"Yes," said Lavender with much eagerness, "but then, look! You may be sure that if we get over these, Sheila will know well who managed it, and she will not be ungrateful to you, I think. If we ever should be married, I am certain she will always look on you as her greatest friend." "It is a big bribe," said the elder man, perhaps a trifle sadly; and Lavender looked at him with some vague return of a suspicion that some time or other Ingram must himself have been in love with Sheila. They returned to the inn, where they found Mackenzie busy with a heap of letters and newspapers that had been sent across to him from Stornoway. The whole of the breakfast-table was littered with wrappers and big blue envelopes: where was Sheila, who usually waited on her father at such times to keep his affairs in order? Sheila was outside, and Lavender saw her through the open window. Was she not waiting for him, that she should pace up and down by herself, with her face turned away from the house? He immediately went out and went over to her, and she turned to him as he approached. He fancied she looked a trifle pale, and far less bright and joyous than the ordinary Sheila. "Mr. Lavender," she said, walking away from the house, "I wish very much to speak to you for a moment. Last night it was all a misfortune that I did not understand; and I wish you to forget that a word was ever spoken about that." Her head was bent down, and her speech was low and broken: what she failed to explain in words her manner explained for her. But her companion said to her, with alarm and surprise in his tone, "Why, Sheila! You cannot be so cruel! Surely you need not fear any embarrassment through so slight a promise. It pledges you to nothing--it leaves you quite free; and some day, if I come and ask you then a question I have not asked you yet, that will be time enough to give me an answer." "Oh no, no!" said the girl, obviously in great distress, "I cannot do that. It is unjust to you to let you think of it and hope about it. It was last night everything was strange to me--I did not understand then--but I have thought about it all the night through, and now I know." "Sheila!" called her father from the inside of the inn, and she turned to go. "But you do not ask that, do you?" he said. "You are only frightened a little bit just now, but that will go away. There is nothing to be frightened about. You have been thinking over it, and imagining impossible things: you have been thinking of leaving Borva altogether--" "Oh, that I can never do!" she said with a pathetic earnestness.