thoughtless, certainly, but I don't believe he quite knew how sensitive his wife was; and he is very repentant now, and I know he will keep his promises."

"You would apologize for the devil," said the little old woman frowning.

"I would try to give him his due, at all events," said Ingram with a laugh. "I know Frank Lavender very well—I have known him for years—and I know there is good stuff in him, which may be developed in proper circumstances. After all, what is there more common than for a married man to neglect his wife? He only did unconsciously and thoughtlessly what heaps of men do deliberately."

"You are making me angry," said Mrs. Lavender in a severe voice.

"I don't think it fair to expect men to be demigods," Ingram said carelessly. "I never met any demigods myself: they don't live in my neighborhood. Perhaps if I had had some experience of a batch of them, I should be more censorious of other people. If you set up Frank for a Bayard, is it his fault or yours?"

"I am not going to be talked out of my common sense, and me on my death-bed," said the old lady impatiently, and yet with some secret hope that Ingram would go on talking and amuse her. "I won't have you say he is anything but a stupid and ungrateful boy, who married a wife far too good for him. He is worse than that—he is much worse than that; but as this may be my death-bed, I will keep a civil tongue in my head."

"I thought you didn't like his wife very much?" said Ingram.

"I am not bound to like her because I think badly of him, am I? She was not a bad sort of girl, after all—temper a little stiff, perhaps; but she was honest. It did one's eyes good to look at her bright face. Yes, she was a good sort of creature in her way. But when she ran off from him, why didn't she come to me?"

"Perhaps you never encouraged her."

"Encouragement! Where ought a married woman go to but to her husband's relatives? If she cannot stay with him, let her take the next best substitute. It was her duty to come to me."

"If Sheila had fancied it to be her duty, she would have come here at any cost."

"What do you mean, Mr. Ingram?" said Mrs. Lavender severely.

"Well, supposing she didn't like you—" he was beginning to say cautiously, when she sharply interrupted him:

"She didn't like me, eh?"

"I said nothing of the kind. I was about to say that if she had thought it her duty to come here, she would have come in any circumstances."

"She might have done worse. A young woman risks a great deal in running away from her husband's home. People will talk. Who is to make people believe just the version of the story that the husband or wife would prefer?"

"And what does Sheila care," said Ingram with a hot flush in his face, "for the belief of a lot of idle gossips and slanderers?"

"My dear Mr. Ingram," said the old lady, "you are not a woman, and you don't know the bother one has to look after one's reputation. But that is a question not likely to interest you. Let us talk of something else. Do you know why I wanted you to come and see me to-day?"

"I am sure I don't."

"I mean to leave you all my money."

He stared. She did not appear to be joking. Was it possible that her rage against her nephew had carried her to this extreme resolve?

"Oh!" he stammered, "but I won't have it, Mrs. Lavender."

"But you'll have to have it," said the little old woman severely. "You are a poor man. You could make good use of my money—better than a charity board that would starve the poor with a penny out of each shilling, and spend the other elevenpence in treating their friends to flower-shows and dinners. Do you think I mean to leave my money to such people? You shall have it. I think you would look very well driving a mail-phaeton in the Park; and I suppose you would give up your pipes and your philosophy and your bachelor walks into the country. You would marry, of course: every man is bound to make a fool of himself that way as soon as he gets enough money to do it with. But perhaps you might come across a clever and sensible woman, who would look after you and give you your own way while having her own. Only don't marry a fool. Whatever you do, don't marry a fool, or all your philosophers won't make the house bearable to you."

"I am not likely to marry anybody, Mrs. Lavender," said Ingram carelessly.

"Is there no woman you know whom you would care to marry?"

"Oh," he said, "there is one woman—yes—who seems to me about everything that a man could wish, but the notion of my marrying her is absurd. If I had known in time, don't you see, that I should ever think of such a thing, I should have begun years ago to dye my hair. I can't begin now. Gray hair inspires reverence, I believe, but it is a bad thing to go courting with."

"You must not talk foolishly," said the little old lady with a frown. "Do you think a sensible woman wants to marry a boy who will torment her with his folly and his empty head and his running after a dozen different women? Gray hair! If you think gray hair is a bad thing to go courting with, I will give you something better. I will put something in your hand that will make the young lady forget your gray hair. Oh, of course you will say that she cannot be tempted, that she despises money. If so, so much the better; but I have known more women than you, and my hair is grayer than yours, and you will find that a little money won't stand in the way of your being accepted."

