Suddenly Lavender heard a shrill scream, almost like the cry that a hare gives when it finds the dog’s fangs in its neck, and at the same moment, amid all the darkness of the night, a still blacker object seemed to start out of the gloom right ahead of them.  The boy had no time to shout any warning beyond that cry of despair, for with a wild crash the boat struck on the rocks, rose and struck again, and was then dashed over by a heavy sea, both of its occupants being thrown into the fierce swirls of foam that were dashing in and through the rocky channels.  Strangely enough, they were thrown together; and Lavender, clinging to the sea-weed, instinctively laid hold of his companion just as the latter appeared to be slipping into the gulf beneath.

“Johnny,” he cried, “hold on!—­hold on to me—­or we shall both go in a minute.”

But the lad had no life left in him, and lay like a log there, while each wave that struck and rolled hissing and gurgling through the channels between the rocks seemed to drag at him and seek to suck him down into the darkness.  With one despairing effort, Lavender struggled to get him farther up on the slippery sea-weed, and succeeded.  But his success had lost him his own vantage-ground, and he knew that he was going down into the swirling waters beneath, close by the broken boat that was still being dashed about by the waves.

CHAPTER XXIV.

“HAME FAIN WOULD I BE.”

Unexpected circumstances had detained Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter in London long after everybody else had left, but at length they were ready to start for their projected trip into Switzerland.  On the day before their departure Ingram dined with them—­on his own invitation.  He had got into a habit of letting them know when it would suit him to devote an evening to their instruction; and it was difficult indeed to say which of the two ladies submitted the more readily and meekly to the dictatorial enunciation of his opinions.  Mrs. Kavanagh, it is true, sometimes dissented in so far as a smile indicated dissent, but her daughter scarcely reserved to herself so much liberty.  Mr. Ingram had taken her in hand, and expected of her the obedience and respect due to his superior age.

And yet, somehow or other, he occasionally found himself indirectly soliciting the advice of this gentle, clear-eyed and clear-headed young person, more especially as regarded the difficulties surrounding Sheila; and sometimes a chance remark of hers, uttered in a timid or careless or even mocking fashion, would astonish him by the rapid light it threw on these dark troubles.  On this evening—­the last evening they were spending in London—­it was his own affairs which he proposed to mention to Mrs. Lorraine, and he had no more hesitation in doing so than if she had been his oldest friend.  He wanted to ask her what he should do about the money that Mrs. Lavender had left him; and he intended to be a good deal more frank with Mrs. Lorraine than with any of the others to whom he had spoken about the matter.  For he was well aware that Mrs. Lavender had at first resolved that he should have at least a considerable portion of her wealth, or why should she have asked him how he would like to be a rich man?