He was sitting beside her; he feared no longer to meet the look of those earnest, meek, affectionate eyes.
“This is it,” she said. “If we are to be together—not what we were, but something quite different from that—will you promise me never to say one word about what is past—to shut it out altogether—to forget it!”
“I cannot, Sheila,” he said. “Am I to have no chance of telling you how well I know how cruel I was to you—how sorry I am for it?”
“No,” she said, firmly. “If you have some things to regret, so have I; and what is the use of competing with each other as to which has the most forgiveness to ask for? Frank, dear, you will do this for me? You will promise never to speak one word about that time?”
How earnest the beautiful, sad face was! He could not withstand the entreaty of the piteous eyes. He said to her, abashed by the great love that she showed, and hopeless of making other reparation than obedience to her generous wish, “Let it be so, Sheila. I will never speak a word about it. You will see otherwise than in words whether I forget what is passed, and your goodness in letting it go. But, Sheila,” he added, with downcast face, “Johnny Eyre was here last night. He told me—” He had to say no more. She took his hand and led him gently and silently out of the room.
Meanwhile the old King of Borva had been spending a somewhat anxious time down in the cabin of the Phœbe. Many and many a day had he been planning a method by which he might secure a meeting between Sheila and her husband, and now it had all come about without his aid, and in a manner which rendered him unable to take any precautions. He did not know but that some awkward accident might destroy all the chances of the affair. He knew that Lavender was on the island. He had frankly asked young Mosenberg as soon as Sheila had left the yacht.
“Oh, yes,” the lad said, “he went away into the island early this morning. I begged of him to go to your house; he did not answer. But I am sure he will, I know he will.”
“My Kott!” Mackenzie said, “and he has been wandering about the island all the morning, and he will be very faint and hungry, and a man is neffer in a good temper then for making up a quarrel. If I had known the last night, I could hef had dinner with you all here, and we should hef given him a good glass of whisky, and then it wass a good time to tek him up to the house.”
“Oh, you may depend on it, Mr. Mackenzie,” Johnny Eyre said, “that Lavender needs no stimulus of that sort to make him desire a reconciliation. No, I should think not. He has done nothing but brood over this affair since ever he left London; and I should not be surprised if you scarcely knew him, he is so altered. You would fancy he had lived ten years in the time.”
“Ay, ay,” Mackenzie said, not listening very attentively, and evidently thinking more of what might be happening elsewhere; “but I was thinking, gentlemen, it wass time for us to go ashore and go up to the house, and hef something to eat.”