He had made some gesture of protest, not against her speaking of his possible marriage, which scarcely interested him, so remote was the possibility, but against her returning to this other proposal. And when he saw the old woman really meant to do this thing, he found it necessary to declare himself explicitly on the point. "Oh, don't imagine, Mrs. Lavender," he said, "that I have any wild horror of money, or that I suppose anybody else would have. I should like to have five times or ten times as much as you seem generously disposed to give me. But here is the point, you see. I am a vain person. I am very proud of my own opinion of myself; and if I acceded to what you propose—if I took your money—I suppose I should be driving about in that fine phaeton you speak of. That is very good: I like driving, and I should be pleased with the appearance of the trap and the horses. But what do you fancy I should think of myself—what would be my opinion of my own nobleness and generosity and humanity—if I saw Sheila Mackenzie walking by on the pavement, without any carriage to drive in, perhaps without a notion as to where she was going to get her dinner? I should be a great hero to myself then, shouldn't I?"

"Oh, Sheila again!" said the old woman in a tone of vexation. "I can't imagine what there is in that girl to make men rave so about her. That Jew-boy is become a thorough nuisance: you would fancy she had just stepped down out of the clouds to present him with a gold harp, and that he couldn't look up to her face. And you are just as bad. You are worse, for you don't blow it off in steam. Well, there need be no difficulty. I meant to leave the girl in your charge. You take the money and look after her: I know she won't starve. Take it in trust for her, if you like."

"But that is a fearful responsibility, Mrs. Lavender," he said in dismay. "She is a married woman. Her husband is the proper person—"

"I tell you I won't give him a farthing!" she said with a sudden sharpness that startled him—"not a farthing! If he wants money, let him work for it, as other people do; and then, when he has done that, if he is to have any of my money, he must be beholden for it to his wife and to you."

"Do you think that Sheila would accept anything that she would not immediately hand over to him?"

"Then he must come first to you."

"I have no wish to inflict humiliation on any one," said Ingram stiffly. "I don't wish to play the part of a little Providence and mete out punishment in that way. I might have to begin with myself."

"Now, don't be foolish," said the old lady with a menacing composure. "I give you fair warning: the next fit will do for me. If you don't care to take my money, and keep it in trust for this girl you profess to care so much about, I will leave it to found an institution. And I have a good idea for an institution, mind you. I mean to teach people what they should eat and drink, and the various effects of food on various constitutions."

"It is an important subject," Ingram admitted.

"Is it not? What is the use of giving people laborious information about the idle fancies of generations that lived ages before they were born, while you are letting them poison their system, and lay up for themselves a fearfully painful old age, by the continuous use of unsuitable food? That book you gave me, Mr. Ingram, is a wonderful book, but it gives you little consolation if you know another fit is coming on. And what is the good of knowing about Epictetus and Zeno and the rest if you've got rheumatism? Now, I mean to have classes to teach people what they should eat and drink; and I'll do it if you won't assume the guardianship of my nephew's wife."

"But this is the wildest notion I ever heard of," Ingram protested again. "How can I take charge of her? If Sheila herself had shown any disposition to place herself under your care, it might have been different."

"Oh, it would have been different!" cried the old lady with a shrill laugh. "It would have been different! And what did you say about her sense of duty to her husband's relatives? Did you say anything about that?"

"Well—" Ingram was about to say, being lost in amazement at the odd glee of this withered old creature.

"Where do you think a young wife should go if she runs off from her husband's house?" cried Mrs. Lavender, apparently much amused by his perplexity. "Where can she best escape calumny? Poor man! I won't frighten you or disturb you any longer. Ring the bell, will you? I want Paterson."

Ingram rang.

"Paterson," said Mrs. Lavender when the tall and grave woman appeared, "ask Mrs. Lavender if she can come here for a few minutes."

Ingram looked at the old woman to see if she had gone mad, and then, somehow, he instinctively turned to the door. He fancied he knew that quick, light step. And then, before he well knew how, Sheila had come forward to him with her hands outstretched and with something like a smile on her pale face. She looked at him for a second, she tried to speak to him, but there was a dangerous quivering of the lips; and then she suddenly burst into tears, and let go his hands and turned away. In that brief moment he had seen what havoc had been wrought within the past two or three days. There were the same proud and handsome features, but they were pale and worn, and there was a piteous and weary look in the eyes that told of the trouble and heartrending of sleepless nights.

"Sheila," he said, following her and taking her hand, "does any one know of your being here?"

"No," she said, still holding her head aside and downcast—"no one. And I do not wish any one to know. I am going away."

"Where?"

"Don't you ask too much, Mr. Ingram," said the old lady from amid her cushions and curtains. "Give her that ammonia—the stopper only. Now, sit down, child, and dry your eyes. You need not be ashamed to show Mr. Ingram that you knew where you ought to come to when you left your husband's house. And if you won't stop here, of course I can't compel you, though Mr. Ingram will tell you you might do worse."

"Sheila, why do you wish to go away? Do you mean to go back to the Lewis?"

