d woman?"

Mairi glanced in a nervous and timid manner toward the bed. She was
evidently afraid of the little shriveled 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 him 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.

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
a