But her plans were suddenly broken asunder.
"I met Mrs. Lorraine accidentally to-day," he said.
It was his first mention of the young American lady. Sheila sat in mute expectation.
"She always asks very kindly after you."
"She is very kind."
He did not say, however, that Mrs. Lorraine had more than once made distinct propositions, when in his company, that they should call in for Sheila and take her out for a drive or to a flower-show, or some such place, while Lavender had always some excuse ready.
"She is going to Brighton to-morrow, and she was wondering whether you would care to run down for a day or two."
"With her?" said Sheila, recoiling from such a proposal instinctively.
"Of course not. I should go. And then at last, you know, you would see the sea, about which you have been dreaming for ever so long."
The sea! There was a magic in the very word that could, almost at any moment, summon tears into her eyes. Of course she accepted right gladly. If her husband's duties were so pressing that the long-talked-of journey to Lewis and Borva had to be repeatedly and indefinitely postponed, here at least would be a chance of looking again at the sea—of drinking in the freshness and light and color of it—of renewing her old and intimate friendship with it that had been broken off for so long by her stay in this city of perpetual houses and still sunshine.