"Oh no, no!" she said, almost shuddering.

"Where do you wish to go?"

"Anywhere—it does not matter. But I cannot remain here. I should meet with—with many people I used to know. Mrs. Lavender, she is kind enough to say she will get me some place for Mairi and me: that is all as yet that is settled."

"Is Mairi with you?"

"Yes: I will go and bring her to you. It is not any one in London she will want to see as much as you."

Sheila left the room, and by and by came back, leading the young Highland girl by the hand. Mairi was greatly embarrassed, scarcely knowing whether she should show any gladness at meeting this old friend amid so much trouble. But when Ingram shook hands with her, and after she had blushed and looked shy and said, "And are you ferry well, sir?" she managed somehow to lift her eyes to his face; and then she said suddenly, "And it is a good day, this day, for Miss Sheila, that you will come to see her, Mr. Ingram, for she will hef a friend now."

"Yon silly girl," said Mrs. Lavender sharply, "why will you say 'Miss Sheila?' Don't you know she is a married woman?"

Mairi glanced in a nervous and timid manner toward the bed. She was evidently afraid of the little shriveled old woman with the staring black eyes and the harsh voice.

"Mairi hasn't forgotten her old habits, that is all," said Ingram, patting her good-naturedly on the head.

And then he sat down again, and it seemed so strange to him to see these two together again, and to hear the odd inflection of Mairi's voice, that he almost forgot that he had made a great discovery in learning of Sheila's whereabouts, and wholly forgot that he had just been offered, and had just refused, a fortune.

CHAPTER XXI.

MEETING AND PARTING.

The appearance of Sheila in Mrs. Lavender's house certainly surprised Ingram, but the motives which led her to go thither were simple enough. On the morning on which she had left her husband's house she and Mairi had been driven up to Euston Square Station before she seemed capable of coming to any decision. Mairi guessed at what had happened with a great fear at her heart, and did not dare to speak of it. She sat, mute and frightened, in a corner of the cab, and only glanced from time to time at her companion's pale face and troubled and distant eyes.

They were driven in to the station. Sheila got out, still seeming to know nothing of what was around her. The cabman took down Mairi's trunk and handed it to a porter.

"Where for, miss?" said the man. And she started.

"Where will you be going, Miss Sheila?" said Mairi timidly.

"It is no matter just now," said Sheila to the porter, "if you will be so kind as to take charge of the trunk. And how much must I pay the cabman from Notting Hill?"

She gave him the money and walked into the great stone-paved hall, with its lofty roof and sounding echoes.

"Mairi," she said, "I have gone away from my own home, and I have no home for you or myself either. What are we to do?"

"Are you quite sure, Miss Sheila," said the girl, dismayed beyond expression, "that you will not go back to your own house? It wass a bad day this day that I wass come to London to find you going away from your own house;" and Mairi began to cry. "Will we go back to the Lewis, Miss Sheila?" she said. "It is many a one there will be proud and pleased to see you again in sa Lewis, and there will be plenty of homes for you there—oh yes, ferry many that will be glad to see you! And it wass a bad day sa day you left the Lewis whatever; and if you will go back again, Miss Sheila, you will neffer hef to go away again, not any more."

Sheila looked at the girl—at the pretty pale face, the troubled light-blue eyes and the abundant fair-yellow hair. It was Mairi, sure enough, who was talking to her, and yet it was in a strange place. There was no sea dashing outside, no tide running in from the Atlantic. And where was old Scarlett, with her complaints and her petulance and her motherly kindness?

"It is a pity you have come to London, Mairi," Sheila said wistfully; "for I have no house to take you into; and we must go now and find one."

"You will not go back to sa Lewis, Miss Sheila?"

"They would not know me in the Lewis any more, Mairi. I have been too long away, and I am quite changed. It is many a time I will think of going back; but when I left the Lewis I was married, and now—How could I go back to the Lewis, Mairi? They would look at me. They would ask questions. My father would come down to the quay, and he would say, 'Sheila, have you come back alone?' And all the story of it would go about the island, and every one would say I had been a bad wife, and my husband had gone away from me."

"There is not any one," said Mairi, with the tears starting to her eyes again—"not from one end of sa island to sa other—would say that of you, Miss Sheila; and there is no one would not come to meet you, and be glad sat you will come again to your own home. And as for going back, I will be ferry glad to go back whatever, for it was you I was come to see, and not any town; and I do not like this town, what I hef seen of it, and I will be ferry glad to go away wis you, Miss Sheila."

