HAD Sheila, then, Lavender could not help asking himself, a bad temper, or any other qualities and characteristics which were apparent to other people, but not to him? Was it possible that, after all, Ingram was right, and that he had yet to learn the nature of the girl he had married? It would be unfair to say that he suspected something wrong about his wife—that he fancied she had managed to conceal something—merely because Mrs. Lavender had said that Sheila had a bad temper; but here was another person who maintained that when the days of his romance were over he would see the girl in another light.

Nay, as he continued to ask himself, had not the change already begun? He grew less and less accustomed to see in Sheila a beautiful wild sea-bird that had fluttered down for a time into a strange home in the South. He had not quite forgotten or abandoned those imaginative scenes in which the wonderful sea-princess was to enter crowded drawing-rooms and have all the world standing back to regard her and admire her and sing her praises. But now he was not so sure that that would be the result of Sheila’s entrance into society. As the date of a certain dinner-party drew near, he began to wish she was more like the women he knew. He did not object to her strange, sweet ways of speech, nor to her odd likes and dislikes, nor even to an unhesitating frankness that nearly approached rudeness sometimes in its scorn of all compromise with the truth; but how would others regard these things? He did not wish to gain the reputation of having married an oddity.

“Sheila,” he said, on the morning of the day on which they were going to this dinner-party, “you should not say like-a-ness. There are only two syllables in likeness. It really does sound absurd to hear you say like-a-ness.”

She looked up to him, with a quick trouble in her eyes. When had he spoken to her so petulantly before? And then she cast down her eyes again, and said, submissively, “I will try not to speak like that. When you go out I take a book and read aloud, and try to speak like you; but I cannot learn all at once.”

“I don’t mind,” he said; “but, you know, other people must think it so odd. I wonder why you should always say gyarden for garden now, when it is just as easy to say garden?”

Once upon a time he had said there was no English like the English spoken in Lewis, and had singled out this very word as typical of one peculiarity in the pronunciation. But she did not remind him of that. She only said, in the same simple fashion, “If you will tell me my faults, I will try to correct them.”

She turned away from him to get an envelope for a letter she had been writing to her father. He fancied something was wrong, and perhaps some touch of compunction smote him, for he went after her and took her hand, and said, “Look here, Sheila. When I point out any trifles like that, you must not call them faults, and fancy that I have any serious complaint to make. It is for your own good that you should meet the people who will be your friends on equal terms, and give them as little as possible to talk about.”

“I should not mind their talking about me,” said Sheila, with her eyes still cast down, “but it is your wife they must not talk about; and if you will tell me anything I do wrong I will correct it.”

“Oh, you must not think it is anything so serious as that. You will soon pick up from the ladies you will meet some notion of how you differ from them; and if you should startle or puzzle them a little at first by talking about the chances of the fishing or the catching of wild duck, or the way to reclaim bog-land, you will soon get over all that.”

Sheila said nothing, but she made a mental memorandum of three things she was not to speak about. She did not know why these subjects should be forbidden, but she was in a strange land and going to see strange people, whose habits were different from hers. Moreover, when her husband had gone she reflected that these people, having no fishing and peat-mosses, and no wild-duck, could not possibly be interested in such affairs; and thus she fancied she perceived the reason why she should avoid all mention of these things.

When, in the evening, Sheila came down dressed and ready to go out, Lavender had to admit to himself that he had married an exceedingly beautiful girl, and that there was no country gawkiness about her manner, and no placid insipidity about her proud and handsome face. For one brief moment, he triumphed in his heart, and had some wild glimpse of his old project of startling his small world with this vision from the Northern seas. But when he got into the hired brougham, and thought of the people he was about to meet, and of the manner in which they would carry away such and such impressions of the girl, he lost faith in that admiration. He would much rather have had Sheila unnoticeable and unnoticed—one who would quietly take her place at the dinner-table, and attract no more special attention than the flowers, for example, which every one would glance at with some satisfaction, and then forget in the interest of talking and dining. He was quite conscious of his own weakness in thus fearing social criticism. He knew that Ingram would have taken Sheila anywhere in her blue serge dress, and been quite content and oblivious of observation. But then Ingram was independent of these social circles in which a married man must move, and in which his position is often defined for him by the disposition and manners of his wife. Ingram did not know how women talked. It was for Sheila’s own sake, he persuaded himself, that he was anxious about the impression she should make, and that he had drilled her in all that she should do and say.

“Above all things,” he said, “mind you take no notice of me. Another man will take you in to dinner, of course, and I shall take in somebody else, and we shall not be near each other. But it’s after dinner, I mean: when the men go into the drawing-room don’t you come and speak to me or take any notice of me whatever.”

“Mayn’t I look at you, Frank?”

“If you do, you’ll have half a dozen people all watching you, saying to themselves or to each other, ‘Poor thing! she hasn’t got over her infatuation yet. Isn’t it pretty to see how naturally her eyes turn toward him?’”

“But I shouldn’t mind them saying that,” said Sheila, with a smile.

“Oh, you musn’t be pitied in that fashion. Let them keep their compassion to themselves.”

“Do you know, dear,” said Sheila, very quietly, “that I think you exaggerate the interest people will take in me? I don’t think I can be of such importance to them. I don’t think they will be watching me as you fancy.”

“Oh, you don’t know,” he said. “I know they fancy I have done something romantic, heroic and all that kind of thing, and they are curious to see you.”

“They cannot hurt me by looking at me,” said Sheila simply. “And they will soon find out how little there is to discover.”

The house being in Holland Park, they had not far to go; and just as they were driving up to the door a young man, slight, sandy-haired, and stooping, got out of a hansom and crossed the pavement.

“By Jove!” said Lavender, “there is Redburn. I did not know he knew Mrs. Lorraine and her mother. That is Lord Arthur Redburn, Sheila; mind, if you should talk to him, not to call him ‘my lord.’”

Sheila laughed and said, “How am I to remember all these things?”

They got into the house, and by-and-by Lavender found himself, with Sheila on his arm, entering a drawing-room to present her to certain of his friends. It was a large room, with a great deal of gilding and color about it, and with a conservatory at the further end; but the blaze of light had not so bewildering an effect on Sheila’s eyes as the appearance of two ladies to whom she was now introduced. She had heard much about them. She was curious to see them. Many a time had she thought over the strange story Lavender had told her of the woman who heard that her husband was dying in a hospital during the war, and started off, herself and her daughter, to find him out; how there was in the same hospital another dying man whom they had known some years before, and who had gone away because the girl would not listen to him; how this man, being very near to death, begged that the girl would do him the last favor he would ask of her, of wearing his name and inheriting his property; and how, some few hours after the strange and sad ceremony had been performed, he breathed his last, happy in holding her hand. The father died next day, and the two widows were thrown upon the world, almost without friends, but not without means. This man, Lorraine, had been possessed of considerable wealth, and the girl who had suddenly become mistress of it found herself able to employ all possible means in assuaging her mother’s grief. They began to travel. The two women went from capital to capital, until at last they came to London; and here, having gathered around them a considerable number of friends, they proposed to take up their residence permanently. Lavender had often talked to Sheila about Mrs. Lorraine; about her shrewdness, her sharp sayings, and the odd contrast between this clever, keen, frank woman of the world and the woman one would have expected to be the heroine of a pathetic tale.

