rankle afterward in the memory.  Besides, he would go into court with a defective case.  He could say nothing unless Ingram admitted that he had tried to poison the mind of Mrs. Lorraine against him; and of course if there was a quarrel, who would be so foolish as to make such an admission?  Ingram would laugh at him, would refuse to admit or deny, would increase his anger without affording him an opportunity of revenging himself.

Sheila could see that her husband was troubled, but could not divine the cause, and had long ago given up any habit of inquiry.  He ate his dinner almost in silence, and then said he had to make a call on a friend, and that he would perhaps drop in to the club on his way home, so that she was not to sit up for him.  She was not surprised or hurt at the announcement.  She was accustomed to spend her evenings alone.  She fetched down his cigar-case, put it in his top-coat pocket and brought him the coat.  Then he kissed her and went out.

But this evening, at least, she had; abundant occupation, and that of a sufficiently pleasant kind.  For some little time she had been harboring in her mind a dark and mysterious plot, and she was glad of an opportunity to think it out and arrange its details.  Mairi was coming to London, and she had carefully concealed the fact from her husband.  A little surprise of a dramatic sort was to be prepared for him—­with what result, who could tell?  All of a sudden Lavender was to be precipitated into the island of Lewis as nearly as that could be imitated in a house at Notting Hill.

This was Sheila’s scheme, and on these lonely evenings she could sit by herself with much satisfaction and ponder over the little points of it and its possible success.  Mairi was coming to London under the escort of a worthy Glasgow fishmonger whom Mr. Mackenzie knew.  She would arrive after Lavender had left for his studio.  Then she and Sheila would set to work to transform the smoking-room, that was sometimes called a library, into something resembling the quaint little drawing-room in Sheila’s home.  Mairi was bringing up a quantity of heather gathered fresh from the rocks beside the White Water; she was bringing up some peacocks’ feathers, too, for the mantelpiece, and two or three big shells; and, best of all, she was to put in her trunk a real and veritable lump of peat, well dried and easy to light.  Then you must know that Sheila had already sketched out the meal that was to be placed on the table so soon as the room had been done up in Highland fashion and this peat lit so as to send its fragrant smoke abroad.  A large salmon was to make its appearance first of all.  There would be bottles of beer on the table; also one of those odd bottles of Norwegian make, filled with whisky.  And when Lavender went with wonder into this small room, when he smelt the fragrant peat-smoke—­and every one knows how powerful the sense of smell is in recalling bygone associations—­when he