Sheila did not answer. She felt that it was impossible she could go back to her own people with this disgrace upon her, and did not even argue the question with herself. All her trouble now was to find some harbor of refuge into which she could flee, so that she might have quiet and solitude, and an opportunity of studying all that had befallen her. The noise around her—the arrival of travelers, the transference of luggage, the screaming of trains—stunned and confused her; and she could only vaguely think of all the people she knew in London, to see to whom she could go for advice and direction. They were not many. One after the other she went over the acquaintances she had made, and not one of them appeared to her in the light of a friend. One friend she had who would have rejoiced to be of the least assistance to her, but her husband had forbidden her to hold communication with him, and she felt a strange sort of pride, even at this moment, in resolving to obey that injunction. In all this great city that lay around her there was no other to whom she could frankly and readily go. That one friend she had possessed before she came to London: in London she had not made another.

And yet it was necessary to do something, for who could tell but that her husband might come to this station in search of her? Mairi's anxiety, too, was increasing every moment, insomuch that she was fairly trembling with excitement and fatigue. Sheila resolved that she would go down and throw herself on the tender mercies of that terrible old lady in Kensington Gore. For one thing, she instinctively sought the help of a woman in her present plight; and perhaps this harshly-spoken old lady would be gentle to her when all her story was told. Another thing that prompted this decision was a sort of secret wish to identify herself even yet with her husband's family—to prove to herself, as it were, that they had not cast her off as being unworthy of him. Nothing was farther from her mind at this moment than any desire to pave the way for reconciliation and reunion with her husband. Her whole anxiety was to get away from him, to put an end to a state of things which she had found to be more than she could bear. And yet, if she had had friends in London called respectively Mackenzie and Lavender, and if she had been equally intimate with both, she would at this moment have preferred to go for help to those bearing the name of Lavender.

There was doubtless something strangely inconsistent in this instinct of wifely loyalty and duty in a woman who had just voluntarily left her husband's house. Lavender had desired her not to hold communication with Edward Ingram: even now she would respect his wish. Lavender would prefer that she should, in any great extremity, go to his aunt for assistance and counsel; and to his aunt, despite her own dislike of the woman, she would go. At this moment, when Sheila's proud spirit had risen up in revolt against a system of treatment that had become insufferable to her, when she had been forced to leave her home and incur the contemptuous compassion of friends and acquaintances, if Edward Ingram himself had happened to meet her, and had begun to say hard things of Lavender, she would have sharply recalled him to a sense of the discretion that one must use in speaking to a wife of her husband.

The two homeless girls got into another cab, and were driven down to Kensington Gore. Sheila asked if she could see Mrs. Lavender. She knew that the old lady had had another bad fit, but she was supposed to be recovering rapidly. Mrs. Lavender would see her in her bedroom, and so Sheila went up. The girl could not speak.

"Yes, I see it—something wrong about that precious husband of yours," said the old lady, watching her keenly. "I expected it. Go on. What is the matter?"

"I have left him," Sheila said with her face very pale, but no sign of emotion about the firm lips.

"Oh, good gracious, child! Left him? How many people know it?"

"No one but yourself and a young Highland girl who has come up to see me."

"You came to me first of all?"

"Yes."

"Have you no other friends to go to?"

"I considered that I ought to come to you."

There was no cunning in the speech: it was the simple truth. Mrs. Lavender looked at her hard for a second or two, and then said, in what she meant to be a kind way, "Come here and sit down, child, and tell me all about it. If no one else knows it there is no harm done. We can easily patch it up before it gets abroad."

"I did not come to you for that, Mrs. Lavender," said Sheila calmly. "That is impossible: that is all over. I have come to ask you where I may get lodgings for my friend and myself."

"Tell me all about it first, and then we'll see whether it can't be mended. Mind, I am ready to be on your side, though I am your husband's aunt. I think you're a good girl: a bit of a temper, you know, but you manage to keep it quiet ordinarily. You tell me all about it, and you'll see if I haven't means to bring him to reason. Oh yes, oh yes, I'm an old woman, but I can find some means to bring him to reason." And she laughed an odd, shrill laugh.

A hot flush came over Sheila's face. Had she come to this old woman only to make her husband's degradation more complete? Was he to be intimidated into making friends with her by a threat of the withdrawal of that money that Sheila had begun to detest? And this was what her notions of wifely duty had led to!

"Mrs. Lavender," she said, with the proud lips very proud indeed, "I must say this to you before I tell you anything. It is very good of you to say you will take my side, but I did not come to you to complain. And I would rather not have any sympathy from you if it only means that you will speak ill of my husband. And if you think you can make him do things because you give him money, perhaps that is true at present, but it may not always be true, and you cannot expect me to wish it to continue. I would rather have my present trouble twenty times over than see him being bought over to any woman's wishes."

Mrs. Lavender stared at her: "Why, you astonishing girl, I believe you are still in love with that man!"

Sheila said nothing.

"Is it true?" she said.

"I suppose a woman ought to love her husband," Sheila answered.