But were there two Mrs. Lorraines? That had been Sheila’s first question to herself when, after having been introduced to one lady under that name, she suddenly saw before her another, who was introduced to her as Mrs. Kavanagh. The mother and daughter were singularly alike. They had the same slight and graceful figure, which made them appear, taller than they really were, the same pale, fine, and rather handsome features, the same large, clear gray eyes, and apparently the same abundant mass of soft, fair hair, heavily plaited in the latest fashion. They were both dressed entirely in black, except that the daughter had a band of blue round her slender waist. It was soon apparent, too, that the manner of the two women was singularly different; Mrs. Kavanagh bearing herself with a certain sad reserve that almost approached melancholy at times, while her daughter, with more life and spirit in her face, passed rapidly through all sorts of varying moods until one could scarcely tell whether the affectation lay in a certain cynical audacity in her speech, or whether it lay in her assumption of a certain coyness and archness, or whether there was any affectation at all in the matter. However that might be, there could be no doubt about the sincerity of those gray eyes of hers. There was something almost cruelly frank in the clear look of them; and when her face was not lit by some passing smile, the pale and fine features seemed to borrow something of severity from her unflinching, calm and dispassionate habit of regarding those around her.

Sheila was prepared to like Mrs. Lorraine from the first moment she had caught sight of her. The honesty of the gray eyes attracted her. And, indeed, the young widow seemed very much interested in the young wife, and, so far as she could, in that awkward period just before dinner, strove to make friends with her. Sheila was introduced to a number of people, but none of them pleased her as well as Mrs. Lorraine. Then dinner was announced, and Sheila found that she was being escorted across the passage to the room on the other side by the young man whom she had seen get out of the hansom.

This Lord Arthur Redburn was the younger son of a great Tory duke; he represented in the House a small country borough, which his father practically owned; he had a fair amount of ability, an uncommonly high opinion of himself, and a certain affectation of being bored by the frivolous ways and talk of ordinary society. He gave himself credit for being the clever member of the family; and if there was any cleverness going, he had it; but there were some who said that his reputation in the House and elsewhere as a good speaker was mainly based on the fact that he had an abundant assurance, and was not easily put out. Unfortunately, the public could come to no decision on the point, for the reporters were not kind to Lord Arthur, and the substance of his speeches was as unknown to the world as his manner of delivering them.

Now, Mrs. Lorraine had intended to tell this young man something about the girl whom he was to take in to dinner, but she herself had been so occupied with Sheila that the opportunity escaped her. Lord Arthur accordingly knew only that he was beside a very pretty woman, who was a Mrs. Somebody—the exact name he had not caught—and that the few words she had spoken were pronounced in a curious way. Probably, he thought, she was from Dublin.

He also arrived at the conclusion that she was too pretty to know anything about the Deceased Wife’s Sister bill, in which he was, for family reasons, deeply interested, and considered it more likely that she would prefer to talk about theatres and such things.

“Were you at Covent Garden last night?” he said.

“No,” answered Sheila. “But I was there two days ago, and it is very pretty to see the flowers and the fruit; and then they smell so sweetly as you walk through.”

“Oh, yes, it is delightful,” said Lord Arthur. “But I was speaking of the theatre.”

“Is there a theatre in there?”

He stared at her, and inwardly hoped she was not mad.

“Not in among the shops, no. But don’t you know Covent Garden Theatre?”

“I have never been in any theatre, not yet,” said Sheila.

And then it began to dawn upon him that he must be talking to Frank Lavender’s wife. Was there not some rumor about the girl having come from a remote part of the Highlands? He determined on a bold stroke: “You have not been long enough in London to see the theatres, I suppose?”

And then Sheila, taking it for granted that he knew her husband very well, and that he was quite familiar with all the circumstances of the case, began to chat to him freely enough. He found that this Highland girl, of whom he heard vaguely, was not at all shy. He began to feel interested. By and by he actually made efforts to assist her frankness, by becoming equally frank, and by telling her all he knew of the things with which they were mutually acquainted. Of course, by this time they had got up into the Highlands. The young man had himself been in the Highlands—frequently, indeed. He had never crossed to Lewis, but he had seen the island from the Sutherlandshire coast. There were very many deer in Sutherlandshire, were there not? Yes, he had been out a great many times, and had had his share of adventures. Had he not gone out there before daylight, and waited on the top of a hill, hidden by some rocks, to watch the mist clear along the hillsides and in the valley below? Did he not tremble when he fired his first shot, and had not something passed before his eyes, so that he could not see for a moment whether the stag had fallen, or was away like lightning down the bed of the stream? Somehow or other, Lord Arthur found himself relating all his experiences, as if he were a novice begging for the good opinion of a master. She knew all about it, obviously, and he would tell her his small adventures, if only that she might laugh at him. But Sheila did not laugh. She was greatly delighted to have this talk about the hills, and the deer, and the wet mornings. She forgot all about the dinner before her. The servants whipped off successive plates without her seeing anything of them; they received random answers about wine, so that she had three full glasses standing by her untouched! She was no more in Holland Park at that moment than were the wild animals of which she spoke so proudly and lovingly. If the great and frail masses of flowers on the table brought her any perfume at all, it was a scent of peat-smoke. Lord Arthur thought that his companion was a little too frank and confiding, or rather that she would have been had she been talking to any one but himself. He rather liked it. He was pleased to have established friendly relations with a pretty woman in so short a space; but ought not her husband to give her a hint about not admitting all and sundry to the enjoyment of these favors? Perhaps, too, Lord Arthur felt bound to admit to himself there were some men who, more than others, inspired confidence in women. He laid no claims to being a fascinating person, but he had had his share of success, and considered that Sheila showed discrimination, as well as good nature, in talking so to him. There was, after all, no necessity for her husband to warn her. She would know how to guard against admitting all men to a like intimacy. In the meantime, he was very well pleased to be sitting beside this pretty and agreeable companion, who had an abundant fund of good spirits, and who showed no sort of conscious embarrassment in thanking you with a bright look of her eyes, or by a smile when you told her something that pleased or amused her.

But these flattering little speculations were doomed to receive a sudden check. The juvenile M. P. began to remark that a shade occasionally crossed the face of his fair companion, and that she sometimes looked a little anxiously across the table, where Mr. Lavender and Mrs. Lorraine were seated, half hidden from view by a heap of silver and flowers in the middle of the board. But though they could not easily be seen, except at such moments as they turned to address some neighbor, they could be distinctly enough heard when there was any lull in the general conversation. And what Sheila heard did not please her. She began to like that fair, clear-eyed young woman less. Perhaps her husband meant nothing by the fashion in which he talked of marriage and the condition of a married man, but she would rather have not heard him talk so. Moreover, she was aware that in the gentlest possible fashion Mrs. Lorraine was making fun of her companion, and exposing him to small and graceful shafts of ridicule; while he seemed, on the whole, to enjoy these attacks.

The ingenuous self-love of Lord Arthur Redburn, M. P., was severely wounded by the notion that, after all, he had been made a cat’s paw of by a jealous wife. He had been flattered by this girl’s exceeding friendliness; he had given her credit for genuine impulsiveness, which seemed to him as pleasing as it was uncommon; and he had, with the moderation expected of a man in politics, who hoped some day to assist in the government of the nation, by accepting a junior lordship, admired her. But was it all pretence? Was she paying court to him merely to annoy her husband? Had her enthusiasm about the shooting of red deer been prompted by a wish to attract a certain pair of eyes at the other side of the table? Lord Arthur began to sneer at himself for having been duped. He ought to have known. Women were as much women in a Hebridean Island as in Bayswater. He began to treat Sheila with a little more coolness, while she became more and more pre-occupied with the couple across the table, and sometimes was innocently rude in answering his questions somewhat at random.

When the ladies were going into the drawing-room, Mrs. Lorraine put her hand within Sheila’s arm and led her to the entrance to the conservatory. “I hope we shall be friends,” she said.

“I hope so,” said Sheila, not very warmly.

“Until you get better acquainted with your husband’s friends you will feel rather lonely at being left as at present, I suppose.”

“A little,” said Sheila.

