Sheila evidently expected to hear a flapping of sea-fowls’ wings when they got near the margin; and looked all round for the first sudden dart from the banks.  But a dead silence prevailed; and as there were neither fish nor birds to watch, she went along to a wooden bench and sat down there, one of her companions on each hand.  It was a pretty scene that lay before her—­the small stretch of water ruffled with the wind, but showing a dash of blue sky here and there—­the trees in the inclosure beyond, clad in their summer foliage, the smooth greensward shining in the afternoon sunlight.  Here at least was absolute quiet after the roar of London; and it was somewhat wistfully that she asked her husband how far this place was from her home, and whether, when he was at work, she could not come down here by herself.

“Certainly,” he said, never dreaming that she would think of doing such a thing.

By-and-by they returned to the hotel; and while they sat at dinner a great fire of sunset spread over the west; and the far woods became of a rich purple, streaked here and there with lines of pale white mist.  The river caught the glow of the crimson clouds above, and shone duskily red amid the dark green of the trees.  Deeper and deeper grew the color of the sun as it sank to the horizon, until it disappeared behind one low bar of purple cloud; and then the wild glow in the west slowly faded away; the river became pallid and indistinct; the white mists over the distant woods seemed to grow denser; and then, as here and there a lamp was lit far down in the valley, one or two pale stars appeared in the sky overhead, and the night came on apace.

“It is so strange,” Sheila said, “to find the darkness coming on, and not to hear the sound of the waves.  I wonder if it is a fine night at Borva.”

Her husband went over to her and led her back to the table, where the candles, shining over the white cloth and the colored glasses, offered a more cheerful picture than the darkening landscape outside.  They were in a private room; so that when dinner was over, Sheila was allowed to amuse herself with the fruit, while her two companions lit their cigars.  Where was the quaint old piano now; and the glass of hot whisky and water; and the ‘Lament of Monaltrie,’ or ’Love in thine eyes forever plays’?  It seemed, but for the greatness of the room, to be a repetition of one of those evenings at Borva that now belonged to a far-off past.  Here was Sheila, not minding the smoke, listening to Ingram as of old, and sometimes saying something in that sweetly inflected speech of hers; here was Ingram, talking, as it were, out of a brown study, and morosely objecting to pretty nearly everything Lavender said, but always ready to prove Sheila right; and Lavender himself, as unlike a married man as ever, talking impatiently, impetuously, and wildly, except at such times as he said something to his young wife, and then some brief smile and look,