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 around 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 in 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.”