“It is a silly thing altogether. If men smoked after dinner I could understand it. But they merely sit, looking at wine they don’t drink, talking a few commonplaces and yawning.”

“Why do they do it, then?” said Sheila.

“They don’t do it everywhere. But here we keep to the manners and customs of the ancients.”

“What do you know about the manners of the ancients?” said Mrs. Kavanagh, tapping her daughter’s shoulder as she passed with a sheet of music.

“I have studied them frequently, mamma,” said the daughter with composure, “in the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens.”

The mamma smiled, and passed on to place the music on the piano. Sheila did not understand what her companion had said; and indeed Mrs. Lorraine immediately turned, with the same calm, fair face and fearless eyes, to ask Sheila whether she would not, by and by, sing one of those Northern songs of which Mr. Lavender had told her.

A tall girl with her back hair tied in a knot and her costume copied from a well-known pre-Raphaelite drawing, sat down to the piano and sang a mystic song of the present day, in which the moon, the stars and other natural objects behaved strangely, and were somehow mixed up with the appeal of a maiden who demanded that her dead lover should be reclaimed from the sea.

“Do you ever go down to your husband’s studio?” said Mrs. Lorraine.

She glanced toward the lady at the piano.

“Oh, you may talk,” said Mrs. Lorraine, with the least expression of contempt in her gray eyes. “She is singing to gratify herself, not us.”

“Yes, I sometimes go down,” said Sheila in as low a voice as she could manage without falling into a whisper, “and it is such a dismal place. It is very hard on him to have to work in a big bare room like that, with the windows half blinded. But sometimes I think Frank would rather have me out of the way.”

“And what would he do if both of us were to pay him a visit?” said Mrs. Lorraine. “I should so like to see the studio! Won’t you call for me some day and take me with you?”

Take her with her, indeed! Sheila began to wonder that she did not propose to go alone. Fortunately, there was no need to answer the question, for at this moment the song came to an end, and there was a general movement and murmur of gratitude.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Lorraine to the lady who had sung the song, and was now returning to the photographs she had left, “thank you very much. I knew some one would instantly ask you to sing that song; it is the most charming of all your songs, I think, and how well it suits your voice, too!”

Then she turned to Sheila again: “How did you like Lord Arthur Redburn?”

“I think he is a very good young man.”

“Young men are never good, but they may be very amiable,” said Mrs. Lorraine, not perceiving that Sheila had blundered on a wrong adjective, and that she had really meant that she thought him honest and pleasant.

“You did not speak at all, I think, to your neighbor on the right; that was wise of you. He is a most insufferable person, but mamma bears with him for the sake of his daughter, who sang just now. He is too rich. And he smiles blandly, and takes a sort of after-dinner view of things, as if he coincided with the arrangements of Providence. Don’t you take coffee? Tea, then. I have met your aunt—I mean Mr. Lavender’s aunt; such a dear old lady she is.”

“I don’t like her,” said Sheila.

“Oh, don’t you really?”

“Not at present, but I shall try to like her.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Lorraine, calmly, “you know she has her peculiarities. I wish she wouldn’t talk so much about Marcus Antoninus and doses of medicine. I fancy I smell calomel when she comes near. I suppose if she were in a pantomime, they’d dress her up as a phial, tie a string around her neck and label her ‘Poison.’ Dear me, how languid one gets in this climate! Let us sit down. I wish I was as strong as mamma.”

They sat down together, and Mrs. Lorraine evidently expected to be petted and made much of by her new companion. She gave herself pretty little airs and graces, and said no more cutting things about anybody. And Sheila somehow found herself being drawn to the girl, so that she could scarcely help taking her hand, and saying how sorry she was to see her so pale and fine and delicate. The hand, too, was so small that the tiny white fingers seemed scarcely bigger than the claws of a bird. Was not that slender waist, to which some little attention was called by a belt of bold blue, just a little too slender for health, although the bust and shoulders were exquisitely and finely proportioned?

“We were at the Academy all the morning, and mamma is not a bit tired. Why has not Mr. Lavender anything at the Academy? Oh, I forgot,” she added, with a smile. “Of course, he has been very much engaged. But now I suppose he will settle down to work.”

Sheila wished that this fragile-looking girl would not so continually refer to her husband, but how was any one to find fault with her when she put a little air of plaintiveness into the ordinarily cold gray eyes, and looked at her small hand as much as to say, “The fingers there are very small, and even whiter than the glove that covers them. They are the fingers of a child, who ought to be petted.”

Then the men came in from the dining-room. Lavender looked around to see where Sheila was—perhaps with a trifle of disappointment that she was not the most prominent figure there. Had he expected to find all the women surrounding her and admiring her, and all the men going up to pay court to her? Sheila was seated near a small table, and Mrs. Lorraine was showing her something. She was just like anybody else. If she was a wonderful sea-princess who had come into a new world, no one seemed to observe her. The only thing that distinguished her from the women around her was her freshness of color, and the unusual combination of black eyelashes and dark blue eyes. Lavender had arranged that Sheila’s first appearance in public should be at a very quiet little dinner party, but even here she failed to create any profound impression. She was, as he had to confess to himself again, just like anybody else.

He went over to where Mrs. Lorraine was, and sat down beside her. Sheila, remembering his injunctions, felt bound to leave him there; and as she rose to speak to Mrs. Kavanagh, who was standing by, that lady came and begged her to sing a Highland song. By this time Lavender had succeeded in interesting his companion about something or other, and neither of them had noticed that Sheila had gone to the piano, attended by the young politician who had taken her in to dinner. Nor did they interrupt their talk merely because some one had played a few bars of prelude. But what was this that suddenly startled Lavender to the heart, causing him to look up with surprise? He had not heard the air since he was in Borva, and when Sheila sang

all sorts of reminiscences came rushing in upon him. How often had he heard that wild story of Monaltrie’s flight sung out in the small chamber over the sea, with a sound of the waves outside and a scent of sea-weed coming in at the door and the window! It was from the shores of Borva that young Monaltrie must have fled. It must have been in Borva that his sweetheart sat in her bower and sang, the burden of all her singing being, “Return, Monaltrie!” And then, as Sheila sang now, making the monotonous and plaintive air wild and strange—

he heard no more of the song. He was thinking of by-gone days in Borva, and of old Mackenzie living in his lonely house there. When Sheila had finished singing he looked at her, and it seemed to him that she was still that beautiful princess whom he had wooed on the shores of the Atlantic. And if those people did not see her as he saw her, ought he to be disappointed because of their blindness?

But if they saw nothing mystic or wonderful about Sheila, they, at all events, were considerably surprised by the strange sort of music she sang. It was not of a sort commonly heard in a London drawing-room. The pathos of its minor chords, its abrupt intervals, startling and wild in their effect, and the slowly subsiding wail in which it closed, did not much resemble the ordinary drawing-room “piece.” Here, at least, Sheila had produced an impression; and presently there was a heap of people around the piano, expressing their admiration, asking questions, and begging her to continue. But she rose. She would rather not sing just then. Whereupon Lavender came to her and said, “Sheila, won’t you sing that wild one about the farewell—that has the sound of the pipes in it, you know?”

“Oh, yes,” she said directly.

Lavender went back to his companion.

“She is very obedient to you,” said Mrs. Lorraine, with a smile.

“Yes, at present,” he said; and he thought meanly of himself for saying it, the moment the words were uttered:

So Sheila sang, and it seemed to the people that this ballad was even more strange than its predecessor. When the song was over, Sheila seemed rather anxious to get out of the crowd, and, indeed, walked away into the conservatory to have a look at the flowers.

Yes, Lavender had to confess to himself, Sheila was just like anybody else in this drawing-room. His sea-princess had produced no startling impression. He forgot that he had just been teaching her the necessity of observing the ways and customs of the people around her, so that she might avoid singularity.

