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 deepening 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 for ever 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 or some pat on the hand said more than words.  But where, Sheila may have thought, was the one wanting to complete the group?  Has he gone down to Borvabost to see about the cargoes of fish to be sent off in the morning?  Perhaps he is talking to Duncan outside about the cleaning of the guns or making up cartridges in the kitchen.  When Sheila’s attention wandered away from the talk of her companions she could not help listening for the sound of the waves; and as there was no such message coming to her from the great wooded plain without, her fancy took her away across that mighty country she had traveled through, and carried her up to the island of Loch Roag, until she almost fancied she could smell the peat-smoke in the night-air, and listen to the sea, and hear her father pacing up and down the gravel outside the house, perhaps thinking of her as she was thinking of him.