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 Borvapost. 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 bronze 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 “Heir 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 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.”