“Anywhere—it does not matter. But I cannot remain here. I should meet with—with many people I used to know. Mrs. Lavender, she is kind enough to say she will get me some place for Mairi and me; that is all, as yet, that is settled.”
“Is Mairi with you?”
“Yes: I will go and bring her to you. It is not any one in London she will want to see as much as you.”
Sheila left the room, and by and by came back, leading the young Highland girl by the hand. Mairi was greatly embarrassed, scarcely knowing whether she should show any gladness at meeting this old friend amid so much trouble. But when Ingram shook hands with her, and after she had blushed and looked shy and said, “And are you ferry well, sir?” she managed somehow to lift her eyes to his face; and then she said suddenly: “And it is a good day, this day, for Miss Sheila, that you will come to see her, Mr. Ingram, for she will hef a friend now.”
“You silly girl,” said Mrs. Lavender, sharply, “why will you say ‘Miss Sheila?’ Don’t you know she is a married woman?”
Mairi glanced in a nervous and timid manner toward the bed. She was evidently afraid of the little shrivelled old woman with the staring black eyes and the harsh voice.
“Mairi hasn’t forgotten her old habits, that is all,” said Ingram, patting her good-naturedly on the head.
And then he sat down again, and it seemed so strange to see these two together again, and to hear the odd inflection of Mairi’s voice, that he almost forgot that he had made a great discovery in learning of Sheila’s whereabouts, and wholly forgot that he had just been offered, and had just refused, a fortune.
CHAPTER XXI.
MEETING AND PARTING.
THE appearance of Sheila in Mrs. Lavender’s house certainly surprised Ingram, but the motives which led her to go thither were simple enough. On the morning on which she had left her husband’s house, she and Mairi had been driven up to Euston Square Station before she seemed capable of coming to any decision. Mairi guessed at what had happened with a great fear at her heart, and did not dare to speak of it. She sat, mute and frightened, in a corner of the cab, and only glanced from time to time at her companion’s pale face and troubled and distant eyes.