On one point, at least, she was resolved she would attend to his counsels; she would not make him ridiculous by any show of affection before the eyes of strangers. She did not go near him the whole evening. She remained for the most part in that half-conservatory, half-ante-room at the end of the drawing-room; and when any one talked to her she answered, and when she was left alone she turned to the flowers. All this time, however, she could observe that Lavender and Mrs. Lorraine were very much engrossed in their conversation; that she seemed very much amused, and he at times a trifle embarrassed; and that both of them had apparently forgotten her existence. Mrs. Kavanagh was continually coming to Sheila and trying to coax her back into the larger room, but in vain. She would rather not sing any more that night. She liked to look at the flowers. She was not tired at all, and she had already seen those wonderful photographs about which everybody was talking.

“Well, Sheila, how did you enjoy yourself?” said her husband, as they were driving home.

“I wish Mr. Ingram had been there,” said Sheila.

“Ingram! He would not have stopped in the place five minutes, unless he could play the part of Diogenes and say rude things to everybody all around. Were you at all dull?”

“A little.”

“Didn’t somebody look after you?”

“Oh, yes; many persons were very kind. But—but—”

“Well?”

“Nobody seemed to be better off than myself. They all seemed to be wanting something to do; and I am sure they were all very glad to come away.”

“No, no, no, Sheila. That is only your fancy. You were not much interested, that is evident; but you will get on better when know more of the people. You were a stranger—that is what disappointed you—but you will not always be a stranger.”

Sheila did not answer. Perhaps she contemplated, with no great hope or longing, the possibility of her coming to like such a method of getting through an evening. At all events, she looked forward with no great pleasure to the chance of her having to become friends with Mrs. Lorraine. All the way home Sheila was examining her own heart to try to discover why such bitter feelings should be there. Surely that girl was honest; there was honesty in her eyes. She had been most kind to Sheila herself. And was there not at times, when she abandoned the ways and speech of a woman of the world, a singular coy fascination about her that any man might be excused for yielding to, even as any woman might yield to it? Sheila fought with herself, and resolved that she would cast forth from her heart those harsh fancies and indignant feelings that seemed to have established themselves there. She would not hate Mrs. Lorraine.

As for Lavender, what was he thinking of, now that he and his young wife were driving home from their first experiment in society? He had to confess to a certain sense of failure. His dreams had not been realized. Every one who had spoken to him had conveyed to him, as freely as good manners would admit, their congratulations and their praises of his wife. But the impressive scenes he had been forecasting were out of the question. There was a little curiosity about her on the part of those who knew her story, and that was all. Sheila bore herself very well. She made no blunders. She had a good presence, she sang well, and every one could see that she was handsome, gentle and honest. Surely, he argued with himself, that ought to content the most exacting. But, in spite of all argument, he was not content. He did not regret that he had sacrificed his liberty in a freak of romance; he did not even regard the fact of a man in his position having dared to marry a penniless girl as anything very meritorious or heroic; but he had hoped that the dramatic circumstances of the case would be duly recognized by his friends, and that Sheila would be an object of interest and wonder and talk in a whole series of social circles. But the result of his venture was different. There was only one married man the more in London, and London was not disposed to pay any particular heed to that circumstance.

CHAPTER XIII.
BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON.

IF Frank Lavender had been told that his love for his wife was in danger of waning, he would have laughed the suggestion to scorn. He was as fond of her and as proud of her as ever. Who knew as well as himself the tenderness of her heart, the delicate sensitiveness of her conscience, the generosity of self-sacrifice she was always ready to bestow? and was he likely to become blind, so that he should fail to see how fair and frank and handsome she was? He had been disappointed, it is true, in his fancies about the impression she would produce on his friends; but what a trifle was that! The folly of those fancies was his own. For the rest, he was glad that Sheila was not so different from the other women whom he knew. He hit upon the profound reflection, as he sat alone in his studio, that a man’s wife, like his costume, should not be so remarkable as to attract attention. The perfection of dress was that you should be unconscious of its presence; might that not be so with marriage? After all, it was better he had not bound himself to lug about a lion whenever he visited people’s houses.

Still, there was something. He found himself a good deal alone. Sheila did not seem to care much for going into society; and, although he did not much like the notion of going by himself, nevertheless one had certain duties towards one’s friends to perform. She did not even care to go down to the Park of a forenoon. She always professed her readiness to go, but he fancied it was a trifle tiresome for her; and so, when there was nothing particular going on in the studio, he would walk down through Kensington Gardens himself, and have a chat with some friends, followed generally by luncheon with this or the other party of them. Sheila had been taught that she ought not to come so frequently to that studio. Bras would not lie quiet. Moreover, if dealers or other strangers should come in, would they not take her for a model? So Sheila stayed at home; and Mr Lavender, after having dressed with care in the morning—with very singular care, indeed, considering that he was going to his work—used to go down to his studio to smoke a cigarette. The chances were that he was not in the humor for working. He would sit down in an easy-chair and kick his heels on the floor for a time, watching, perhaps, the sunlight come in through the upper part of the windows and paint yellow squares on the opposite wall. Then he would go out, and lock the door behind him, leaving no message whatever for those crowds of importunate dealers, who, as Sheila fancied, were besieging him with offers in one hand and purses of gold in the other.

One morning, after she had been in-doors for two or three days, and had grown hopelessly tired of the monotony of watching that sunlit square, she was filled with an unconquerable longing to go away, for however brief a space, from the sight of houses. The morning was sweet, and clear, and bright, white clouds were slowly crossing a fair blue sky, and a fresh and cool breeze was blowing in at the open French windows.

“Bras,” she said, going down stairs and out into the small garden, “we are going into the country.”

The great deerhound seemed to know, and rose and came to her with great gravity, while she clasped on the leash. He was no frisky animal to show his delight by yelping and gamboling, but he laid his long nose in her hand, and slowly wagged the down-drooping curve of his shaggy tail; and then he placidly walked by her side up into the hall, where he stood awaiting her.

She would go along and beg of her husband to leave his work for a day, and go with her for a walk down to Richmond Park. She had often heard Mr. Ingram speak of walking down, and she remembered that much of the road was pretty. Why should not her husband have one holiday?

“It is such a shame,” she had said to him that morning as he left, “that you will be going into that gloomy place, with its bare walls and chairs, and the windows so that you cannot see out of them!”

“I must get some work done somehow, Sheila,” he said, although he did not tell her that he had not finished a picture since his marriage.

“I wish I could do some of it for you,” she said.

“You! All the work you’re good for is catching fish and feeding ducks and planting things in gardens. Why don’t you come down and feed the ducks in the Serpentine?”

“I should like to do that,” she answered. “I will go any day with you.”

“Well,” he said, “you see, I don’t know until I get along to the studio whether I can get away for the forenoon; and then if I were to come back here, you would have little or no time to dress. Good-bye, Sheila.”

“Good-bye,” she said to him; giving up the Serpentine without much regret.

But the forenoon had turned out so delightful that she thought she would go along to the studio, and hale him out of that gaunt and dingy apartment. She should take him away from town; therefore, she might put on that rough, blue dress in which she used to go boating in Loch Roag. She had lately smartened it up a bit with some white braid, and she hoped he would approve.

Did the big hound know the dress? He rubbed his head against her arm and hand when she came down, and looked up and whined almost inaudibly.

“You are going out, Bras, and you must be a good dog and not try to go after the deer. Then I will send a very good story of you to Mairi; and when she comes to London after the harvest is over, she will bring you a present from the Lewis, and you will be very proud.”

