They were driven in to the station. Sheila got out, still seeming to know nothing of what was around her. The cabman took down Mairi’s trunk and handed it to a porter.
“Where for, miss?” said the man. And she started.
“Where will you be going, Miss Sheila?” said Mairi, timidly.
“It is no matter just now,” said Sheila to the porter, “if you will be so kind as to take charge of the trunk. And how much must I pay the cabman from Notting Hill?”
She gave him the money and walked into the great stone-paved hall, with its lofty roof and sounding echoes.
“Mairi,” she said, “I have gone away from my own home, and I have no home for you or myself either. What are we to do?”
“Are you quite sure, Miss Sheila,” said the girl, dismayed beyond expression, “that you will not go back to your own house? It wass a bad day this day that I wass come to London to find you going away from your own house;” and Mairi began to cry. “Will we go back to the Lewis, Miss Sheila?” she said. “It is many a one there will be proud and pleased to see you again in sa Lewis, and there will be plenty of homes for you there—oh yes, ferry many that will be glad to see you! And it wass a bad day sa day you left the Lewis whatever; and if you will go back again, Miss Sheila, you will neffer hef to go away again, not any more.”
Sheila looked at the girl—at the pretty pale face, the troubled light-blue eyes and the abundant fair-yellow hair. It was Mairi, sure enough, who was talking to her, and yet it was in a strange place. There was no sea dashing outside, no tide running in from the Atlantic. And where was old Scarlett, with her complaints and her petulance and her motherly kindness?
“It is a pity you have come to London, Mairi,” Sheila said, wistfully; “for I have no house to take you into, and we must go now and find one.”
“You will not go back to sa Lewis, Miss Sheila?”