"Even if he turns her out of the house?"

"Perhaps it is she who is to blame," Sheila said humbly. "Perhaps her education was wrong, or she expects too much that is unreasonable, or perhaps she has a bad temper. You think I have a bad temper, Mrs. Lavender, and might it not be that?"

"Well, I think you want your own way, and doubtless you expect to have it now. I suppose I am to listen to all your story, and I must not say a word about my own nephew. But sit down and tell me all about it, and then you can justify him afterward, if you like."

It was probably, however, the notion that Sheila would try to justify Lavender all through that put the old lady on her guard, and made her, indeed, regard Lavender's conduct in an unfairly bad light. Sheila told the story as simply as she could, putting everything down to her husband's advantage that was possible, and asking for no sympathy whatsoever. She only wanted to remain away from his house; and by what means could she and this young cousin of hers find cheap lodgings where they could live quietly and without much fear of detection?

Mrs. Lavender was in a rage, and as she was not allowed to vent it on the proper object, she turned upon Sheila herself. "The Highlanders are a proud race," she said sharply. "I should have thought that rooms in this house, even with the society of a cantankerous old woman, would have been tolerated for a time."

"It is very kind of you to make the offer," Sheila said, "but I do not wish to have to meet my husband or any of his friends. There is enough trouble without that. If you could tell me where to get lodgings not far from this neighborhood, I would come to see you sometimes at such hours as I know he cannot be here."

"But I don't understand what you mean. You won't go back to your husband, although I could manage that for you directly—you won't hear of negotiations, or of any prospect of your going back—and yet you won't go home to your father."

"I cannot do either," Sheila said.

"Do you mean to live in those lodgings always?"

"How can I tell?" said the girl piteously. "I only wish to be away, and I cannot go back to my papa, with all this story to tell him."

"Well, I didn't want to distress you," said the old woman. "You know your own affairs best. I think you are mad. If you would calmly reason with yourself, and show to yourself that, in a hundred years, or less than that, it won't matter whether you gratified your pride or no, you would see that the wisest thing you can do now is to take an easy and comfortable course. You are in an excited and nervous state at present, for example; and that is destroying so much of the vital portion of your frame. If you go into these lodgings and live like a rat in a hole, you will have nothing to do but nurse these sorrows of yours, and find them grow bigger and bigger while you grow more and more wretched. All that is mere pride and sentiment and folly. On the other hand, look at this. Your husband is sorry you are away from him: you may take that for granted. You say he was merely thoughtless: now he has got something to make him think, and would without doubt come and beg your pardon if you gave him a chance. I write to him, he comes down here, you kiss and make good friends again, and to-morrow morning you are comfortable and happy again."

"To-morrow morning!" said Sheila sadly. "Do you know how we should be situated to-morrow morning? The story of my going away would become known to his friends: he would go among them as though he had suffered some disgrace, and I the cause of it. And though he is a man, and would soon be careless of that, how could I go with him amongst his friends, and feel that I had shamed him? It would be worse than ever between us; and I have no wish to begin again what ended this morning—none at all, Mrs. Lavender."

"And do you mean to say that you intend to live permanently apart from your husband?"

"I do not know," said Sheila in a despairing tone. "I cannot tell you. What I feel is that, with all this trouble, it is better that our life as it was in that house should come to an end."

Then she rose. There was a tired look about the face, as if she were too weary to care whether this old woman would help her or no. Mrs. Lavender regarded her for a moment, wondering, perhaps, that a girl so handsome, fine-colored and proud-eyed should be distressing herself with imaginary sentiments, instead of taking life cheerfully, enjoying the hour as it passed, and being quite assured of the interest and liking and homage of every one with whom she came in contact. Sheila turned to the bed once more, about to say that she had troubled Mrs. Lavender too much already, and that she would look after these lodgings. But the old woman apparently anticipated as much, and said with much deliberation that if Sheila and her companion would only remain one or two days in the house, proper rooms should be provided for them somewhere. Young girls could not venture into lodgings without strict inquiries being made. Sheila should have suitable rooms, and Mrs. Lavender would see that she was properly looked after and that she wanted for nothing. In the mean time she must have some money.

"It is kind of you," said the girl, blushing hotly, "but I do not require it."

"Oh, I suppose we are too proud," said the old woman. "If we disapprove of our husband taking money, we must not do it either. Why, child, you have learnt nothing in London. You are a savage yet. You must let me give you something for your pocket, or what are you to do? You say you have left everything at home: do you think hair-brushes, for example, grow on trees, that you can go into Kensington Gardens and stock your rooms?"

"I have some money—a few pounds—that my papa gave me," Sheila said.

"And when that is done?"

"He will give me more."

"And yet you don't wish him to know you have left your husband's house! What will he make of these repeated demands for money?"