She went out into the square, and was, perhaps, a little glad to get away from it, as she was not sure of the blue dress and the small hat with its sea-gull’s feather being precisely the costume which she ought to wear. When she got into the Uxbridge road she breathed more freely, and in the lightness of her heart she continued the conversation with Bras, giving that attentive animal a vast amount of information, partly in English, partly in Gaelic, which he answered only by a low whine or a shake of his shaggy head.

But these confidences were suddenly interrupted. She had got down to Addison Terrace, and was contentedly looking at the trees and chatting to the dog, when by accident her eyes happened to light on a brougham that was driving past. In it—she beheld them both clearly for a brief second—were her husband and Mrs. Lorraine so engaged in conversation that neither of them saw her. Sheila stood on the pavement for a couple of minutes absolutely bewildered. All sorts of wild fancies and recollections came crowding in upon her—reasons why her husband was unwilling that she should visit his studio, why Mrs. Lorraine never called on her, and so forth, and so forth. She did not know what to think for a time; but presently all this tumult was stilled, and she had resolved her doubts and made up her mind as to what she should do. She would not suspect her husband—that was the one sweet security to which she clung. He had made use of no duplicity; if there were duplicity in the case at all he could not be the author of it. The reasons for his having of late left her so much alone were the true reasons. And if this Mrs. Lorraine should amuse him and interest him, who ought to grudge him this break in the monotony of his work? Sheila knew that she herself disliked going to those fashionable gatherings to which Mrs. Lorraine went, and to which Lavender had been accustomed to go before he was married. How could she expect him to give up all his old habits and pleasures for her sake? She would be more generous. It was her own fault that she was not a better companion for him, then, to think hardly of him because he went to the Park with a friend instead of going alone?

Yet there was a great bitterness and grief in her heart as she turned and walked on. She spoke no more to the deerhound by her side. There seemed to be less sunlight in the air, and the people and carriages passing were hardly so busy and cheerful and interesting as they had been. But all the same, she would go to Richmond Park, and by herself; for what was the use in calling in at the studio? and how could she go back home and sit in the house, knowing that her husband was away at some flower-show or morning concert, or some such thing, with that young American lady?

She knew no other road to Richmond than that by which they had driven shortly after her arrival in London; and so it was that she went down and over Hammersmith Bridge, and around by Mortlake, and so on by East Sheen. The road seemed terribly long. She was an excellent walker, and in ordinary circumstances would have done the distance without fatigue; but when at length she saw the gates of the Park before her, she was at once exceedingly tired and almost faint from hunger. Here was the hotel in which they had dined; should she enter? The place seemed very grand and forbidding; she had scarcely even looked at it as she went up the steps with her husband by her side. However, she would venture, and accordingly she went up into the vestibule, looking rather timidly about. A young gentleman, apparently not a waiter, approached her and seemed to wait for her to speak. It was a terrible moment. What was she to ask for? and could she ask it of this young man? Fortunately, he spoke first, and asked her if she wished to go into the coffee-room, and if she expected any one.

“No, I do not expect any one,” she said; and she knew that he would perceive the peculiarity of her accent; “but if you will be kind enough to tell me where I may have a biscuit—”

It occurred to her that to go into the Star and Garter for a biscuit was absurd; and she added, wildly, “or anything to eat.”

The young man obviously regarded her with some surprise, but was very courteous, and showed her into the coffee-room and called a waiter to her. Moreover, he gave permission for Bras to be admitted into the room, Sheila promising that he would lie under the table and not budge an inch. Then she looked around. There were only three persons in the room—one, an old lady seated by herself in a far corner, the other two being a couple of young folks too much engrossed with each other to mind any one else. She began to feel more at home. The waiter suggested various things for lunch, and she made her choice of something cold. Then she mustered up courage to ask for a glass of sherry. How she would have enjoyed all this as a story to tell to her husband but for that incident of the morning! She would have gloried in her outward bravery, and made him smile with a description of her inward terror. She would have written about it to the old man in Borva, and bid him consider how she had been transformed, and what strange scenes Bras was now witnessing.

But all that was over. She felt as if she could no longer ask her husband to be amused by her childish experiences; and as for writing to her father, she dared not write to him in her present mood. Perhaps some happier time would come. Sheila paid her bill. She had heard her husband and Mr. Ingram talking about tipping waiters, and knew that she ought to give something to the man who had attended on her. But how much? He was a very august-looking person, with formally-cut whiskers and a severe expression of face. When he had brought back the change to her she timidly selected a half-crown and offered it to him. There was a little glance of surprise; she feared she had not given him enough. Then he said “Thank you!” in a vague and distant fashion, and she knew that she had not given him enough. But it was too late. Bras was summoned from under the table, and again she went out into the fresh air.

“Oh, my good dog!” she said to him, as they together walked up to the gates and into the Park, “this is a very extravagant country. You have to pay half-a-crown to a servant for bringing you a piece of cold pie, and then he looks as if he were not paid enough. And Duncan, who will do everything about the house, and will give us all our dinners, it’s only a pound a week he will get, and Scarlett has to be kept out of that. And wouldn’t you like to see poor old Scarlett again?”

Bras whined, as if he understood every word.

“I suppose now she is hanging out the washing on the gooseberry bushes, and you know the song she always used to sing then? Don’t you know that Scarlett carried me about long before you were born, for you are a mere infant compared with me? And she used to sing to me:

And that is what she is singing just now in the garden; and Mairi she is bringing the things out of the washing house. Papa is over in Stornoway this morning, arranging his accounts with the people there; and perhaps he is down at the quay, looking at the Clansman, and wondering when she is to bring me into the harbor. The castle is all shut up, you know, with cloths over all the wonderful things, and the curtains all down, and most of the shutters shut. Do you think papa has got my letter in his pocket, and does he read it over and over again, as I read all his letters to me over and over again? Ah-h! You bad dog!”

Bras had forgotten to listen to his mistress in the excitement of seeing in the distance a large herd of deer under certain trees. She felt by the leash that he was trembling in every limb with expectation, and straining hard on the collar. Again and again she admonished him in vain, until she had at last to drag him away down the hill, putting a small plantation between him and the herd. Here she found a large umbrageous chestnut tree, with a wooden seat around its trunk, and so she sat down in the green twilight of the leaves, while Bras came and put his head in her lap. Out beyond the shadow of the tree all the world lay bathed in sunlight, and a great silence brooded over the long undulations of the Park, where not a human being was within sight. How strange it was, she fell to thinking, that within a short distance there were millions of men and women, while here she was absolutely alone? Did they not care, then, for the sunlight and the trees and the sweet air? Were they so wrapped up in those social observances that seemed to her so barren of interest?

“They have a beautiful country here,” she said, talking in a rambling and wistful way to Bras, and scarcely noticing the eager light in his eyes, as if he were trying to understand. “They have no rain and no fog; almost always blue skies, and the clouds high up and far away. And the beautiful trees they have, too! you never saw anything like that in the Lewis, not even at Stornoway. And the people are so rich and beautiful in their dress, and all the day they have only to think how to enjoy themselves and what new amusements is for the morrow. But I think they are tired of having nothing to do; or, perhaps, you know, they are tired because they have nothing to fight against—no hard weather and hunger and poverty. They do not care for each other as they would if they were working on the same farm, and trying to save up for the Winter; or if they were going out to the fishing, and very glad to come home again from Caithness to find all the old people very well and the young ones ready for a dance and a dram, and much joy and laughing and telling of stories. It is a very great difference there will be in the people—very great.”

Bras whined: perhaps he understood her better now that she had involuntarily fallen into something of her old accent and habit of speech.

