the longing for sympathy which that love involved.  And then she came to the question of Mrs. Lorraine; and here it seemed to Ingram she was trying at once to put her husband’s conduct in the most favorable light, and to blame herself for her unreasonableness.  Mrs. Lorraine was a pleasant companion to him, she could talk cleverly and brightly, she was pretty, and she knew a large number of his friends.  Sheila was anxious to show that it was the most natural thing in the world that her husband, finding her so out of communion with his ordinary surroundings, should make an especial friend of this graceful and fascinating woman.  And if at times it hurt her to be left alone—­But here the girl broke down somewhat, and Ingram pretended not to know that she was crying.

These were strange things to be told to a man, and they were difficult to answer.  But out of these revelations—­which rather took the form of a cry than of any distinct statement—­he formed a notion of Sheila’s position sufficiently exact; and the more he looked at it the more alarmed and pained he grew, for he knew more of her than her husband did.  He knew the latent force of character that underlay all her submissive gentleness.  He knew the keen sense of pride her Highland birth had given her; and he feared what might happen if this sensitive and proud heart of hers were driven into rebellion by some—­possibly unintentional—­wrong.  And this high-spirited, fearless, honor-loving girl—­who was gentle and obedient, not through any timidity or limpness of character, but because she considered it her duty to be gentle and obedient—­was to be cast aside and have her tenderest feelings outraged and wounded for the sake of an unscrupulous, shallow-brained woman of fashion, who was not fit to be Sheila’s waiting-maid.  Ingram had never seen Mrs. Lorraine, but he had formed his own opinion of her.  The opinion, based upon nothing, was wholly wrong, but it served to increase, if that were possible, his sympathy with Sheila, and his resolve to interfere on her behalf at whatever cost.

“Sheila,” he said, gravely putting his hand on her shoulder as if she were still the little girl who used to run wild with him about the Borva rocks, “you are a good woman.”

He added to himself that Lavender knew little of the value of the wife he had got, but he dared not say that to Sheila, who would suffer no imputation against her husband to be uttered in her presence, however true it might be, or however much she had cause to know it to be true.

“And, after all,” he said in a lighter voice, “I think I can do something to mend all this.  I will say for Frank Lavender that he is a thoroughly good fellow at heart, and that when you appeal to him, and put things fairly before him, and show him what he ought to do, there is not a more honorable and straightforward man in the world.  He has been forgetful, Sheila.  He has been led away by these people, you know, and has not been aware of what you were suffering.  When I put the matter before him, you will see it will be all right; and I hope to persuade him to give up this constant idling and take to his work, and have something to live for.  I wish you and I together could get him to go away from London altogether—­get him to take to serious landscape painting on some wild coast—­the Galway coast, for example.”