"My papa will give me anything I want without asking any questions."

"Then he is a bigger fool than I expected. Oh, don't get into a temper again. Those sudden shocks of color, child, show me that your heart is out of order. How can you expect to have a regular pulsation if you flare up at anything any one may say? Now go and fetch me your Highland cousin."

Mairi came into the room in a very timid fashion, and stared with her big, light-blue eyes into the dusky recess in which the little old woman sat up in bed. Sheila took her forward: "This is my cousin Mairi, Mrs. Lavender."

"And are you ferry well, ma'am?" said Mairi, holding out her hand very much as a boy pretends to hold out his hand to a tiger in the Zoological Gardens.

"Well, young lady," said Mrs. Lavender, staring at her, "and a pretty mess you have got us into!"

"Me!" said Mairi, almost with a cry of pain: she had not imagined before that she had anything to do with Sheila's trouble.

"No, no, Mairi," her companion said, taking her hand, "it was not you. Mrs. Lavender, Mairi does not understand our way of joking in London. Perhaps she will learn before she goes back to the Highlands."

"There is one thing," said Mrs. Lavender, observing that Mairi's eyes had filled the moment she was charged with bringing trouble on Sheila—"there is one thing you people from the Highlands seem never disposed to learn, and that is to have a little control over your passions. If one speaks to you a couple of words, you either begin to cry or go off into a flash of rage. Don't you know how bad that is for the health?"

"And yet," said Sheila with a smile—and it seemed so strange to Mairi to see her smile—"we will not compare badly in health with the people about us here."

Mrs. Lavender dropped the question, and began to explain to Sheila what she advised her to do. In the mean time both the girls were to remain in her house. She would guarantee their being met by no one. When suitable rooms had been looked out by Paterson they were to remove thither. The whole situation of affairs was at once perceived by Mrs. Lavender's attendant, who was given to understand that no one was to know of young Mrs. Lavender's being in the house. Then the old woman, much contented with what she had done, resolved that she would reward herself with a joke, and sent for Edward Ingram.

When Sheila, as already described, came into the room, and found her old friend there, the resolution she had formed went clean out of her mind. She forgot entirely the ban that had been placed on Ingram by her husband. But after her first emotion on seeing him was over, and when he began to discuss what she ought to do, and even to advise her in a diffident sort of way, she remembered all that she had forgotten, and was ashamed to find herself sitting there and talking to him as if it were in her father's house at Borva. Indeed, when he proposed to take the management of her affairs into his own hands, and to go and look at certain apartments that Paterson had proposed, she was forced, with great heart-burning and pain, to hint to him that she could not avail herself of his kindness.

"But why?" he asked with a stare of surprise.

"You remember Brighton," she answered, looking down. "You had a bad return for your kindness to me then."

"Oh, I know," he said carelessly. "And I suppose Mr. Lavender wished you to cut me after my impertinent interference. But things are very much changed now. But for the time he went North, he has been with me nearly every hour since you left."

"Has Frank been to the Lewis?" she said suddenly, with a look of fear on her face.

"Oh no: he has only been to Glasgow to see if you had gone to catch the Clansman and go North from there."

"Did he take the trouble to do all that?" she asked slowly and wistfully.

"Trouble!" cried Ingram. "He appears to me neither to eat nor sleep day or night, but to go wandering about in search of you in every place where he fancies you may be. I never saw a man so beside himself with anxiety."

"I did not wish to make him anxious," said Sheila in a low voice. "Will you tell him that I am well?"

Mrs. Lavender began to smile. Were there not evident signs of softening? But Ingram, who knew the girl better, was not deceived by these appearances. He could see that Sheila merely wished that her husband should not suffer pain on her account: that was all.

"I was about to ask you," he said gently, "what I may say to him. He comes to me continually, for he has always fancied that you would communicate with me. What shall I say to him, Sheila?"

"You may tell him that I am well," she answered.

Mairi had by this time stepped out of the room. Sheila sat with her eyes fixed on the floor, her fingers working nervously with a paper-knife she held.

"Nothing more than that?" he said.

"Nothing more."

He saw by her face, and he could tell by the sound of her voice, that her decision was resolute.

"Don't be a fool, child!" said Mrs. Lavender emphatically. "Here is your husband's friend, who can make everything straight and comfortable for you in an hour or two, and you quietly put aside the chance of reconciliation and bring on yourself any amount of misery. I don't speak for Frank. Men can take care of themselves: they have clubs and friends, and amusements for the whole day long. But you!—what a pleasant life you would have, shut up in a couple of rooms, scarcely daring to show yourself at a window! Your fine sentiments are all very well, but they won't stand in the place of a husband to you; and you will soon find out the difference between living by yourself like that, and having some one in the house to look after you. Am I right, Mr. Ingram, or am I wrong?"