“Wouldn’t you like, Bras, to be up in Borva again—only for this afternoon? All the people would come running out; and it is little Ailasa, she would put her arms around your neck; and old Peter McTavish, he would hear who it was, and come out of his house groping by the wall, and he would say, ‘Pless me! iss it you, Miss Sheila, indeed and mirover? It iss a long time since you hef left the Lewis.’ Yes it is a long time—a long time; and I will be almost forgotten what it is like sometimes when I try to think of it. Here it is always the same—the same houses, the same soft air, the same still sunlight, the same things to do and places to see—no storms shaking the windows or ships running into the harbor, and you cannot go down to the shore to see what has happened, or up the hill to look how the sea is raging. But it is one day we will go back to the Lewis—oh, yes, we will go back to the Lewis!”

She rose and looked wistfully around her, and then turned with a sigh to make her way to the gates. It was with no especial sort of gladness that she thought of returning home. Here, in the great stillness, she had been able to dream of the far island which she knew, and to fancy herself for a few minutes there; now she was going back to the dreary monotony of her life in that square, and to the doubts and anxieties which had been suggested to her in the morning. The world she was about to enter once more seemed so much less homely, so much less full of interest and purpose, than that other and distant world she had been wistfully regarding for a time. The people around her hid neither the joys nor the sorrows with which she had been taught to sympathize. Their cares seemed to her to be exaggeration of trifles—she could feel no pity for them; their satisfaction was derived from sources unintelligible to her. And the social atmosphere around her seemed still and close and suffocating; so that she was like to cry out at times for one breath of God’s clear wind—for a shaft of lightning even—to cut through the sultry and drowsy sameness of her life.

She had almost forgotten the dog by her side. While sitting under the chestnut she had carelessly and loosely wound the leash around his neck in the semblance of a collar, and when she arose and came away she let the dog walk by her side without undoing the leash and taking proper charge of him. She was thinking of far other things, indeed, when she was startled by some one calling to her, “Look out, Miss, or you’ll have your dog shot!”

She turned and caught a glimpse of what sent a thrill of terror to her heart. Bras had sneaked off from her side—had trotted lightly over the breckans, and was now in full chase of a herd of deer which were flying down the slope on the other side of the plantation. He rushed now at one, now at another, the very number of chances presented to him proving the safety of the whole herd. But as Sheila, with a swift flight that would have astonished most town-bred girls, followed the wild chase and came to the crest of the slope, she could see that the hound had at length singled out a particular deer—a fine buck, with handsome horns, that was making straight for the foot of the valley. The herd, that had been much scattered, were now drawing together again, though checking nothing of their speed; but this single buck had been driven from his companions, and was doing his utmost to escape from the fangs of the powerful animal behind him.

What could she do but run wildly and breathlessly on? The dog was now far beyond the reach of her voice. She had no whistle. All sorts of fearful anticipations rushed in on her mind, the most prominent of all being the anger of her father if Bras were shot. How could she go back to Borva with such a tale? and how could she live in London without this companion who had come with her from the far North? Then what terrible things were connected with the killing of deer in a royal park! She remembered vaguely what Mr. Ingram and her husband had been saying; and while these things had been crowding in upon her she felt her strength beginning to fail, while both the dog and the deer had disappeared altogether from sight.

Strange, too, that in the midst of her fatigue and fright, while she still managed to struggle on with a sharp pain at her heart and a sort of mist before her eyes, she had a vague consciousness that her husband would be deeply vexed, not by the conduct or the fate of Bras, but by her being the heroine of so mad an adventure. She knew that he wished her to be serious and subdued and proper, like the ladies whom she met, while an evil destiny seemed to dog her footsteps and precipitate her into all sorts of erratic mishaps and “scenes.” However, this adventure was likely soon to have an end. She could go no further. Whatever had become of Bras, it was in vain for her to think of pursuing him. When she at length reached a broad and smooth road leading through the pasture, she could only stand still and press her two hands over her heart, while her head seemed giddy, and she did not see two men who had been standing on the road close by, until they came up and addressed her.

Then she started and looked around, finding before her two men who were apparently laborers of some sort, one of them having a shovel over his shoulder.

“Beg your pardon, miss, but wur that your dawg?”

“Yes,” she said, eagerly. “Could you get him? Did you see him go by? Do you know where he is?”

“Me and my mate saw him go by, sure enough; but as for getting him—why the keepers’ll have shot him by this time.”

“Oh, no?” cried Sheila, almost in tears, “they must not shoot him. It was my fault. I will pay them for all the harm he has done. Can’t you tell me which way he will go past?”

“I don’t think, miss,” said the spokesman, quite respectfully, “as you can go much furder. If you would sit down and rest yourself, and keep an eye on this ’ere shovel, me and my mate will have a hunt arter the dawg.”

Sheila not only accepted the offer gratefully, but promised to give them all the money she had if only they would bring back the dog unharmed. She made this offer in consequence of some talk between her husband and her father which she had overheard. Lavender was speaking of the civility he had frequently experienced at the hands of Scotch shepherds, and of the independence with which they refused to accept any compensation even for services which cost them a good deal of time and trouble. Perhaps it was to please Sheila’s father, but, at any rate, the picture the young man drew of the venality and the cupidity of the folks in the South was a desperately dark one. Ask the name of a village, have your stick picked up for you from the pavement, get into a cab or get out of it, and directly there was a touch of the cap and an unspoken request for coppers. Then, as the services rendered rose in importance, so did the fees—to waiters, to coachmen, to gamekeepers. These things and many more sank into Sheila’s heart. She heard and believed, and came down to the South with the notion that every man and woman who did you the least service expected to be paid handsomely for it. What, therefore, could she give those two men if they brought back her deerhound but all the money she had?

It was a hard thing to wait here in the greatest doubt and uncertainty while the afternoon was visibly waning. She began to grow afraid. Perhaps the men had stolen the dog, and left her with this shovel as a blind. Her husband must have come home, and would be astonished and perplexed by her absence. Surely, he would have the sense to dine by himself, instead of waiting for her; and she reflected with some glimpse of satisfaction that she had left everything connected with dinner properly arranged, so that he should have nothing to grumble at.

“Surely,” she said to herself as she sat there, watching the light on the grass and the trees getting more and more yellow—“surely I am very wicked or very wretched to think of his grumbling in any case. If he grumbles, it is because I will attend too much to the affairs of the house, and not amuse myself enough. He is very good to me, and I have no right to think of his grumbling. And I wish I cared to amuse myself more—to be more of a companion to him; but it is so difficult among all those people.”

The revery was interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the grass behind, and she turned quickly to find the two men approaching her, one of them leading the captive Bras by the leash. Sheila sprang to her feet with a great gladness. She did not care even to accuse the culprit, whose consciousness of guilt was evident in his look and in the droop of his tail. Bras did not once turn his eyes to his mistress. He hung down his head, while he panted rapidly, and she fancied she saw some smearing of blood on his tongue and on the side of his jaw. Her fears on this head were speedily confirmed.

“I think, miss, as you’d better take him out o’ the Park as soon as may be, for he’s got a deer killed close by the Robin Hood Gate, in the trees there; and if the keepers happen on it afore you leave the Park, you’ll get into trouble.”

“Oh, thank you!” said Sheila, retaining her composure bravely, but with a terrible sinking of the heart, “and how can I get to the nearest railway station?”

“You’re going to London, miss?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose the nearest is Richmond, but it would be quieter for you—don’t you see, miss—if you was to go along to the Roehampton Gate and go to Barnes.”

“Will you show me the gate?” said Sheila, choosing the quieter route at once.

But the men themselves did not at all like the look of accompanying her and this dog through the Park. Had they not already condoned a felony, or done something equally dreadful, in handing to her a dog that had been found keeping watch and ward over a slain buck? They showed her the road to the Roehampton Gate, and then they paused before continuing on their journey.

