Duncan sent the horses on, and Ingram looked out Sheila’s water-proof and the rugs. The Southern sky certainly looked ominous. There was a strange intensity of color in the dark landscape, from the deep purple of the Barvas hills, coming forward to the deep green of the pasture-land around them, and the rich reds and browns of the heather and the peat-cuttings. At one point of the clouded and hurrying sky, however, there was a soft and vaporous line of yellow in the gray; and under that, miles away in the West, a great dash of silver light struck upon the sea, and glowed there so that the eye could scarcely bear it. Was it the damp that brought the perfumes of the moorlands so distinctly toward them--the bog-myrtle, the water-mint and the wild thyme? There were no birds to be heard. The crimson masses of heather on the gray rocks seemed to have grown richer and deeper in color, and the Barvas hills had become large and weird in the gloom. “Are you afraid of thunder!” said Lavender to Sheila. “No,” said the girl, looking frankly toward him with her glad eyes, as though he had pleased her by asking that not very striking question. And then she looked around at the sea and the sky in the South, and said quietly: “But there will be no thunder; it is too much wind.” Ingram, with a smile which he could scarcely conceal, hereupon remarked, “You’re sorry, Lavender, I know. Wouldn’t you like to shelter somebody in danger, or attempt a rescue, or do something heroic?” “And Mr. Lavender would do that if there was any need,” said the girl, bravely, “and then it would be nothing to laugh at.” “Sheila, you bad girl! how dare you talk like that to me?” said Ingram; and he put his arm within hers and said he would tell her a story.