Ingram paused for a moment, and said, "I have not the same courage that you have, Mrs. Lavender. I dare not advise Sheila one way or the other just at present. But if she feels in her own heart that she would rather return now to her husband, I can safely say that she would find him deeply grateful to her, and that he would try to do everything that she desired. That I know. He wants to see you, Sheila, if only for five minutes, to beg your forgiveness."

"I cannot see him," she said with the same sad and settled air.

"I am not to tell him where you are?"

"Oh no!" she cried with a sudden and startled emphasis. "You must not do that, Mr. Ingram. Promise me you will not do that?"

"I do promise you; but you put a painful duty on me, Sheila, for you know how he will believe that a short interview with you would put everything right, and he will look on me as preventing that."

"Do you think a short interview at present would put everything right?" she said, suddenly looking up and regarding him with her clear and steadfast eyes.

He dared not answer. He felt in his inmost heart that it would not.

"Ah, well," said Mrs. Lavender, "young people have much satisfaction in being proud: when they come to my age, they may find they would have been happier if they had been less disdainful."

"It is not disdain, Mrs. Lavender," said Sheila gently.

"Whatever it is," said the old woman, "I must remind you two people that I am an invalid. Go away and have luncheon: Paterson will look after you. Mr. Ingram, give me that book, that I may read myself into a nap, and don't forget what I expect of you."

Ingram suddenly remembered. He and Sheila and Mairi sat down to luncheon in the dining-room, and while he strove to get them to talk about Borva he was thinking all the time of the extraordinary position he was expected to assume toward Sheila. Not only was he to be the repository of the secret of her place of residence, and the message-carrier between herself and her husband, but he was also to take Mrs. Lavender's fortune, in the event of her dying, and hold it in trust for the young wife. Surely this old woman, with her suspicious ways and her worldly wisdom, would not be so foolish as to hand him over all her property, free of conditions, on the simple understanding that when he chose he could give what he chose to Sheila? And yet that was what she had vowed she would do, to Ingram's profound dismay.

He labored hard to lighten the spirits of those two girls. He talked of John the Piper, and said he would invite him up to London, and described his probable appearance in the Park. He told them stories of his adventures while he was camping out with some young artists in the Western Highlands, and told them anecdotes, old, recent and of his own invention, about the people he had met. Had they heard of the steward on board one of the Clyde steamers who had a percentage on the drink consumed in the cabin, and who would call out to the captain, "Why wass you going so fast? Dinna put her into the quay so fast! There is a gran' company down below, and they are drinking fine!" Had he ever told them of the porter at Arran who had demanded sixpence for carrying up some luggage, but who, after being sent to get a sovereign changed, came back with only eighteen shillings, saying, "Oh yes, it iss sexpence! Oh, ay, it iss sexpence! But it iss two shullens ta you!" Or of the other, who after being paid hung about the cottage-door for nearly an hour, until Ingram, coming out, asked him why he had waited; whereupon he said, with an air of perfect indifference, "Oo, ay, there was something said about a dram; but hoot toots! it is of no consequence whatever!" And was it true that the sheriff of Stornoway was so kind-hearted a man that he remitted the punishment of certain culprits, ordained by the statute to be whipped with birch rods, on the ground that the island of Lewis produced no birch, and that he was not bound to import it? And had Mairi heard any more of the Black Horse of Loch Suainabhal? And where had she pulled those splendid bunches of bell-heather?

He suddenly stopped, and Sheila looked up with inquiring eyes. How did he know that Mairi had brought those things with her? Sheila saw that he must have gone up with her husband, and must have seen the room which she had decorated in imitation of the small parlor at Borvabost. She would rather not think of that room now.

"When are you going to the Lewis?" she asked of him with her eyes cast down.

"Well, I think I have changed my mind about that, Sheila. I don't think I shall go to the Lewis this autumn."

Her face became more and more embarrassed: how was she to thank him for his continued thoughtfulness and self-sacrifice?

"There is no necessity," he said lightly. "The man I am going with has no particular purpose in view. We shall merely go cruising about those wonderful lochs and islands, and I am sure to run against some of those young fellows I know, who are prowling about the fishing-villages with portable easels. They are good boys, those boys. They are very hospitable, if they have only a single bedroom in a small cottage as their studio and reception-room combined. I should not wonder, Sheila, if I went ashore somewhere, and put up my lot with those young fellows, and listened to their wicked stories, and lived on whisky and herrings for a month. Would you like to see me return to Whitehall in kilts? And I should go into the office and salute everybody with 'And are you ferry well?' just as Mairi does. But don't be downhearted, Mairi. You speak English a good deal better than many English folks I know; and by the time you go back to the Lewis we shall have you fit to become a school-mistress, not only in Borva, but in Stornoway itself."