The pause meant money. Sheila took out her purse. There were three sovereigns and some silver in it, and the entire sum, in fulfillment of her promise, she held out to him who had so far conducted the negotiations.

Both men looked frightened. It was quite clear that either good feeling or some indefinite fear of being implicated in the killing of the deer caused them to regard this big bribe as something they could not meddle with; and at length, after a pause of a second or two, the spokesman said with great hesitation, “Well, miss, you kept your word, but me and my mate—well, if so be as it’s the same to you—’d rather have summut to drink your health.”

“Do you think it is too much?”

The man looked at his neighbor, who nodded.

“It was only for ketchin’ of a dawg, miss, don’t you see?” he remarked slowly, as if to impress upon her that they had had nothing to do with the deer.

“Will you take this, then?” and she offered them half a crown each.

Their faces lightened considerably; they took the money, and with a formal expression of thanks moved off, but not before they had taken a glance around to see that no one had been a witness of this interview.

And so Sheila had to walk away by herself, knowing that she had been guilty of a dreadful offence, and that at any moment she might be arrested by the officers of the law. What would the old King of Borva say if he saw his only daughter in the hands of two policemen? and would not all Mr. Lavender’s fastidious and talkative and wondering friends pass about the newspaper report of her trial and conviction? A man was approaching her. As he drew near her heart failed her, for might not this be the mysterious George Ranger himself, about whom her husband and Mr. Ingram had been talking? Should she drop on her knees at once and confess her sins, and beg him to let her off? If Duncan were with her, or Mairi, or even old Scarlett Macdonald, she would not have cared so much, but it seemed so terrible to meet this man alone.

However, as he drew near he did not seem a fierce person. He was an old gentleman, with voluminous white hair, who was dressed all in black, and carried an umbrella on this warm and bright afternoon. He regarded her and the dog in a distant and contemplative fashion, as though he would probably try to remember some time after that he had really seen them; and then he passed on. Sheila began to breathe more freely. Moreover, here was the gate, and once she was in the high road, who could say anything to her? Tired as she was, she still walked rapidly on; and, in due time, having had to ask the way once or twice, she found herself at Barnes Station.

By-and-by the train came in; Bras was committed to the care of the guard, and she found herself alone in a railway carriage for the first time in her life. Her husband had told her that whenever she felt uncertain of her whereabouts, if in the country, she was to ask for the nearest station and get a train to London; if in town she was to get into a cab and give the driver her address. And, indeed, Sheila had been so much agitated and perplexed during this afternoon that she acted in a sort of mechanical fashion, and really escaped the nervousness which otherwise would have attended the novel experience of purchasing a ticket and arranging about the carriage of a dog in the break-van. Even now, when she found herself traveling alone, and shortly to arrive at a part of London she had never seen, her crowding thoughts and fancies were not about her own situation, but about the reception she would receive from her husband. Would he be vexed with her? Or pity her? Had he called with Mrs. Lorraine to take her somewhere, and found her gone? Had he brought home some bachelor friends to dinner, and been chagrined to find her not in the house?

It was getting dusk when the slow four-wheeler approached Sheila’s home. The hour for dinner had long gone by. Perhaps her husband had gone away somewhere looking for her, and she would find the house empty.

But Frank Lavender came to meet his wife in the hall, and said, “Where have you been?”

She could not tell whether there was anger or kindness in his voice, and she could not well see his face. She took his hand and went into the dining-room, which was also dusk, and standing there told him all her story.

“This is too bad, Sheila,” he said, in atone of deep vexation. “By Jove! I’ll go and thrash the dog within an inch of his life.”

“No,” she said, drawing herself up; and for one brief second—could he have but seen her face—there was a touch of old Mackenzie’s pride and firmness about the ordinarily gentle lips. It was but for a second. She cast down her eyes and said, meekly, “I hope you won’t do that, Frank. The dog is not to blame. It was my fault.”

“Well, really, Sheila,” he said, “you are very thoughtless. I wish you would take some little trouble to act as other women act, instead of constantly putting yourself and me in the most awkward positions. Suppose I had brought any one home to dinner, now? And what am I to say to Ingram? for, of course, I went direct to his lodgings when I discovered that you were nowhere to be found. I fancied some mad freak had taken you there; and I should not have been surprised. Indeed, I don’t think I should be surprised at anything you do. Do you know who was in the hall when I came in this afternoon?”

“No,” said Sheila.

“Why, that wretched old hag who keeps the fruit-stall. And it seems you gave her and all her family tea and cake in the kitchen last night.”

“She is a poor woman,” said Sheila, humbly.

“A poor old woman!” he said, impatiently. “I have no doubt she is a lying old thief, who would take an umbrella or a coat, if only she could get the chance. It is really too bad, Sheila, you having all those persons about you, and demeaning yourself by attending on them. What must the servants think of you?”

“I do not heed what any servants think of me,” she said.

She was now standing erect, with her face quite calm.

“Apparently not,” he said, “or you would not go and make yourself ridiculous before them.”

Sheila hesitated for a moment, as if she did not understand; and then she said, as calmly as before, but with a touch of indignation about the proud and beautiful lips, “And if I make myself ridiculous by attending to poor people, it is not my husband who should tell me so.”

She turned and walked out, and he was too surprised to follow her. She went up stairs to her own room, locked herself in and threw herself on the bed. And then all the bitterness of her heart rose up as if in a flood—not against him, but against the country in which he lived, and the society which had contaminated him, and the ways and habits which seemed to create a barrier between herself and him, so that she was a stranger to him, and incapable of becoming anything else. It was a crime that she should interest herself in the unfortunate creatures round about her, that she should talk to them as if they were not human beings like herself, and have a great sympathy with their small hopes and aims; but she would not have been led into such a crime if she had cultivated from her infancy upward a consistent self-indulgence, making herself the centre of a world of mean desires and petty gratifications. And then she thought of the old and beautiful days up in the Lewis, where the young English stranger seemed to approve of her simple ways and her charitable work, and where she was taught to believe that in order to please him she had only to continue to be what she was then.

There was no great gulf of time between that period and this; but what had not happened in the interval? She had not changed—at least she hoped she had not changed. She loved her husband with her whole heart and soul; her devotion was as true and constant as she herself could have wished it to be when she dreamed of the duties of a wife in the days of her maidenhood. But all around her was changed. She had no longer the old freedom—the old delight in living from day to day—the active work, and the enjoyment of seeing where she could help and how she could help the people around her. When, as if by the same sort of instinct that makes a wild animal retain in captivity the habits which were necessary to its existence when it lived in freedom, she began to find out the circumstances of such unfortunate people as were in her neighborhood, some little solace was given to her; but these people were not friends to her, as the poor folk of Borvapost had been. She knew, too, that her husband would be displeased if he found her talking with a washerwoman over her family matters, or even advising one of her own servants about the disposal of her wages; so that, while she concealed nothing from him, these things nevertheless had to be done exclusively in his absence. And was she in so doing really making herself ridiculous? Did he consider her ridiculous? Or was it not merely the false and enervating influences of the indolent society in which he lived that had poisoned his mind, and drawn him away from her as though into another world?

Alas! if he were in this other world, was not she quite alone? What companionship was there possible between her and the people in this new and strange land into which she had ventured? As she lay on the bed, with her head hidden down in the darkness, the pathetic wail of the captive Jews seemed to come and go through the bitterness of her thoughts, like some mournful refrain: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.” She almost heard the words, and the reply that rose up in her heart was a great yearning to go back to her own land, so that her eyes were filled with tears in thinking of it, and she lay and sobbed there in the dusk. Would not the old man living all by himself in that lonely island be glad to see his little girl back again in the old house? And she would sing to him as she used to sing, not as she had been singing to those people whom her husband knew, “For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” And she had sung in the strange land, among the strange people, with her heart breaking, with thoughts of the sea and the hills, and the rude and sweet and simple ways of the old by-gone life she had left behind her.