"I wass told it is ferry good English they hef in Stornoway," said Mairi, not very sure whether Mr. Ingram was joking or not.

"My dear child," he cried, "I tell you it is the best English in the world. If the queen only knew, she would send her grandchildren to be educated there. But I must go now. Good-bye, Mairi. I mean to come and take you to a theatre some night soon."

Sheila accompanied him out into the hall. "When shall you see him?" she said with her eyes cast down.

"This evening," he answered.

"I should like you to tell him that I am well, and that he need not be anxious about me."

"And that is all?"

"Yes, that is all."

"Very well, Sheila. I wish you had given me a pleasanter message to carry, but when you think of doing that I shall be glad to take it."

Ingram left, and hastened in to his office. Sheila's affairs were considerably interfering with his attendance there—there could be no question of that—but he had the reputation of being able to get through his work thoroughly, whatever might be the hours he devoted to it, so that he did not greatly fear being rebuked for his present irregularities. Perhaps if a grave official warning had been probable, even that would not have interfered much with his determination to do what could be done for Sheila.

But this business of carrying a message to Lavender was the most serious he had as yet undertaken. He had to make sundry and solemn resolves to put a bold face on the matter at the outset, and declare that wild horses would not tear from him any further information. He feared the piteous appeals that might be made to him; the representations that, merely for the sake of an imprudent promise, he was delaying a reconciliation between these two until that might be impossible; the reasons that would be urged on him for considering Sheila's welfare as paramount to his own scruples. He went through the interview, as he foresaw it, a dozen times over, and constructed replies to each argument and entreaty. Of course it would be simple enough to meet all Lavender's demands with a simple "No," but there are circumstances in which the heroic method of solving difficulties becomes a trifle inhuman.

He had promised to dine with Lavender that evening at his club. When he went along to St. James's street at the appointed hour his host had not arrived. He walked for about ten minutes, and then Lavender appeared, haggard and wornout with fatigue. "I have heard nothing—I can hear nothing—I have been everywhere," he said, leading the way at once into the dining-room. "I am sorry I have kept you waiting, Ingram."

They sat down at a small side-table: there were few men in the club at this late season, so that they could talk freely enough when the waiter had come and gone.

"Well, I have some news for you, Lavender," Ingram said.

"Do you know where she is?" said the other eagerly.

"Yes."

"Where?" he almost called aloud in his anxiety.

"Well," Ingram said slowly, "she is in London, and she is very well; and you need have no anxiety about her."

"But where is she?" demanded Lavender, taking no heed of the waiter who was standing by and uncorking a bottle.

"I promised her not to tell you."

"You have spoken with her, then?"

"Yes."

"What did she say? Where has she been? Good Heavens, Ingram! you don't mean to say you are going to keep it a secret?"

"Oh no," said the other: "I will tell you everything she said to me, if you like. Only I will not tell you where she is."

"I will not ask you," said Lavender at once, "if she does not wish me to know. But you can tell me about herself. What did she say? What was she looking like? Is Mairi with her?"

"Yes, Mairi is with her. And of course she is looking a little troubled and pale, and so forth; but she is very well, I should think, and quite comfortably situated. She said I was to tell you that she was well, and that you need not be anxious."

"She sent a message to me?"

"That is it."

"By Jove, Ingram! how can I ever thank you enough? I feel as glad just now as if she had really come home again. And how did you manage it?"

Lavender, in his excitement and gratitude, kept filling up his friend's glass the moment the least quantity had been taken out of it: the wonder was he did not fill all the glasses on that side of the table, and beseech Ingram to have two or three dinners all at once.

"Oh, you needn't give me any credit about it," Ingram said. "I stumbled against her by accident: at least, I did not find her out myself."

"Did she send for you?"

"No. But look here, Lavender, this sort of cross-examination will lead to but one thing; and you say yourself you won't try to find out where she is."

"Not from you, any way. But how can I help wanting to know where she is? And my aunt was saying just now that very likely she had gone right away to the other end of London—to Peckham or some such place."

"You have seen Mrs. Lavender, then?"

"I have just come from there. The old heathen thinks the whole affair rather a good joke; but perhaps that was only her way of showing her temper, for she was in a bit of a rage, to be sure. And so Sheila sent me that message?"

"Yes."

"Does she want money? Would you take her some money from me?" he said eagerly. Any bond of union between him and Sheila would be of some value.

"I don't think she needs money; and in any case I know she wouldn't take it from you."

"Well, now, Ingram, you have seen her and talked with her, what do you think she intends to do? What do you think she would have me do?"

"These are very dangerous questions for me to answer," Ingram said. "I don't see how you can expect me to assume the responsibility."