“Sheila!”

She thought it was her father calling to her, and she rose with a cry of joy. For one wild moment she fancied that outside were all the people she knew—Duncan and Scarlett and Mairi—and that she was once more at home, with the sea all around her, and the salt, cold air.

“Sheila, I want to speak to you.”

It was her husband. She went to the door, opened it, and stood there penitent and with downcast face.

“Come, you must not be silly,” he said, with some kindness in his voice. “You have had no dinner. You must be hungry.”

“I do not care for any; there is no use troubling the servants when I would rather lie down,” she said.

“The servants! You surely don’t take so seriously what I said about them, Sheila? Of course you don’t need to care what the servants think. And in any case they have to bring up dinner for me, so you may as well come and try.”

“Have you not had dinner?” she said timidly.

“Do you think I could sit down and eat with the notion that you might have tumbled into the Thames or been kidnapped, or something?”

“I am very sorry,” she said, in a low voice, and in the gloom he felt his hand taken and carried to her lips. Then they went down stairs in the dining-room, which was now lit up by a blaze of gas and candles.

During dinner, of course, no very confidential talking was possible, and, indeed, Sheila had plenty to tell of her adventures at Richmond. Lavender was now in a more amiable mood, and was disposed to look on the killing of the roebuck as rather a good joke. He complimented Sheila on her good sense in having gone in at the Star and Garter for lunch; and altogether better relations were established between them.

But when dinner was finally over, and the servants dismissed, Lavender placed Sheila’s easy-chair for her as usual, drew his own near hers, and lit a cigarette.

“Now, tell me, Sheila,” he said, “were you really vexed with me when you went up stairs and locked yourself in your room? Did you think I meant to displease you or say anything harsh to you?”

“No, not any of those things,” she said calmly; “I wished to be alone—to think over what had happened. And I was grieved by what you said, for I think you cannot help looking at many things not as I will look at them. That is all. It is my bringing up in the Highlands, perhaps.”

“Do you know, Sheila, it sometimes occurs to me that you are not quite comfortable here? And I can’t make out what is the matter. I think you have a perverse fancy that you are different from the people you meet, and that you cannot be like them, and all that sort of thing. Now, dear, that is only a fancy. There need be no difference if you only will take a little trouble.”

“Oh, Frank!” she said, going over and putting her hand on his shoulder, “I cannot take that trouble. I cannot try to be like those people. And I see a great difference in you since you have come back to London, and you are getting to be like them and say the things they say. If I could only see you, my own darling, up in the Lewis again, with rough clothes on and a gun in your hand, I should be happy. You were yourself up there, when you were helping us in the boat, or when you were bringing home the salmon, or when we were all together at night in the little parlor, you know—”

“My dear, don’t get excited. Now sit down and I will tell you all about it. You seem to have the notion that people lose all their finer sentiments simply because they don’t, in society, burst into raptures over them. You mustn’t imagine all those people are selfish and callous merely because they preserve a decent reticence. To tell you the truth, that constant profession of noble feelings you would like to see would have something of ostentation about it.”

Sheila only sighed. “I do not wish them to be altered,” she said by and by, with her eyes growing pensive; “all I know is, that I could not live the same life. And you—you seemed to be happier up in the Highlands than you have ever been since.”

“Well, you see, a man ought to be happy when he is enjoying a holiday in the country along with the girl he is engaged to. But if I had lived all my life killing salmon and shooting wild duck, I should have grown up an ignorant boor, with no more sense of—”

He stopped for he saw that the girl was thinking of her father.

“Well, look here, Sheila. You see how you are placed—how we are placed, rather. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to get to understand those people you look askance at, and establish better relations with them, since you have got to live among them? I can’t help thinking you are too much alone, and you can’t expect me to stay in the house always with you. A husband and wife cannot be continually in each other’s company, unless they want to grow heartily tired of each other. Now, if you would only lay aside those suspicions of yours, you would find the people just as honest and generous and friendly as any other sort of people you ever met, although they don’t happen to be fond of expressing their goodness in their talk.”

“I have tried, dear—I will try again,” said Sheila.

She resolved that she would go down and visit Mrs. Lavender next day, and try to be interested in the talk of such people as might be there. She would bring away some story about this or the other fashionable woman or noble lord, just to show her husband that she was doing her best to learn. She would drive patiently around the Park in that close little brougham, and listen attentively to the moralities of Marcus Aurelius. She would make an appointment to go with Mrs. Lavender to a morning concert: and she would endeavor to muster up courage to ask any ladies who might be there to lunch with her on that day, and go afterward to this same entertainment. All these things, and many more, Sheila silently vowed to herself she would do, while her husband sat and expounded to her his theories of the obligations which society demanded of its members.

But her plans were suddenly broken asunder.

“I met Mrs. Lorraine accidentally to-day,” he said.

It was his first mention of the young American lady. Sheila sat in mute expectation.

“She always asks very kindly after you.”

“She is very kind.”

He did not say, however, that Mrs. Lorraine had more than once made distinct propositions, when in his company, that they should call in for Sheila, and take her out for a drive or to a flower show, or some such place, while Lavender had always some excuse ready.

“She is going to Brighton to-morrow, and she was wondering whether you would care to run down for a day or two.”

“With her?” said Sheila, recoiling from such a proposal, instinctively.

“Of course not. I should go. And then, at last, you know, you would see the sea, about which you have been dreaming for ever so long.”

The sea! There was a magic in the very word that could, almost at any moment, summon tears to her eyes. Of course she accepted right gladly. If her husband’s duties were so pressing that the long-talked-of journey to Lewis and Borva had to be repeatedly and indefinitely postponed, here at least would be a chance of looking again at the sea—of drinking in the freshness and light and color of it—of renewing her old and intimate friendship with it that had been broken off for so long by her stay in this city of perpetual houses and still sunshine.

“You can tell her you will go when you see her to-night at Lady Mary’s. By the way, isn’t it time for you to begin to dress?”

“Oh, Lady Mary’s!” repeated Sheila mechanically, who had quite forgotten about her engagement for that evening.

“Perhaps you are too tired to go,” said her husband.

She was a little tired, in truth. But surely, just after her promises, spoken and unspoken, some little effort was demanded of her; so she bravely went to dress, and in about three-quarters of an hour was ready to drive down to Curzon Street. Her husband had never seen her look so pleased before in going out to any party. He flattered himself that his lecture had done her some good. There was fair common sense in what he had said, and although, doubtless, a girl’s romanticism was a pretty thing, it would have to yield to the actual requirements of society. In time he should educate Sheila.

But he did not know what brightened the girl’s face all that night, and put a new life into the beautiful eyes, so that even those who knew her best were struck by her singular beauty. It was the sea that was coloring Sheila’s eyes. The people around her, the glare of the candles, the hum of talking and the motion of certain groups dancing over there in the middle of the throng—all were faint and visionary, for she was busily wondering what the sea would be like the next morning, and what strange fancies would strike her when once more she walked on sand and heard the roar of waves. That, indeed, was the sound that was present in her ears while the music played and the people murmured around her. Mrs. Lorraine talked to her, and was surprised and amused to notice the eager fashion in which the girl spoke of their journey of the next day. The gentleman who took her in to supper found himself catechised about Brighton in a manner which afforded him more occupation than enjoyment. And when Sheila drove away from the house at two in the morning she declared to her husband that she had enjoyed herself extremely, and he was glad to hear it; and she was particularly kind to himself in getting him his slippers, and fetching him that final cigarette which he always had on reaching home; and then she went off to bed to dream of ships and flying clouds and cold winds, and a great and beautiful blue plain of waves.